1758

1758 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

• April 29 - Battle of the Bay of Bengal - A French fleet under Sir George Pocock engages the French fleet of Anne Antoine d'Aché indecisively near Madras.
• June 12 - French and Indian War: Siege of Louisbourg - James Wolfe's attack at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia commences.
• June 23 - Seven Years War: Battle of Krefeld - Anglo-Hanoverian forces under Ferdinand of Brunswick defeat the French.
• July 8 - French and Indian War: French forces hold Fort Carillon against British at Ticonderoga, New York.
• July 25 - French and Indian War: The island battery at Fortress Louisbourg is silenced and all French warships are destroyed or taken.
• August 3 - Battle of Negapatam - Off the coast of India, Admiral Pocock again engages d'Aché's French fleet, this time with more success.
• August 25 - Battle of Zorndorf - Frederick defeats the Russian army of Count Wilhelm Fermor near the Oder.
• September 14 - French and Indian War: a British attack on Fort Duquesne is defeated.
• October 14 - Battle of Hochkirch - Frederick loses a hard-fought battle against the Austrians under Marshal Leopold von Daun, who besieges Dresden.
• November 25 - French and Indian War: French forces abandon Fort Duquesne to British control.
• December 25 - Halley's Comet appears for the first time after Halley's discovery of it.
• First European settlement in what is now Erie County by the French at the mouth of Buffalo Creek.
• Pope Clement XIII ascends to papacy
• Rudjer Boscovich publishes his atomic theory in Theoria philosophiae naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium in nalura existentium
• James Abercromby replaces the earl of Loudoun as supreme commander in the American colonies. He is replaced himself after failing to take the fort at Ticonderoga.

Ongoing events

• French and Indian War (1754-1763)
• Seven Years' War (1756-1763)

Births

• April 28 - James Monroe, 5th President of the United States (d. 1831)
• May 6 - André Masséna, French marshall (d. 1817)
• May 6 - Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary (executed) (d. 1794)
• May 17 - John St Aubyn, British fossil collector (d. 1839)
• August 5 - Emperor Go-Momozono of Japan (d. 1779)
• September 29 - Horatio Nelson, British admiral (d. 1805)
• October 16 - Noah Webster, American lexicographer (d. 1843)
• Charles d'Abancourt, French statesman (murdered in prison) (d. 1792)
• Kamehameha I, King of Hawaii

Deaths

• January 7 - Allan Ramsay, Scottish poet (b. 1686)
• February 10 - Thomas Ripley, English architect
• March 2 - Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French cardinal (b. 1679)
• March 22 - Jonathan Edwards, American minister (b. 1703)
• March 22 - Richard Leveridge, English bass and composer (b. 1670)
• April 22 - Antoine de Jussieu, French naturalist (b. 1686)
• April 30 - François d'Agincourt, French composer (b. 1684)
• May 3 - Pope Benedict XIV (b. 1675)
• October 12 - Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, British field marshal (b. 1680)
• October 14 - Francis Edward James Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (b. 1696)
• November 5 - Hans Egede, Norwegian Lutheran missionary (b. 1686)
• November 20 - Johan Helmich Roman, Swedish composer (b. 1694)
• November 22 - Richard Edgcumbe, 1st Baron Edgcumbe, English politician (b. 1680)
• December 5 - Johann Friedrich Fasch, German composer (b. 1688)