Events

• Enactment of the world's first copyright legislation, Britain's Act for the Encourage of Learning (short title)

Ongoing events

• Great Northern War (1700-1721)
• War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713)

Births

• January 4 - Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, composer (d. 1736)
• February 15 - King Louis XV of France (d. 1774)
• April 15 - William Cullen, professor of medicine and co-founder, Glasgow Medical School (d. 1790)
• May 14 - King Adolf Frederick of Sweden (d. 1771)
• November 22 - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German composer (d. 1784)
• November 27 - Robert Lowth, Bishop of the Church of England (d. 1787)
• John Forbes, British general in the French and Indian War (d. 1759)

Deaths

• September 19 - Ole Rømer, Danish astronomer (b. 1644)