1765
Watt Improves the Steam Engine
Walking across Glasgow Green, the university instrument-maker James Watt realized he could add a separate condenser to Newcomen's engine and triple its efficiency. The insight took years to build into a machine. When it finally ran, it would pump mines, turn looms, and pull trains. The nineteenth century had its heartbeat.
Company Receives Diwani of Bengal
The Mughal emperor - a prisoner in all but name - granted the East India Company the right to collect revenue from Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. A trading corporation suddenly ruled twenty million people and their harvests. London shareholders received dividends; Bengali peasants got a new landlord in Calcutta. The arrangement produced enormous wealth for the Company and devastating famine for Bengal within five years.
Stamp Act Passes
Every newspaper, playing card, pamphlet, and legal document in the American colonies would now carry a paper stamp - a direct tax, payable in scarce sterling. Colonial lawyers exploded; the Stamp Act Congress met in New York; mobs hung tax collectors in effigy. The imperial crisis had begun. Sons of Liberty organized in every port, and royal stamp agents resigned their commissions rather than face the crowd.
Ali Bey al-Kabir Seizes Egypt
A Mamluk bey of Georgian origin, Ali Bey al-Kabir made himself effective ruler of Egypt within the Ottoman framework. He expelled rival beys, invaded the Hejaz, and briefly claimed independence from Constantinople. His ambitions outran his means; he was betrayed and killed by his own lieutenant, but he had shown that Ottoman Egypt was slipping.
Joseph II Becomes Holy Roman Emperor
After his father's death, Joseph joined his mother Maria Theresa as co-ruler. Where she was pious and cautious, he was impatient and radical - a reader of Voltaire who dreamed of reforming the Habsburg lands from the top down. Mother and son would spend twenty years quarreling about how fast.