1728 in Great Britain

1728 in Great Britain:

Other years

1726 | 1727 | 1728 | 1729 | 1730

Sport

1728 English cricket season

Events from the year 1728 in Great Britain.

Incumbents

• Monarch – George II
• Prime Minister – Robert Walpole (Whig)
• Parliament – 7th

Events

• 29 January – first performance of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.[1]
• March – Spain ends its siege of Gibraltar.[2]
• 31 May – The Royal Bank of Scotland extends the first overdraft (to Edinburgh merchant William Hogg for £1,000).[3]
• Late Summer – Voltaire ends his exile in England.
• September – astronomer James Bradley uses stellar aberration (first observed in 1725) to calculate the speed of light.[4]
• James Bradley observes nutation of the Earth's axis.[4]
• The King's son Frederick, Prince of Wales, arrives in Britain for the first time, aged 21.
• Probable date at which the brown rat first enters Britain.[5]

Publications

• Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.[2]
• James Gibbs' A Book of Architecture, containing designs of buildings and ornaments.
• Alexander Pope's The Dunciad.[2]
• Daniel Defoe's A Plan of the English Commerce

Births

• 9 January – Thomas Warton, poet (died 1790)
• 3 July – Robert Adam, architect (died 1792)
• 3 September – Matthew Boulton, manufacturer and engineer (died 1809)
• 27 October (O.S.) – James Cook, naval captain and explorer (died 1779)

Deaths

• 3 April – James Anderson, Scottish lawyer, antiquary and historian (born 1662)

References

1. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
2. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
3. "The history of payments in the UK". BBC News. 2009-02-16. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
4. Delambre, J. B. (1827). Histoire de l'astronomie au dix-huitième siècle. Paris: Bachelier.
5. Berkenhout, John (1769). Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain.

See also