1738
Events April 15 - - Premiere in London of Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel. November 13 - Ratification of the Treaty of Vienna - The excavation of Herculaneum, a Roman city buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, begins.
- John and Charles Wesley form the Methodist Society, on their return to England.
- Stanislas receives Lorraine in exchange for renouncing the Polish throne.
- Pierre Louis Maupertuis publishes Sur la figure de la terre, which 'confirms Newton's view that the earth is a spheroid slightly flattened at the poles'.
- Franz Ketterer invents the cuckoo clock.
- Jacques de Vaucanson presents the world's first automaton, The Flute Player, to the French Academy of Sciences
Births - January 21 - Ethan Allen, American patriot leader
- April 12 - Padre Francisco Garcés, Spanish missionary
- May 27 - Nathaniel Gorham, American politician (d. 1796)
- June 4 - King George III of the United Kingdom
- October 11 - Arthur Phillip, British admiral, Governor of New South Wales (d. 1814)
- November 15 - William Herschel, astronomer (d. 1822)
Deaths - December 22 - Constantia Jones, British prostitute (executed)
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