1759

Centuries: 17th century - 18th century - 19th century

Decades: 1700s 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s - 1750s - 1760s 1770s 1780s 1790s 1800s

Years: 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 - 1759 - 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764

• January 11 - In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.
• January 15 - The British Museum opens
• April 13 - a French army defeats Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick[?] at Brunswick
• June 27 - British Troops under Jeffrey Amherst take Fort Ticonderoga
• Ferdinand VI of Spain is succeeded by his half-brother Carlos III of Spain[?]
• September 13 - French Canada falls to British forces following General Wolfe's victory in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec. Both the French Commander (the Marquis de Montcalm) and the British General James Wolfe are fatally wounded.
• George Washington marries Martha Dandridge Custis
• Adam Smith publishes Theory of Moral Sentiments, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures
• Battle of the Plains of Abraham: British defeat French near Quebec City in the Seven Years' War (known as the French and Indian War in the United States).
• Publication of Voltaire's Candide

Births

• January 25 - Robert Burns, poet
• February 15 - Friedrich August Wolf, philologist and archaeologist (+ 1824)
• May 20 - William Thornton, original architect of the United States Capitol
• May 28 - William Pitt the Elder, British Prime Minister (+ 1778)

Deaths

• April 14 - George Friderich Handel, composer
• August 10 - Ferdinand VI of Spain
• September 13 - General James Wolfe
• September 13/14 - Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, French General