1743
Thomas Jefferson Born
On a frontier tobacco plantation at Shadwell, in the Virginia Piedmont, the third child of Peter Jefferson was born. He would grow up reading Greek, studying law, designing buildings, owning hundreds of slaves, inheriting a mountain, and eventually writing, at thirty-three, the sentence about truths held to be self-evident. His Monticello would become both a temple of Enlightenment reason and a working plantation sustained by bondage.
Nadir Shah's Empire Fragments
After Nadir Shah's armies exhausted themselves on Indian plunder and Caucasian campaigns, his increasingly erratic cruelty turned his own officers against him. Assassination was coming. The vast but shallow empire he had carved from Persia to Delhi - held together by terror and a single personality - was already cracking at the seams.
Battle of Dettingen
On a marshy plain by the Main, George II led his Pragmatic Army against a French force and won. He was the last British monarch to fight at the head of his troops. Handel, back in London, composed a Te Deum for the victory. The king's horse had bolted with him at one point, but no matter.
American Philosophical Society Founded
Benjamin Franklin, reviving an earlier scheme, invited virtuosi and ingenious men across the colonies to correspond about science, agriculture, medicine, and all philosophical experiments that let light into the nature of things. The society still exists. America had founded its first scientific institution on the model of the Royal Society.
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Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1743?
Saeculum lists 4 curated events from 1743. The most significant is Thomas Jefferson Born: On a frontier tobacco plantation at Shadwell, in the Virginia Piedmont, the third child of Peter Jefferson was born.
What era was 1743 part of?
1743 falls within the Enlightenment (1651-1800). Reason, revolution, and the first global wars.
Which regions saw notable events in 1743?
The curated events from 1743 span North America, Middle East and Europe.