1722

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April 5: Jacob Roggeveen and crew become the first Europeans to land on Easter Island.

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Events

January–March

January 27 – Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders is published anonymously in London.
February 10 – The Battle of Cape Lopez begins off of the coast of West Africa (and present-day Gabon), as the Royal Navy brings an end to the piracy of Bartholomew Roberts, nicknamed "Black Bart". Captained by Chaloner Ogle of the Royal Navy, HMS Swallow fires its cannons as Roberts sails his ship Royal Fortune toward the oncoming Swallow in order to gain time by forcing Swallow to turn around. Standing on the deck, Roberts and two of his crew are killed by the second wave of cannon fire. The remaining 272 pirate crew are captured.
February 16 – Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia, announces that his heir to the throne will be his 4-year old grandson, Prince Pyotr Alekseivich.
February 21 – Nasir-ud-Din Muḥammad Shah, the Grand Mogul of north India's Mughal empire, names Nizam-ul-Mulk as his Grand Vizier. Three years later, the Nizam will rebel against the Grand Mogul and create his own independent nation as the Nizam of Hyderabad, reigning as Asaf Jah.
March 8 – Battle of Gulnabad in Persia: The Pashtun people of Afghanistan, led by Mahmud Hotak, decisively defeat forces of the Persian Safavid dynasty, precipitating its fall.

April–June

April 2 – The first Silence Dogood letter, written by Benjamin Franklin, is printed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
April 5 (Easter Sunday) – Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen lands on what is now Easter Island.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
May 5 – Pennsylvania colony enacts a statute, requiring all persons importing any person previously convicted of sodomy, to pay £5 for each such incoming person.
May 9 – The 1722 British general election (began March 19) closes with Prime Minister Robert Walpole's Whig Party increasing its majority in the House of Commons of Great Britain, capturing 48 additional seats from the Tory Party and having a 389 to 169 advantage.
June 15 – Pirate Edward Low and his men sail the stolen ship Rebecca into Port Roseway near modern Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where 13 fishing boats from Massachusetts are anchored. Over the next few days, the pirates board the boats and lay siege to them. On June 19, Low confiscates the schooner Mary from its owner, Joseph Dolliber, outfits it with cannons and renames it the Fancy. Eight of the fishermen are taken hostage as the stolen vessel departs, including Philip Ashton.<ref>George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730 (Marine Research Society, 1923) pp218-219</ref>

July–September

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July 26: Start of the Russo-Persian War.

July 25 – Father Rale's War (1722–1725) begins along the Maine and Massachusetts border.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
July 26 (July 15 O.S.) – The Russo-Persian War (1722–1723) begins with Peter the Great's Persian campaign.
August 24 – Francis Atterbury, Anglican Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, is arrested in his deanery and confined in the Tower of London for treason, accused of leading the Jacobite "Atterbury Plot" in support of the pretender James Francis Edward Stuart<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref> with the aim of overthrowing the House of Hanover and King George I of Great Britain and restoring the House of Stuart by installing Prince James as "King James III".
September 6 – Wälättä Giyorgis, a 16-year-old who nursed Ethiopia's Emperor Bakaffa back to health after he fell ill, marries the Emperor and begins her rise to power as the Empress Mentewab. Upon Bakaffa's death in 1730, Mentewab becomes the regent for her son by Bakaffa, Iyasu II.
September 23 – La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans), recently established by France as the capital of the Louisiana Territory is hit by what is later called the "Great Hurricane of 1722", starting with Template:Convert high waves, followed by winds in excess of Template:Convert. By September 24, "Almost every public building in New Orleans, from the hospital to the cathedral" is "either unroofed or totally ruined."<ref>David Longshore, Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones (Facts on File, 2008) p293</ref>

October–December

October 23 – The six-month-long Siege of Isfahan ends, when the Safavid capital Isfahan capitulates to the Afghan rebels. Safavid Sultan Husayn abdicates, and acknowledges Mahmud Hotak as the new Shah of Persia.
November 15 (November 4 O.S.) – Russia's Emperor Peter the Great issues an order establishing the Caspian Flotilla during its war against Persia to gain complete control of the landlocked Caspian Sea.
November 20 – The Dutch East India Company cargo ship Schoonenberg runs aground in South Africa's Struis Bay and is looted by most of its 110 crew, beginning a legend and questions of whether the wreck was part of a conspiracy or simply an accident. Almost 300 years later, the event is reconstructed in detail by investigators.
December 20 – After the longest reign by a Chinese Emperor in history (61 years), the Kangxi Emperor dies, and is succeeded by his son Yinzhen as Yongzheng Emperor.

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Edenton is incorporated as the county seat of Chowan County, North Carolina. The governor and assembly of North Carolina move to Edenton, making it the de facto capital of North Carolina until 1746, when the government is moved to New Bern.
Peter the Great of Russia creates the Table of Ranks.
A small group of Bohemian Brethren (the "Hidden Seed") from northern Moravia are allowed to settle in a new village, Herrnhut, on the Berthelsdorf estate of the pietist Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf in Upper Lusatia (Saxony), forming the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine, seed of the Moravian Church's renewal.
The Chiesa del Purgatorio, Venafro, Italy, Catholic Church is built.
The first public theatre in Denmark, Lille Grønnegade Theatre, is founded in Copenhagen.
Modern music theory finds definition in Jean-Philippe Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie réduite à ses principes naturels (Treatise on Harmony), published in Paris.
The "Brown Bess" muzzle-loading smoothbore musket becomes the British Army's standard infantry firearm for land combat for more than a century.
Johann Sebastian Bach composes The Well-Tempered Clavier.