1696
The year
1696 had the earliest
equinoxes and
solstices for 400 years in the
Gregorian calendar, because this year is a
leap year and the Gregorian calendar would have behaved like the Julian calendar since March
1500 had it have been in use that long. See
1903.
* April - Fire destroys the Gra Bet (or Left Quarter) of
Gondar, the capital of
Ethiopia.
*
August 22 - Forces of
Venice and
Turkish troops clash near
Molino*
October 29 -
Fuller Baptist Church founded in Kettering, England.
*
December 24 -
Inquisition burns number of
Marrano Jews in
Evora,
Portugal*
Peter the Great becomes sole
tsar of
Russia.
*
Polish replaces
Ruthenian as an
official language of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania* A
famine wipes out almost a third of the population of
Finland.
*
Abington, Pennsylvania, is settled.
*
William Penn offers an elaborate plan for intercolonial cooperation largely in trade, defense, and criminal matters.
* The
Second Pueblo Revolt took place
*
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed
St. John's, Newfoundland.
*
March 27 -
Antoine Court, French Huguenot minister (d.
1760)
*
March 5 -
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d.
1770)
*
June 11 -
Francis Edward James Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (d.
1758)
*
June 27 -
William Pepperrell, English colonial soldier (d.
1759)
*
July 14 -
William Oldys, English antiquarian and bibliographer (d.
1761)
*
August 2 -
Mahmud I,
Ottoman Sultan (d.
1754)
*
August 12 -
Maurice Greene, English composer (d.
1755)
*
September 27 -
Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptionist order (d.
1787)
*
October 13 -
John Hervey, Lord Hervey, English statesman and writer (d.
1743)
*
December 22 -
James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (d.
1785)
*
Benning Wentworth, colonial governor of New Hampshire (d.
1770)
*
January 11 -
Charles Albanel, French missionary explorer in Canada (b.
1616)
*
February 8 - Tsar
Ivan V of Russia (b.
1666)
*
March 14 -
Jean Domat, French jurist (b.
1625)
*
March 18 -
Robert Charnock, English conspirator
*
April 17 -
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French writer (b.
1626)
*
April 30 -
Robert Plot, British naturalist (b.
1640)
*
May 10 -
Jean de La Bruyère, French writer (b.
1645)
*
May 30 -
Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell, First Lord of the British Admiralty (b.
1638)
*
June 17 -
John III of Poland (b.
1629)
*
August 2 -
Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Scottish military commander at the Massacre of Glencoe (b.
1630)
*
September 17 -
John III Sobieski, King of Poland (b.
1629)
*
December 4 -
Empress Meisho of Japan (b.
1624)
*
Daibhidh O Duibhghennain
