Scotland

The publication of the first edition of the Scots Magazine

The Scots Magazine was originally published in January 1739. It was intended as a rival to the London-based Gentleman’s Magazine, in order that “our countrymen might have the production of every month sooner, cheaper and better collected than before”.

Robert Adair, dies

Robert Adair, MP for Philipstown, dies on this date, having had one of his legs cut off above the knee for a mortification and died soon after

Allan Ramsay's First regular public theatre in Scotland opened in Carrubbers Close, Edinburgh

The opening of the first regular public theater in Scotland in Carrubbers Close, Edinburgh’s Old Town, in 1736 was a significant development in Scottish cultural history.

Porteous Riots in Edinburgh take place after the hanging of a smuggler by the City Guard

The Porteous Riots surrounded the activities of Captain John Porteous, Captain of the City Guard of Edinburgh (ca. 1695 – 1736). Porteous seems to have been an overbearing official, despised by the mob and the underclasses of Edinburgh society.

James Watt, Scottish steam engine inventor, born

James Watt, the Scottish engineer and inventor known for his improvements to the steam engine, was born on January 19, 1736. His work on steam engines was pivotal to the Industrial Revolution and had a transformative impact on industry, transportation, and technology.

Death of dramatist, essayist and publisher Sir Richard Steele, the Dubliner who founded The Tatler and The Spectator

John Law, financier and founder of New Orleans, died aged about 57.

John Law (21 April 1671 – 21 March 1729) was a Scottish-French economist who distinguished money, a means of exchange, from national wealth dependent on trade. He served as Controller General of Finances under the Duke of Orleans, who was regent for the juvenile Louis XV of France. In 1716, Law set up a private Banque Générale in France. A year later it was nationalised at his request and renamed as Banque Royale.

Neil Gow, first of a famous family of Fiddle players and composers, born

Niel Gow (22 March 1727 — 1 March 1807) was a Scottish fiddler in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Malt Riots, Glasgow

Due to the gross dislike of the Malt Tax there were wide spread riots across the country. Scotland was up in arms to resist the attempt to rob a poor man of his beer. The most serious of these was June 1725 in Glasgow.

Last claimant to the Stuart throne, Henry I of Scotland (Henry IX of England), born

Henry Benedict Maria Clement Thomas Francis Xavier Stuart (March 11, 1725 – July 13, 1807), born in Rome, Italy, was the second son of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland.