1702

Template:C18 year in topic Template:Year article header In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Wednesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January–March

January 2 – A total solar eclipse is visible from the southern Pacific Ocean.
January 12 – In North America, ships from Fort Maurepas arrive at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff to build Fort Louis de la Mobile (future Mobile, Alabama), to become the capital of French Louisiana.
February 1 – War of the Spanish Succession – Battle of Cremona: The Duc de Villeroy, commander of the French Army, is taken as a prisoner of war by the Austrian Army.
March 3 (February 20 O.S.) – King William III of England is fatally injured in an accident when he is thrown from his horse, "Sorrel", when it trips on a molehill in Hampton Court Park near London. Already in poor health before the accident, he dies from complications 16 days later at the age of 51.<ref>Arthur Lyon Cross, A History of England and Greater Britain (Macmillan, 1917) p. 648</ref>
March 14 – An earthquake in the middle of the Calore valley in Italy, east of Benevento, kills 400 people.
March 19 (March 8 Old Style) – Princess Anne Stuart, daughter of the late King James II and younger sister of his successor, Mary II of England (who had reigned jointly with her husband, William III, as William and Mary until her death in 1694), ascends the English, Scottish and Irish thrones upon William's death. In her first speech to the English Parliament, made three days later, she tells the assembly "As I know my heart to be entirely English, I can very sincerely assure you there is not anything you can expect or desire from me which I shall not be ready to do for the happiness and prosperity of England."<ref>Maureen Waller, Sovereign Ladies: The Six Reigning Queens of England (John Murray, 2006) p. 313</ref> Anne is the mother of 17 children by her husband, Prince George of Denmark and Norway, but none will survive childhood, and she will die without an heir, bringing an end to the reign of the House of Stuart and enabling the Hanoverian Succession. After the death of William, the States General of the Netherlands do not appoint a new stadtholder, and so the Dutch Republic becomes a true republic again, starting the Second Stadtholderless Period.
March 22 (March 11 Old Style) – The first regular English-language national newspaper, The Daily Courant, begins publication<ref name="Pocket On This Day">Template:Cite book</ref> on Fleet Street in the City of London, initially by Elizabeth Mallet; it covers only foreign news.
March 24 – Great Northern War: Battle of Darsūniškis – The Swedish army of about 240 men under the command of Alexander Hummerhielm is defeated by the Polish–Saxon army of 6,000 men under Michał Serwacy Wiśniowiecki.

April–June

April 3 – The Dutch East India Company ship Merestein strikes rocks and sinks in Saldanha Bay off Jutten Island, Africa with the loss of 101 of the 200 people on board.
April 14 – Volcanic eruption of Changbaishan volcano (also known as Paektu Mountain) on the China/Korea border takes place.
April 15 – The British Province of New Jersey, encompassing all of the modern-day U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of New York, is created as proprietary owners in the provinces of East Jersey and West Jersey surrender their rights to the Crown.<ref>"Using the Records of the East and West Jersey Proprietors", by Joseph R. Klett (New Jersey State Archives, 2014) p. 5</ref>
April 20 – Comet C/1702 H1 is discovered and passes within 0.0435 AU (a little more than four million miles or 6.5 million km) of the Earth.
April 24 – The first two missionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts set sail from England to North America.
May 5 – Globular cluster Messier 5 (M5, NGC 5904) is discovered by Gottfried Kirch and his wife Maria Margarethe.
May 6 – Cloudesley Shovell is promoted to full admiral in the English navy.
May 14 (N.S.) – War of the Spanish Succession: War is declared on France by the Grand Alliance (Kingdom of England, Dutch Republic and Holy Roman Empire).
May 15 (May 4 O.S.) – King Charles XII of Sweden and his troops walk unopposed into Warsaw after troops capture the city.<ref>Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Gustavus Adolphus (Houghton Mifflin, 1890) p. 838</ref>
May 16 – Much of the city of Uppsala, Sweden is destroyed in a fire.
May 19 – Over 90% of the city of Bergen, Norway is destroyed and reduced to ashes in a Great Fire.
June 2 – English General John Churchill, later the Duke of Marlborough, takes command of the alliance of English, Dutch and German troops in the War of the Spanish Succession.<ref name=Falkner>James Falkner, Marlborough's War Machine 1702-1711 (Pen & Sword Military, 2014) p. 16</ref>
June 11 – Anglo-Dutch forces skirmish with French forces before the walls of Nijmegen and prevent its fall.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
June 15 – Queen Anne's Captain-General, John Churchill, forces the surrender of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine after a siege that began on April 18.<ref name=Lynn> John A. Lynn, The Wars of Louis XIV 1667-1714 (Taylor & Francis, 2013)</ref>
June 16 – The English East India Company founds a settlement on Pulo Condore (modern-day Côn Sơn Island) off the coast of southern Vietnam as an entrepôt for ships travelling between India and China.
June 25 – The premiere of the opera L'Offendere per amore overo la Telesilla by Johann Joseph Fux takes place in Vienna.

July–September

July 19 (July 8 O.S.; July 9 Swedish calendar) – Great Northern War: Battle of Klissow – Charles XII of Sweden decisively defeats the Polish–Lithuanian-Saxon army.
July 23 – The first performance of the opera Médus, roi des Mèdes by François Bouvard takes place at the Paris Opera.
July 24
- Camisard hostilities begin in France with the assassination at le Pont-de-Montvert of a local embodiment of royal oppression, François Langlade, the Abbé of Chaila.<ref name=Lynn/>
- A total eclipse of the sun is visible on a path crossing the northern Pacific Ocean and Central America.
July 30 (July 19 O.S.; July 20 Swedish calendar) – Great Northern War: Battle of Hummelshof – Russia defeats Sweden.
August 11 – Great Northern War: Częstochowa, Poland, is captured by the Swedish army.
August 15 – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Luzzara – Forces of the Holy Roman Empire fail to break through the French-Savoyard position in Lombardy.
September 12 – The Siege of Landau (War of the Spanish Succession) ends after 3 months with forces of the Holy Roman Empire capturing the fortress town in the Rhineland-Palatinate from a French garrison.
September 19 – Jupiter occults Neptune.
September 25 – General John Churchill forces the surrender of Venlo on the Meuse River.<ref name=Lynn/>
September 30 – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Cádiz – A month-long Anglo-Dutch amphibious operation under English Admiral Sir George Rooke fails to take the Spanish port.<ref name=Seapower>Template:Cite book</ref>

October–December

October 1 – The founding deed of the University of Wrocław is signed by the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of the House of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia.
October 7 – Great Northern War: Russian troops besiege the Swedish fortress of Nöteborg, and capture it after 15 days.
October 14 – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Friedlingen – France defeats forces of the Holy Roman Empire.
October 18 – Queen Anne's War: Battle of Flint River – Spanish and Apalachee Indian forces fail in their attack against Creek Indians, supported by English traders, in the modern-day U.S. state of Georgia.
October 19 – The opera Der Sieg der fruchtbaren Pomona by Reinhard Keiser is premiered at the Hamburg Opera for the birthday of King Frederick IV of Denmark.
October 23 – War of the Spanish Succession:
- Battle of Vigo Bay – Anglo-Dutch naval forces under English Admiral Sir George Rooke capture the defended Spanish port of Cádiz and take or destroy all the Spanish treasure fleet and escorting French warships there.<ref name=Seapower/>
- Churchill forces the surrender of Liège.
October 27 – Queen Anne's War in North America: English troops plunder St. Augustine, Spanish Florida.
October 28 – Sieur Juchereau, Lieutenant General of Montréal, establishes the first trading post on the Wabash River in order to trade buffalo hides with American Indians. The site of the trading post may be the modern-day location of Vincennes, Indiana.
November 7 – The first performance of the opera Tancrède by André Campra takes place at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal in Paris.
November 10 – Queen Anne's War in North America: The Siege of St. Augustine opens as English forces besiege St. Augustine, Spanish Florida.
November 15 – The opera La Clemenza d'Augusto by Johann Joseph Fux is premiered in Vienna.
November 22 – The Dutch East India Company ship Amsterdam (1691) founders en route from Bombay to Basra during a storm with the loss of all hands.
December 14 – John Churchill is created duke of Marlborough.
December 30 – Queen Anne's War: The Siege of St. Augustine in Spanish Florida is lifted.

Date unknown

The travel diary Oku no Hosomichi ("Narrow road to the deep north"), a major work of haibun by the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō and one of the major texts of Japanese literature of the Edo period, is published eight years after Bashō's death.
The Delaware Colony legislature is separated from that of Pennsylvania.
Richard Bentley at Cambridge in England introduces the first written (as opposed to oral) competitive examinations in a Western university.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>