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March 1700: Following their arrival in Caledonia in November 1699, the second Darien expedition faces skirmishes with the Spanish and is eventually forced to abandon their efforts in the face of these superior forces. The Darien venture costs Scotland many hundreds of lives and a quarter of its total available resources. It coincides with a series of failed harvests in Scotland that leaves up to a quarter of the population dying of starvation.
12 April 1700: Scottish colonists finally abandon the failed settlement at Darien in Panama.
16 November 1700: The execution by hanging in Banff of the outlaw James (or Jamie) Macpherson.
23 May 1701: Captain William Kidd is hung at Wapping for murder and piracy.
Summer 1701: The English Parliament passes the Act of Settlement. The heir to the crowns of England and Ireland, after William and Mary's surviving heir Anne, is to be the Protestant grand-daughter of King James I/VI, Sophie, the Electress of Hanover. The succession will then pass in turn her 40 year old son, Prince George of Hanover. The Scottish Parliament is not consulted.
16 September 1701: James VII/II dies in France. His claim to the throne and the Jacobite cause pass to his 13 year old son, James Francis Edward Stewart. He is recognised by the French King as King James VIII/III of Great Britain, in effect declaring war on King William.
8 March 1702: King William III/II dies after a fall from his horse. He is succeeded by his sister in law, Queen Anne, who becomes the last Stuart monarch.
April 1703: The Edinburgh Fire Brigade is formed.
1703: The Scottish Parliament passes the Act of Security, under which Scotland will not in future be bound to accept the same monarch as England unless Scotland is accorded completely free trade with England and the colonies. Royal Assent is refused by the Queen's Commissioner.
21 April 1703: A "Company for the Quenching of Fire" is formed in Edinburgh, the ancestor of the modern fire service.
5 August 1704: The Scottish Parliament refuses to raise taxes and threatens to withdraw troops from Marlborough's army in France unless the crown accepts the Act of Security and it is given Royal Assent. It is.
5 February 1705: The English Parliament pass the Alien Act designed to secure English interests from what they see as the subversion of the Scottish Parliament. In effect, the Scots are invited to negotiate a full union with England, on pain of seizure of Scottish assets and the ending of Scottish exports to England if they do not.
Spring 1705: Three crew of the English ship Worcester are hanged in Edinburgh on suspicion of piracy against a Scottish Darien Company ship.
Spring 1706: The Anglo-Scottish Parliamentary Commission meets to agree a draft Treaty of Union.
3 October 1706: The Scottish Parliament begins its debate on the Treaty of Union between Scotland and England.
8 January 1707: Sir John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair, and the man who as Secretary of State for Scotland was behind the 1692 Glencoe Massacre, dies.
16 January 1707: The Scottish Parliament agrees the Treaty of Union by 110 votes to 67. The debate preceding it is carried out against a backdrop of growing anti-union unrest across Scotland. The outcome is driven by economic necessity, by overt compensation for Scotland's national debts and the losses of Darien investors, and, allegedly, by covert bribes for key participants.
19 March 1707: The English Parliament ratifies the Treaty of Union.
25 March 1707: The Scottish Parliament adjourns, and is dissolved three days later. It will not reconvene for 292 years, until 12 May 1999.
1 May 1707: The Treaty of Union comes into effect. Queen Anne becomes the first sovereign of the Kingdom of Great Britain.
5 September 1707: The birth near Dunfermline of Brigadier General John Forbes, the a British Army officer best known for his role in the French and Indian War, the North American end of the Seven Years' War.
23 October 1707: The first Parliament of Great Britain meets in London.
6 March 1708: Prince James Stewart, "The Pretender", sails from Dunkirk for Scotland with with a French fleet and 5,000 troops. His aim is to raise and lead a Jacobite uprising against Queen Anne.
23 March 1708: A French fleet carrying James Francis Edward Stuart, "The Pretender", arrives in the Firth of Forth and seeks to land an invasion force of 5,000 men in Fife. They are prevented from doing so by a squadron of English warships under Admiral Byng, and head back towards Dunkirk without landing.
2 February 1709: Alexander Selkirk, famous for spending four years as a castaway on the uninhabited Juan Fernández Islands, is rescued.
1710: Sir William Bruce, the leading Scottish architect of his generation, dies.
15 April 1710: The birth in Hamilton of William Cullen, a well known doctor who went on to become an influential academic.
26 April 1710: The birth near Banchory of Thomas Reid, a philosopher who played an important part in the Scottish Enlightenment.
25 April 1710: The birth near Huntly of James Ferguson, the self-taught instrument maker and astronomer.
26 April 1711: The birth in Edinburgh of David Hume, often regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English.
13 October 1713: The birth in Edinburgh of the renowned portrait painter, Allan Ramsay the Younger.
1 August 1714: Queen Anne dies and is succeeded by George, Elector of Hanover, under the terms of the 1701 Act of Settlement. George Icannot speak English and is not popular in England.
25 October 1714: The birth of James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, a lawyer, judge, and patron of the arts, who is primarily remembered as a pioneer of the science of comparative historical linguistics.
6 September 1715: John Erskine, the 23rd Earl of Mar raises a standard for "King James VIII" at Braemar that attracts widespread support in north-east Scotland.
14 September 1715: The Jacobite forces commanded by John Erskine, 23rd Earl of Mar, take Perth.
13 November 1715: At the Battle of Sheriffmuir near Dunblane the Jacobite army under the Earl of Mar is prevented from taking southern Scotland by a much smaller government force.
13 November 1715: A Jacobite uprising in northern England is cornered and defeated in Preston.
22 December 1715: Prince James, the Pretender, lands at Peterhead before moving through Aberdeen and Dundee to the Earl of Mar's Headquarters at Perth.
9 January 1716: James Francis Edward Stuart arrives in Perth to find that the 1715 Jacobite uprising is effectively already over.
31 January 1716: The Jacobites abandon Perth in the face of reinforced government forces.
4 February 1716: Prince James and the Earl of Mar board a ship at Montrose and leave Scotland for the continent. The Jacobite army simply disbands and dissolves. "The 1715" is over.
23 February 1716: Lady Winifred Maxwell, Countess of Nithsdale, effects the escape of her husband William from the Tower of London, where he is condemned to be executed for treason as a Jacobite the following day, by dressing him in women's clothes.
13 April 1719: A small Spanish force, believing itself to be part of a much larger invasion planned for England to return the Jacobites to power, lands in Loch Duich, east of the site of modern Kyle of Lochalsh.
10 May 1719: Royal Navy ships bombard Spanish troops holding Eilean Donan Castle and subsequently destroy the castle.
10 June 1719: Spanish troops, supported by 1,000 Jacobites clansmen, are defeated at the Battle of Glen Shiel which takes place on the steep mountainsides flanking the glen. The Spanish surrender but their part in the battle is remembered by the name of the overlooking mountain, Sgurr nan Spainnteach, or "Peak of the Spaniards".
1 September 1719: The marriage takes place James Francis Edward Stuart, "The Old Pretender", and the Polish Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska at Montefiascone in Italy.
1719: The death of travel writer Martin Martin, or in his native Gaelic, Màrtainn MacGilleMhàrtainn.
1720: The Earl of Islay is appointed Secretary of Scotland.
31 December 1720: Prince James, now living in what later becomes Italy, has a son, Charles Edward Stuart, or "Bonnie Prince Charlie".
19 March 1721: The birth at Dalquhurn, north of Dumbarton, of the author Tobias Smollett.
13 December 1721: The death off the coast of West Africa of Alexander Selkirk, the Scot whose expereinces inspired Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe".
1723: The Society of Improvers in the Knowledge of Agriculture in Scotland is formed to help improve farming methods. Its main aim is to find ways to make the Highlands more economically productive and it is instrumental in the clearances that begin later in the century.
5 February 1723: The birth in Gifford of John Witherspoon, who goes on to become a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence.
3 April 1723: The death in Edinburgh of George Watson, the chief accountant of the Bank of Scotland who left funds to establish what is now George Watson's College.
5 June 1723: The birth in Kirkcaldy of the hugely influential political economist and moral philosopher, Adam Smith.
20 June 1723: The birth at Logierait in Perthshire of the moral philosopher and historian Adam Ferguson, sometimes known as "Ferguson of Raith".
2 September 1724: The (unsuccessful) execution takes place in Edinburgh of Maggie Dickson, for killing her newborn baby.
25 December 1724: General George Wade is appointed Chief of His Majesty's forces, castles, forts and barracks in North Britain,. He begins the construction of hundreds of miles of good "military" roads and stone bridges designed to allow government troops to counter future uprisings with greater ease.
23 June 1725: Serious rioting breaks out in Glasgow in protest at Westminster-imposed taxes on Scottish malt.
1725: The Disarming Act forbids Highlanders from carrying arms in public, a long standing custom.
1726: The Edinburgh University faculty of medicine is set up. It is followed in 1729 by the opening of the the Edinburgh Infirmary.
3 June 1726: The birth in Edinburgh of James Hutton, considered by many to be the father of modern geology.
22 March 1727: Niel Gow, the most famous Scottish fiddle player of the 1700s, is born in Strathbraan, to the west of Dunkeld.
11 June 1727: The death in Germany of King George I. He is succeeded by King George II.
16 April 1728: The birth in Bordeaux in France of Joseph Black, the eminent Scottish physicist and chemist, renowned teacher, and practicing medical doctor.
30 April 1728: The Royal Bank of Scotland agrees to the world's first overdraft when it allows the merchant William Hog to take £1,000 more from his account than he has in it (well over £60,000 in today's money).
3 July 1728: The birth in Kirkcaldy of Robert Adam, the best known of the Adam family of architects.
21 March 1729: The death in Venice of John Law, the economist sometimes described as the father of finance, who rose to control, then ruin, the economy of France.
1730: The first systematic emigration begins from highland areas to American colonies, largely in response to rent increases.
14 December 1730: The birth near Airth of James Bruce, who went on to explore large parts of North Africa and Ethiopia and reached the source of the Blue Nile.
1 July 1731: The birth near Dundee of Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan, the admiral in the Royal Navy who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown.
23 April 1733: Construction of the Tay Bridge at Aberfeldy begins when General Wade lays the first stone.
28 December 1734: Rob Roy MacGregor dies at his home in Balquhidder Glen.
19 January 1736: The birth in Greenock of the engineer and inventor James Watt, whose improvements to the steam engine are fundamental in bringing about the industrial revolution.
14 April 1736: Efforts to quell a riot by the Captain of the City Guard in Edinburgh, Captain John Porteous, lead to six deaths. Portous is later found guilty of murder.
7 September 1736: An Edinburgh crowd hear that Captain Porteous, Captain of the Edinburgh City Guard, has been pardoned following his conviction for murder. That night they break into his cell and publicly lynch him. None of those responsible is caught and the City of Edinburgh is fined £2,000 over the incident.
27 October 1736: The birth near Kingussie of James Macpherson, the poet best known as the translator (or more likely the author) of the Ossian cycle of poems.
8 November 1736: Scotland's first public theatre opens in Carruber's Close, Edinburgh.
20 November 1737: The death in London at the age of 54 of Queen Caroline, wife of King George II.
9 February 1739: Publication of the first edition of the Scots Magazine, originally established as a current affairs and news magazine.
Click for Timeline: 1740 to 1800
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