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Timeline: 1730-1800
Major Economists of This Era
- Decade opens with Peace in Europe
- Benjamin Franklin begins Poor Richard's Almanack in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
- John Kay patents flying shuttle, a major landmark in textile mass
production, leading to textile mills in England
- Voltaire writes Lettres sur les Anglais championing democratic
government
- David Hume creates empiricist philosophy in his Treatise on Human
Nature
- War of Jenkins' Ear begins when England declares war on Spain
- War of the Austrian Succession breaks out among major European powers
- War of Jenkins' Ear spreads to Florida and Georgia
- Johann Sebastian Bach issues second volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier
- The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ends War of the Austrian Succession.
Major powers again at peace in Europe
- David Hartley writes Observations on Man, arguing that one's
moral sense is derived from an association of ideas
- Interest on Britain's national debt falls from 10% to 3%
- Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert begin publishing Encyclopedia
- Ben Franklin flies kite with key proving that lightning is like an
electric spark
- Samuel Johnson publishes Dictionary of the English Language.
- Economist Francois Quesnay founds the Physiocrats,
who advocate laissez-faire economic policies
- Claude-Adrien Helvetius publishes De'l'esprit arguing that
self-interest is the primary motive of human conduct
1760
- Seven Years' War ends with the Treaty of Paris and the Treaty of Hubertusberg
- J. J. Rousseau published The Social Contract arguing that government
must rest on the consent of the governed
- Joseph Priestley issues an Essay on First Principles of Government
anticipating Jeremy Bentham's ideal of "greatest happiness for
the greatest number"
- Boycott of imports begins in Boston to oppose tax on lead, paint,
paper and tea
1770
- Boston Tea Party protests tea tax in America after its repeal in England
- First Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia and writes a Declaration
of Rights and Grievances
- Revolutionary War begins in Concord, Massachusetts
- Continental Congress on July 4, 1776 adopts the Declaration of Independence
- Adam Smith writes Inquiry Into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, launching the Classical
School of economic theory
1780
- Revolutionary troops defeat British at Yorktown, Virginia to gain
independence
- Immanuel Kant publishes Critique of Pure Reason
- Britain, USA, France and Spain sign the Treaty of Versailles recognizing
the independence of the United States of America
- First paddle wheel steamboat sails on the Saone River, France
- U.S. Constitution signed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified
within a year
- French Revolution begins in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille
Prison
1790
- Dollar becomes the currency unit of USA
- Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin
- Thomas Paine writes The Age of Reason
- Napoleonic Wars rage throughout Europe following the end of the French
Revolution
- British Government introduces income tax
- Thomas Malthus completes Essay on
the Principle of Population
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