1738
1738 (MDCCXXXVIII) was a common year in the Gregorian calendar, notable for religious awakenings, scientific transitions, and political executions in Europe. [1] On February 4, Joseph Süss Oppenheimer, a Jewish court financier to the Duke of Württemberg, was executed by hanging in a cage after conviction for treason, embezzlement, and other charges amid anti-Semitic sentiments following the duke's death. [2][3] His trial and public strangulation highlighted tensions between Jewish financiers and German nobility, with his body displayed for six years as a deterrent. [3] In religious developments, John Wesley experienced a profound conversion on May 24 at a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, feeling his "heart strangely warmed," an event that catalyzed the Methodist movement and evangelical revivalism within Anglicanism. [4][5] Scientifically, the year saw the death of Hermann Boerhaave on September 23 in Leiden, a Dutch physician whose empirical approach to medicine, emphasizing clinical observation and chemistry, influenced European medical education for decades. [6] Boerhaave's works, such as Aphorismi de cognoscendis et curandis morbis, promoted systematic diagnosis based on symptoms and pathology. [6] The birth of Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel (later William) on November 15 in Hanover presaged astronomical advancements; he would later discover Uranus and pioneer stellar astronomy with large telescopes. [7] Additionally, Pope Clement XII issued In eminenti apostolatus specula on April 28, the first papal condemnation of Freemasonry, prohibiting Catholics from joining under pain of excommunication due to its secretive oaths and perceived threats to Church authority. [8] These events underscored 1738's role in shaping religious schisms, medical rigor, and institutional conflicts amid Enlightenment stirrings.Events
January–March
On January 1, 1738, the Dutch West India Company slave ship Leusden capsized at the mouth of the Maroni River in Suriname during a storm, resulting in the drowning of at least 664 enslaved Africans out of 680 aboard, the highest death toll from a single incident in the Atlantic slave trade.[9][10] The vessel, overloaded with captives after a voyage from West Africa, struck a sandbar; the crew escaped after sealing the hatches to prevent slave access to the deck, exposing the perils of profit-driven overloading and inadequate safety protocols in colonial shipping operations.[10] This disaster underscored systemic vulnerabilities in the triangular trade, where vessels prioritized cargo volume over seaworthiness amid competitive pressures from European mercantile empires.[9] Tensions between Britain and Spain escalated in early 1738 over Spanish enforcement of trade restrictions in the Caribbean, rooted in mercantilist rivalries and disputes like the Asiento contract granting Spain oversight of British slave trading rights.[11] British merchant shipping faced repeated seizures and abuses by Spanish guarda costas, accumulating grievances that strained diplomatic efforts under Prime Minister Robert Walpole.[12] In March, Captain Robert Jenkins testified before a House of Commons committee, displaying a preserved ear he claimed Spanish officers severed from him during a 1731 boarding, symbolizing broader patterns of interference despite the incident's age.[12] This hearing amplified public and parliamentary outrage, prompting naval reinforcements and contributing causally to Britain's war preparations, though formal declaration followed in 1739.[11] Economic stakes, including access to lucrative American markets, drove these escalations beyond isolated provocations.[12]April–June
On May 9, Britain dispatched a naval squadron to the Mediterranean Sea and another to the West Indies, signaling a proactive demonstration of maritime strength in response to escalating disputes with Spain over trade rights and territorial claims in the Americas, while also bolstering support for Austrian Habsburg interests amid the unresolved aftermath of the War of the Polish Succession.[13] This move preceded the formal outbreak of the War of Jenkins' Ear by over a year but reflected Britain's strategic intent to deter Spanish aggression and protect commercial routes, as Anglo-Spanish frictions intensified following incidents like the alleged mutilation of British captain Robert Jenkins' ear in 1731.[13] On May 24, Anglican priest John Wesley experienced a profound spiritual conversion during a Moravian society meeting on Aldersgate Street in London, where, as he later recorded in his journal, his "heart was strangely warmed" while hearing a reading of Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, instilling an assurance of salvation through personal faith rather than ritual observance.[14] This event marked a pivotal shift for Wesley, who had returned from missionary work in Georgia disillusioned with his own spiritual state; it ignited the Methodist movement as a reformist reaction against perceived Anglican complacency, prioritizing experiential piety, scriptural authority, and evangelical outreach over established ecclesiastical forms.[14] The Aldersgate awakening spurred Wesley's itinerant preaching and organization of field societies, fostering a revival that emphasized individual regeneration and moral discipline amid 18th-century religious ennui.[15] On May 25, Pennsylvania and Maryland concluded a treaty resolving the Conojocular War (also known as Cresap's War), a protracted border skirmish originating from conflicting colonial charters that had erupted into violence since 1730, involving land grabs, prisoner captures, and militia clashes along the Susquehanna River.[16] The agreement mandated prisoner exchanges, temporary ceasefires, and provisional boundary demarcations pending astronomical surveys, effectively halting hostilities through pragmatic negotiation rather than armed resolution and highlighting the challenges of decentralized colonial governance in reconciling proprietary claims with frontier realities.[17] This settlement prefigured later surveys like the Mason-Dixon Line, underscoring the need for empirical adjudication in inter-colonial disputes to prevent escalation into broader civil unrest.[17]July–September
On August 2, France proposed mediation to Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in the Austro-Russian–Turkish War against the Ottoman Empire, amid Austria's military campaigns that began in 1737 to support Russian advances but encountered logistical challenges and Ottoman resilience.[8] This diplomatic overture occurred as the War of the Polish Succession neared resolution through the impending Treaty of Vienna, signaling France's interest in stabilizing Habsburg-Ottoman frontiers to redirect attention toward Anglo-Spanish maritime disputes over colonial trade, which had intensified with Spanish seizures of British vessels.[8] The death of Herman Boerhaave on September 23 deprived European medicine of a key figure who advanced clinical practice through systematic bedside instruction at Leiden University, where he integrated patient observation with chemical and anatomical analysis starting from the early 1700s.[18] Boerhaave's textbooks, including the 1708 Institutiones medicae, disseminated a structured curriculum prioritizing verifiable symptoms and physiological mechanisms over ancient humoral doctrines, training over 1,800 students who carried these methods to medical faculties in Britain, France, and beyond.[19] His emphasis on empirical experimentation—such as isolating chemical compounds like urea—fostered a causal framework linking observable bodily functions to disease processes, accelerating the shift from speculative iatrochemistry toward iatromechanism by the mid-18th century.[20] Boerhaave's passing at age 69 from complications of a longstanding thigh ulcer underscored the era's limitations in treating chronic conditions despite his innovations.[20]October–December
In October 1738, Anglican cleric George Whitefield, recently converted during the Methodist revival in England, arrived in the Georgia colony after an initial transatlantic voyage that began earlier that year. His presence established early transatlantic evangelical connections, emphasizing open-air preaching to reach unchurched settlers and slaves, which contrasted with the formal Anglican structures and stirred religious fervor amid colonial spiritual stagnation. Whitefield's brief stay, lasting approximately three months, laid groundwork for future itinerant ministries that prioritized personal conversion over established parish routines.[21][22] The Russo-Turkish War saw no decisive battles in late 1738, but Russian forces encountered severe logistical setbacks from plague outbreaks, compelling withdrawals from key positions like Ochakov and Kinburn on the Black Sea coast. These events underscored the challenges of steppe campaigns, where vast distances, nomadic Tatar raids, and disease strained supply lines, limiting Russian advances against Ottoman defenses despite earlier penetrations into Crimean territories during 1736–1738. Ottoman resilience, bolstered by alliances with Crimean Khanate irregulars, highlighted the empire's adaptive fortifications and the overextension risks for expeditionary Russian armies reliant on riverine logistics.[23][24] British preparations for potential conflict with Spain intensified in the final quarter of 1738, driven by escalating tensions over trade restrictions and guarda costas depredations in the Caribbean. The Walpole ministry, facing parliamentary opposition, authorized recruitment drives and ship fittings, including reinforcements to Jamaica squadrons with provisions for an anticipated fleet of over 20 vessels by early 1739, as causal precursors to the formal declaration of war. These measures reflected mercantilist imperatives to secure smuggling routes and counter Spanish assertions of asiento rights, with empirical records showing increased Admiralty expenditures on munitions and colonial garrisons amid public agitation from Jenkins' testimony earlier that year.[11][25]Date unknown
In 1738, King Charles VII of Naples, of the Bourbon dynasty, initiated systematic excavations at Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.[26] These efforts marked a shift from sporadic earlier finds to organized archaeological recovery, employing mining techniques under the supervision of military engineers like Roque Joaquin Alcubierre, yielding bronze statues, marble sculptures, intricate mosaics, and carbonized wooden furnishings preserved by volcanic ash.[27] The discoveries furnished direct physical evidence of Roman domestic architecture, engineering, and daily life, including villas with atria, peristyles, and hydraulic systems, which demonstrated the scale and functionality of ancient urban planning beyond textual descriptions.[26] The Herculaneum artifacts challenged romanticized Renaissance reconstructions of classical antiquity, which often relied on incomplete copies and literary idealizations, by providing unaltered originals that revealed practical innovations like underfloor heating (hypocausts) and advanced fresco techniques using pigments derived from minerals and organics.[28] This empirical data influenced 18th-century neoclassical architecture, as architects such as Robert Adam incorporated verified motifs—such as realistic human proportions in sculptures and symmetrical layouts—from the site into designs for public buildings and estates, prioritizing causal fidelity to ancient engineering over ornamental fantasy.[26] Continued irregular digging through the 1740s uncovered over 800 papyri from a private library, offering unmediated access to Epicurean and Stoic texts, though their decipherment lagged until later chemical methods. By the mid-1740s, Herculaneum's outputs paralleled preliminary insights from adjacent Pompeii digs starting in 1748, reinforcing a data-driven revival of classical forms that emphasized structural durability and spatial efficiency evident in the excavated thermae and theaters.[29] These findings, disseminated via engravings and Bourbon court publications, catalyzed empirical historiography, underscoring how volcanic preservation enabled causal analysis of societal collapse under natural disaster, distinct from interpretive biases in prior antiquarianism.[30]Births
Notable births
- January 21 – Ethan Allen (1738–1789), American frontier settler and military leader who organized the Green Mountain Boys to resist New York land claims in the New Hampshire Grants and commanded the 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga from British forces during the Revolutionary War, contributing to early colonial resistance efforts.[31][32]
- June 4 – George III (1738–1820), King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760 whose policies, including the Stamp Act and efforts to assert parliamentary authority over the American colonies, precipitated the Revolutionary War, though his later years involved personal oversight of government amid porphyria-induced instability.[33][34]