by Tom Anderson
April - Death of King Ferdinand VI of Spain. He is succeeded by his son, who becomes King Charles III. Charles had formerly ruled in Naples and brings with him his chief minister, Bernardo Tanucci - though for the present he reappoints the Marquis of Ensenada as chief minister of Spain.
November - In the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Jacinto Canek leads the Mayans into rebellion. The revolt is swiftly crushed by the Spanish, but memories of it persist for a long time.
1762:
March - Death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia. She is succeeded by her nephew, who becomes Emperor Peter III.
April - Matters in Burma come to a head, as Myat Htun’s Toungoo forces besiege Ava. The British East India Company offers assistance to the ruling Konbaung dynasty’s King Naungdawgyi in exchange for greater trading privileges. Naungdawgyi accepts.
1763-1767: The First Platinean War. Spain fights Portugal; Britain enters the war on the Portuguese side. Little territorial change, but the Spanish failure to defend the Rio de la Plata from an Anglo-American invasion - while the Platineans defeat the Anglo-Americans by besieging them with their own militias and forcing them to retreat - contributes considerably to the growth of nationalism in South America.
1763:
A Spanish invasion of Portugal fails, partly due to the Portuguese using scorched earth tactics and burning crops in order to starve the Spanish armies operating in Portugal.
The Konbaung forces in Burma, with BEIC assistance, eject Myat Htun’s Toungoo forces from Ava. Myat Htun instead goes north, seeking Chinese help in gaining the throne.
1764:
March - British and American troops, including the 51st and 52nd, invade Florida from what will become the Province of Georgia.
April - Lord Fairfax retires as Lord Deputy of North America. He is succeeded by Lord William North, the Earl of Guilford.
May - Second Spanish invasion of Portugal begins. This will also be repulsed, this time partly due to a British expeditionary force assisting the Portuguese.
June - Many German refugees fleeing religious persecution are settling in Russia, thanks to the Germanophile policies of Emperor Peter III. Among them are a Herr and Frau Kautzman, who settle in the Caucasus near Stavropol.
August - Anglo-Portuguese armies defeat the Spanish at Corunna and conquer Galicia.
1765:
May - British expeditionary force under Admiral Marriott Arbuthnot lands in Rio de la Plata.
June - Arbuthnot’s forces occupy Buenos Aires. In Saxony, Elector Frederick Augustus II, who is also King Augustus III of Poland, dies. He is succeeded by his son Frederick Christian I in Saxony, but the Poles reject him and their szlachta attempt to elect a new king. However, the Sejm is deadlocked.
July - Spanish armies in South America conquer the last of the Rio Grand de Sul (OTL Uruguay) from Portugal.
August - Anglo-Portuguese siege of Ciudad Rodrigo begins. In Lorraine, Duke Stanisław Leszczyński dies and his territories revert to the crown of France.
September - Spanish break the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, forcing the British and Portuguese to retreat.
October - Start of the Crisis of 1765. The American national consciousness has grown considerably due to the recent and ongoing wars. The various liberal political clubs in the major American cities, with the help of Lord North, call a new Albany Congress and elect a North Commission, which travels to London in order to petition the British Government for greater self-rule for the Empire of North America. The Committee is led by Ben Franklin.
November - Birth of Nurul Huq, the future ‘Father of Bengal’, in a small village near Calcutta.
Antonio de Ulloa y de Torre-Girault, managing the quicksilver mines in Peru, is scapegoated by the Viceroy and is eventually reassigned to become governor of California.
1766:
April - Spanish attempt to retake Galicia from the Portuguese, but after some initial gains are defeated by the British near Santiago de Compostela and are repulsed again.
June - Arbuthnot’s army in the Plate suffers its first major defeat, a considerable embarrassment to Britain, in a face-up battle with the Platinean militias as the British attempt to take the city of Rosario.
July - Emboldened Portuguese and British armies besiege Badajoz. Start of the Polish Civil War as the Sejm is unable to agree on a compromise candidate for king from among the Polish szlachta itself. In Britain, William Pitt dies, receiving a state funeral (while his heir John Pitt receives staggering debts). King George III asks Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham, to form a new Patriot-Whig government.
August - Realising Spanish help is not forthcoming, the people of the Plate organise their own militias and begin attacking the British occupation forces, initially only in small groups. At this time, King Charles III of Spain is forced to flee into France due to food riots in Madrid; his troops soon put these down and he is able to return, but has suffered a considerable loss of face.
September - Even without much support from other Spanish armies, the fortress city of Badajoz weathers and defeats the Anglo-Portuguese forces, who retreat to Elvas. In the Plate, the cautious Arbuthnot withdraws most of his troops to Buenos Aires. In Eastern Europe, Frederick William II of Prussia and Peter III of Russia sign a secret treaty aimed at the partition of Poland.
In China, the Daguo Emperor and his ministers agree to help Myat Htun return the Toungoo dynasty to the Avan throne.
October - A second Spanish invasion of Galicia wins a narrow, unconvincing victory, dislodging the Portuguese from most of the province but the Spanish armies being too badly gutted in the process to contemplate further offensive actions. Little movement on the Peninsular Front for the rest of the war.
November - The Americans finally succeed in their long siege of San Agustín, the capital and last redoubt of Spanish Florida. With its fall, the whole peninsula is now British/American-occupied. In Eastern Europe, negotiations begin between the Russo-Prussian alliance and Sweden to secure Swedish neutrality in the Polish war.
December – British/American-occupied Buenos Aires is besieged by Platinean militiamen.
1767-1771: The War of the Polish Partition. Russia and Prussia fight Austria, with some Poles and Lithuanians fighting on both sides as well as a confusion of private armies behind szlachta candidates for kingship. Russo-Prussian victory; the Commonwealth is divided at the Treaty of Stockholm, which gives Ruthenia to Russia, Krakow to Austria and Royal Prussia and southern Ducal Prussia to Prussia. The remainder of Poland is placed in personal union with Prussia, while Lithuania is separated and the Tsarevich of Russia, Paul, is made Grand Duke as Povilas I.
1767:
February - In the Plate, Arbuthnot orders his infamous retreat and abandons Buenos Aires to the Platineans, who raise the Burgundian cross flag in triumph.
March - The Treaty of Copenhagen ends the First Platinean War, signed on the 17th. Spain concedes Florida to the Empire of North America; all other borders status quo ante bellum.
April - Austria enters the Polish Civil War, producing a Hapsburg candidate and occupying Krakow as a necessary first step to Warsaw.
May - Prussia and Russia declare war on Austria. Meanwhile, the Corsican Republic takes the island of Capraia from Genoa, which decides to give up its claim to Corsica and sell it to the French.
June - The Spanish chief minister, the Marquess of Ensenada, is exiled in disgrace to South America due to the lost war. He eventually goes to Buenos Aires and helps start up the radical Porteño school of political thought there. He is replaced with Richard Wall, a Hiberno-Spaniard.
July - In Russia, the Kautzmans’ young son Heinrich is kidnapped in a Cossack raid. He will be raised by Yemelyan Pugachev, the Cossack leader.
August - The Hartford Tea Revolt in Connecticut, one of several taxation protests in America’s “Troubled Sixties”.
October - Parliament of Great Britain debates whether to grant further powers of self-government to the Empire of North America. Patriot-Whigs
for; Tories against.
1768:
March - In America, the Georgian colonial government apparatus collapses after Savannah is sacked by the Chickasaw Indians. Georgia is reabsorbed into South Carolina, which will eventually itself reunify with North Carolina.
May - The French Army invades Corsica.
June - In Burma a Chinese army, coupled with Toungoo-aligned Burmese forces, marches on Konbaung-controlled Ava.
July - Pittsburgh Whisky Riots in Pennsylvania, part of the tax protests of the “Troubled Sixties”.
1769:
May - The Spanish explorer Captain José de Unzaga discoveres the Hidden Gate (San Francisco Bay).
April - Death of King Joseph I of Portugal. He is succeeded by his daughter Maria as Queen Maria I, later known as Maria the Mad. She rules as co-monarch with her husband Peter (Pedro) III.
May - Queen Maria of Portugal dismisses the Chief Minister, José de Carvalho e Melo, and replaces him with a stream of incompetent favourites. Carvalho goes into exile in Brazil, eventually moving to Buenos Aires to be with the Porteños.
June - The French army concludes the conquest of Corsica, though some Republican holdouts remain under the leadership of Filippo Antonio Pasquale de Paoli. Corsica will, however, be a poisoned apple for Bourbon France, as Corsican republican ideas will spread back to France via the French troops stationed there.
In Tahiti, a British mission led by Captain Henry Anson observes the transit of Venus.
August - Carlo Buonaparte, a Corsican Republican leader, flees to Britain with his family. He anglicises his name to Charles Bone and converts to Anglicanism so he may read a law degree at Cambridge.
September - The Chinese and Toungoo forces successfully eject the Konbaungs from Ava. King Naungdawgyi is killed in the siege of Ava-town. The Chinese break up Burma in order to better enforce their will: the Toungoo dynasty, in the form of King Mahadammayaza, is restored to a rump Avan state, with Myat Htun as eminence grise. Pegu, Lanna and Ayutthaya (the last two are Thai states) are freed from Avan control and become direct Chinese vassals. One of Naungdawgyi’s brothers, Minhkaung Nawrahta, creates an independent state out of his viceroyalty of Tougou and plays off the Chinese against the British.
The King of Ayutthaya, Ekkathat, was killed while fighting in the war and is now succeeded by his brother Uthumphon, a monk who gives up that vocation to rule and proves competent.
November - Another brother of King Naungdawgyi, Hsinbyushin, takes what remains of the Konbaung forces south and west and invades and occupies Arakan, overthrowing the native rulers. A new state, Konbaung-Arakan, is formed and swiftly becomes an ally of the British.
1770:
July - Accession of King Hyojang of Corea. He reverses some of the policies of his predecessor Yeongjo, tolerating the practice of Catholicism and the Silhak Movement, led by Jeong Yak-yong, which combines Neo-Confucianism and Corean nationalism with some Christian ideas.
August - The electric eel is first reported in South America. In Britain, Henry Cavendish is able to duplicate the effects of the eel and the torpedo fish, another electric fish, using Leyden Jars inside a synthetic fish–demonstrating, controversially, that animal and synthetic electricity are the same.
September - King Uthumphon of Ayutthaya, taking advantage of political instability in Lanna, successfully unites it with Ayutthaya to form a single Thai state (known either as Ayutthaya or Siam).
Famine of 1770 in Bengal, worsened by the British East India Company’s policies such as forcing farmers to grow opium poppies instead of food crops. The young Nurul Huq loses family members to starvation and develops a burning hatred of the British as a result.
October - Effective end of the War of the Polish Partition after defeat of the Austrian Army of Silesia by the Prussians and the retreat to Krakow on the eastern front. It will take months for the politicians to negotiate a treaty, however.
November - Death of Joseph François Dupleix, Governor-General of the French East India Company. He is succeeded by Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau. This is largely an attempt by Paris, invoking Silhouettiste policies, to place more central royal control over the FEIC - Rochambeau is the King’s man.
1771:
January - Treaty of Stockholm ends the War of the Polish Partition. Austria, Prussia and Russia all annex some territory (Krakow, Royal and southern Ducal Prussia and Ruthenia respectively) while the rump Poland becomes a kingdom in personal union with Prussia, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is placed under the Russian Tsarevich Paul as Grand Duke Povilas.
March - After much wrangling, the North Commission publishes the ‘North Plan’ for the Empire of North America, popularly known as ‘One Empire and Five Confederations’. This will be the basis for the American Constitution.
1772-1774: First Mysore-Haidarabad War between Mysorean and FEIC forces on one side and Haidarabad and BEIC forces on the other. This particular war results in a minor Mysorean victory.
1772:
February - Emperor Peter III of Russia’s wife Catherine makes a failed coup attempt involving the collusion of the Leib Guards. After securing his position and purging the Guards, Peter sends her into exile at Yekaterinburg.
March - Great Britain, Ireland and the Empire of North America switch over from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. This causes some riots, partly because people believe days have actually been lost from their lives, but mostly because the governments cunningly put the switchover at a time where the days lost should have been holidays.
April - In Austria, the demands of the last two wars coupled to some unwise speculation lead to an economic crash. Austrian policy in the Germanies is weakened for a decade or so as the treasury struggles to recover, though Austrian interference in northern Italy continues apace.
August - Moritz Benyovsky, a Slovakian leader of one of the Polish patriotic brigades, flees the destruction of his force by the Prussians and ends up in Lithuania, where he joins the newly reformed Lithuanian Army.
September - Death of Louis XV of France, who dies a deeply unpopular man due to his habit of returning conquered provinces after wars and for failing to reform the French tax system. He is succeeded by his son the Dauphin, Louis-Ferdinand, as King Louis XVI.
November - France’s King Louis XVI approves the revival of stalled research into Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot’s steam-tractor technology.
1773:
March - With the death of Richard Wall, Charles III of Spain appoints his old Neapolitan chief minister, Bernardo Tanucci, as chief minister of Spain. The hardline anti-clericalist Tanucci swiftly proves unpopular, especially in Spain’s colonial possessions.
April - John Pitt enlists in the BEIC as a cornet of cavalry.
May - Birth of Aleksandr Potemkin, allegedly the son of Grigory Potemkin and Empress Catherine of Russia.
June - In Persia, Shah/Advocate Abol Fath Khan defeats the Qajars in Mazanderan. The Qajar leader, Agha Mohammed Khan, is killed in the battle. The future of Zand Persia is secured.
July - Death of Ahmad Shah Abdali, the great Afghan conqueror, from cancer exacerbated by constant travel in his campaigns. The Afghans call a Loya Jirga assembly which splits the Durrani Empire, the Afghan domains going to his first son Timur and the Indian ones to his second son Nadir, who becomes Emperor of the East Durrani or ‘Neo-Mughal’ Empire.
1774:
February - Carl Wilhelm Scheele, the Swedish apothecary and chemist, begins his research into lufts [gases]. This will eventually result in the discovery of elluftium [oxygen] and illuftium [nitrogen], as well as a gas known as ‘scheelium’ at the time which will one day be identified as murium [chlorine]. This is more or less as OTL, but in OTL Scheele’s discoveries were never widely publicised.
April - Pavel Lebedev-Lastoschkin, out of Yakutsk, leads a Russian trade expedition to Edzo [Hokkaido], northernmost island of Japan. He is rebuffed by the local Matsumae Han, who indicate they have no authority from the Shogun to conclude such deals an
d that trade with Japan is only available via Nagasaki. This is unreasonably far away from the Russian ports, and a disappointed Lebedev returns to Yakutsk.
July - Charles Bone receives his doctorate in law from the University of Cambridge and he founds a law practice in London, specialising in defending Catholics from employers who abuse the Test Acts.
1775:
January - Birth of Ivan Potemkin.
May - John Acton, a Briton in service with the Tuscan navy, distinguishes himself in an action against Algerine pirates at Algiers itself, in cooperation with the French and Spanish. Soon afterwards, his fame leads him to to leave the Tuscans and go to Naples, where he is employed in reorganising the Neapolitans’ own outdated naval forces.
1776:
March - After months of argument between their representatives, the New England colonies of the ENA are amalgamated into the Confederation of New England, with its capital at Boston. This is the first of the Five Confederations to be formally created.
April - Exiled Emperor of Daiviet Le Cung Tong appeals to the Daguo Emperor of China for help in regaining his throne; Daguo agrees.
July - Irish-born war veteran and MP Anthony St. Leger (together with the Prime Minister Lord Rockingham) sets up the St. Leger Stakes, a series of high-stakes horse races, in Doncaster. Rockingham’s patronage soon provokes much interest in the races from the Westminster political establishment.
1777 :
Charles Bone’s son Leo (Napoleone Buonaparte) enters the Royal Navy as a midshipman and serves on HMS Ardent.
1778-1781: Second Mysore-Haidarabad War between Mysorean and FEIC forces on one side and Haidarabad and BEIC forces on the other. Haidarabad takes back Mysore’s gains in the last war, but the BEIC loses influence at the Nizam’s court due to mishandling by the British resident there.
1778:
Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers elluftium [oxygen].
The Qing Chinese army defeats the Nguyen Lords of Daiviet at Than Hoa, restoring Emperor Le Cung Tong to his position as a Chinese puppet ruling northern Daiviet (Tonkin) while the Nguyens are left with the south (Cochinchina).
