1694

Template:Use mdy dates Template:About year Template:Year nav

File:Batalla-ter.jpg

May 27: The French Army devastates Spanish troops at the Battle of Torroella after taking advantage of a fog.

Template:C17 year in topic Template:Year article header

Events

January–March

January 16 – Francesco Morosini, the Doge of Venice since 1688, dies after ruling the Republic for more than five years and a few months after an unsuccessful attempt to capture the island of Negropont from the Ottoman Empire during the Morean War.
January 18 – Sir James Montgomery of Scotland, who had been arrested on January 11 for conspiracy to restore King James to the throne, escapes and flees to France.
January 21 (January 11 O.S.) – The Kiev Academy, now the national university of Ukraine, receives official recognition by Tsar Ivan V of Russia.
January 28 – Pirro e Demetrio, an opera by Alessandro Scarlatti, is given its first performance, debuting at the Teatro San Bartolomeo in Naples. The opera is adapted in 1708 in London as Pyrrhus and Demetrius and becomes the second most popular opera in 18th century London.
January 29 – French missionary Jean-Baptiste Labat arrives in the "New World", landing at the Caribbean island of Martinique.
February 5 – The ship Ridderschap van Holland is lost at sea, having departed the Cape of Good Hope with a crew of 300, with a destination of Batavia (now Jakarta in Indonesia), normally a voyage of two months. It never arrives and is never seen again.
February 6 – The colony of Quilombo dos Palmares, created by rebel African slaves in Brazil, is destroyed by the bandeirantes, colonial troops under the command of Domingos Jorge Velho. After a successful attack on its capital, Cerca do Macaco, the last King of Dos Palmares, Zumbi, flees after a reign of more than 13 years, but is later captured and executed.
February 26 – Silvestro Valier is elected as the new Doge of Venice to replace the late Francesco Morosini
March 1 – The HMS Sussex treasure fleet of thirteen ships is wrecked in the Mediterranean off Gibraltar, with the loss of approximately 1,200 lives.
March 8 – The Casa da Moeda do Brasil is formed by Peter II of Portugal.

April–June

April 2 – Sheikh Yusuf, exiled by the administrators of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), arrives at the Dutch Cape Colony on the ship De Voetboog, at what is now Cape Town, South Africa, along with two wives, two concubines and 12 children. Resettled by the colonial government at a farm in Zandvliet, the Sheikh introduces Islam to South Africa.
April 7 – The English Navy's 40-gun warship, HMS Ruby, captures the French privateer Entreprenant in battle. The confiscated ship is renamed HMS Ruby Prize.
April 12 – The French ship Diligente, commanded by René Duguay-Trouin, covers the escape of a convoy of ships that he is escorting, but then is surrounded and attacked by six Royal Navy ships led by David Mitchell. Most of the Diligente crew is lost in the battle, and Duguay-Trouin is captured.
April 13 – The largest volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius since 1631 takes place, with lava flows towards both San Giorgio a Cremano and Torre del Greco, after explosions in the crater that began April 5. Around April 20, ash falls are experienced as far away as Calabria.<ref name="MtuVESUVIO">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

April 27 – Frederick Augustus of Wettin, later known as "Augustus the Strong" and the future King of Poland, becomes the new Elector of Saxony upon the death of his 25-year-old older brother, John George IV
May 27 – Taking advantage of a fog, the French Army, with 24,000 troops, fights the Battle of Torroella against an equally large Spanish Army force on the banks of the Ter in Spain, near the city of Girona during the Nine Years' War. The Spaniards suffer 3,000 casualties, while the French sustain 500.
June 22 – An annular solar eclipse is visible across North America and the Atlantic Ocean.<ref name="EclipsewiseSe1694jun22aprime">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

June 24 – The Tunisian–Algerian War begins as Algerian troops cross into Tunisia.<ref>Henri-Delmas de Grammont, Histoire d'Alger sous la domination turque (1515-1830), Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1887, 458 p. (lire en ligne [archive]), p. 265</ref>
June 29 – The Battle of Texel is fought near the Dutch island of Texel, one of the West Frisian Islands. The French Navy force of 8 ships, commanded by Jean Bart, locates and rescues three French ships that had been captured by the Dutch Republic in late May. Bart fights a larger force commanded by Hidde Sjoerds de Vries, who dies of his wounds after being captured.

July–September

July 27 – The Bank of England is founded through Royal charter by the Whig-dominated Parliament of England, following a proposal by Scottish merchant William Paterson to raise capital, by offering safe and steady returns of interest guaranteed by future taxes. A total of £1.2 million is raised for the war effort against Louis XIV of France by the end of the year, to establish the first-ever government debt.
August 6 – The coronation of Sultan Husayn of the Safavid dynasty as the Shah of Persia takes place in Isfahan, eight days after the death of his father Suleiman I.
August 24 – The Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, the first official dictionary of the French language, is presented by Jacques de Tourreil and Academy members on behalf of the Académie française to King Louis XIV.<ref>Guillaume Massieu, Oeuvres de Mr de Tourreil (Brunet, 1721) Vol. I, pp. ix–x.</ref><ref>Ferdinand Brunot, Histoire de la langue française, des origines à 1900, vol. IV (A. Colin, 1939)</ref>
September 5 – The Great Fire of Warwick breaks out in England and destroys half the town. Donors raise £110,000 toward disaster relief, with Queen Anne contributing £1,000.<ref name=Fires>"Fires, Great", in The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p. 46</ref>
September 8 – The 1694 Irpinia–Basilicata earthquake causes widespread severe damage and over 6,000 deaths in the Kingdom of Naples.
September 27 – A hurricane hits Carlisle Bay, Barbados, sinking 27 British ships and resulting in 3,000 casualties.<ref name="Onthisday1694">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

October–December

October 19 – A major windstorm begins and continues for several days, spreading the Culbin Sands over a large area of farmland in the Scottish Highlands in the County of Moray and burying the now-abandoned village of Culbin.<ref>"How a storm-stricken Scottish village was swallowed by sand", by Paul Brown, The Guardian (London), October 19, 2020</ref>
October 23 – British/American colonial forces, led by Sir William Phips, fail to seize Quebec from the French.
October 25 – Queen Mary II of England founds the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

November 12 – The Army of Algeria captures Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, after a siege of three months, bringing an end to the Tunisian–Algerian War. Mohamed Bey El Mouradi, the Bey of Tunis, flees southward while Prince Muhammad ben Cheker of Tunisia becomes the new Dey on behalf of the Dey of Algiers, Hadj Ahmed.<ref>Alphonse Rousseau, Annales tunisiennes ou aperçu historique sur la régence de Tunis (Bastide, 1864)</ref>
December 3 – The Parliament of England passes the Triennial Act, requiring general elections every three years.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
December 6 – Thomas Tenison is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
December 16 – A total solar eclipse is visible across South America.<ref name="EclipsewiseSe1694dec16tprime">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Date unknown

The Lao empire of Lan Xang unofficially ends.
The notorious voyage of the English slave ship Hannibal (part of the Atlantic slave trade out of Benin) ends with the death of nearly half of the 692 slaves aboard.
Rascians establish the settlement which will become Novi Sad on the Danube.
The Parker Tavern is built in Reading, Massachusetts.