Year 1718 (MDCCXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1718

January–June

• January – France declares war on Spain, leading to the 2-year War of the Quadruple Alliance.
• January 19 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu gives birth to a daughter.

December 10: Flag of Stede Bonnet.

• May – Blackbeard leads 300 sailors in 4 ships to blockade the port of Charleston, South Carolina. The Queen Anne's Revenge and Adventure are both lost at Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, 1 week later. Blackbeard allows Stede Bonnet to once again command the Revenge, which is renamed the Royal James. Bonnet rescues 25 sailors abandoned by Blackbeard on a sandbar and continues his life of piracy.
• May 7 – New Orleans, Louisiana, is founded.
• June – Blackbeard and Bonnet take refuge in Bath, North Carolina, where Governor Charles Eden pardons them and their crew.

July–December

May 7: New Orleans.

• July 21 – The Treaty of Passarowitz is signed.
• October – Stede Bonnet and his crew are captured near the mouth of the Cape Fear River and taken to Charleston, South Carolina, where they are tried for piracy. All but four of Bonnet's crew are found guilty and sentenced to death.
• October 24 – Stede Bonnet escapes from prison.
• November 8 – 22 of Stede Bonnet's pirate crew are hanged at Charleston.
• November 22 – Citing violations of the amnesty agreement with Blackbeard, Virginia Governor Alexander Spottswood sends a Royal Navy contingent to North Carolina, where they battle Blackbeard and his crew in Ocracoke Inlet. Blackbeard is killed in action after receiving 5 musketball wounds and 20 sword lacerations.

Dec. 6: Queen Eleonora.

• December 6 – After the death of Charles XII on November 30, Ulrika Eleonora becomes Queen of Sweden.
• December 10 – Stede Bonnet is hanged at Charleston after being recaptured.
• December 17 – Austria, Great Britain, and France declare war on Spain, launching the War of the Quadruple Alliance.

Undated

• The Funj warrior aristocracy deposes the reigning mek and places one of their own ranks on the throne of Sennar (History of Sudan).
• The white potato reaches New England from England.
• Hungary attains independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Ongoing events

• Great Northern War (1700–1721)

Births

• January 7 – Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War general (d. 1790)
• January 29 – Paul Rabaut, French Huguenot pastor (d. 1794)
• February 17 – Matthew Tilghman, American delegate to the Continental Congress (d. 1790)
• March 31 – Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, queen regent of Portugal (d. 1781)
• April 4 – Benjamin Kennicott, English churchman and Hebrew scholar (d. 1783)
• April 7 – Hugh Blair, Scottish preacher and man of letters (d. 1800)
• April 20 – David Brainerd, American missionary (d. 1747)
• April 24 – Nathaniel Hone, Irish-born painter (d. 1784)
• April 26 – Esek Hopkins, American Revolutionary War admiral (d. 1802)
• April 27 – Thomas Lewis, Irish-born Virginia settler (d. 1790)
• May 16 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician (d. 1799)
• May 17 – Robert Darcy, 4th Earl of Holderness, English diplomat and politician (d. 1778)
• May 23 – William Hunter, Scottish anatomist (d. 1783)
• May 30 – Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire, English politician (d. 1793)
• June 5 – Thomas Chippendale, English furniture maker (d. 1779)
• June 17 – George Howard, British field marshal (d. 1796)
• July 5 – Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, Viceroy of Ireland (d. 1794)
• July 18 – Saverio Bettinelli, Italian writer (d. 1808)
• July 31 – John Canton, English physicist (d. 1772)
• August 11 – Frederick Haldimand, Swiss-born British colonial governor (d. 1791)
• September 18 – Nikita Ivanovich Panin, Russian statesman (d. 1783)
• October 19 – Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie, Marshal of France (d. 1804)
• October 28 – Ignacije Szentmartony, Croatian Jesuit missionary and geographer (d. 1793)
• November 3 – John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, English statesman (d. 1792)
• date unknown – István Hatvani, Hungarian mathematician (d. 1786)

See also Category: 1718 births.

Deaths

• January 6 – Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, Italian writer and jurist (b. 1664)
• January 6 – Richard Hoare, English goldsmith and banker (b. 1648)
• January 17 – Captain Benjamin Church, Plymouth Colony settler and military officer (b. c. 1639)
• February 1 – Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, English politician (b. 1660)
• February 18 – Pierre Antoine Motteux, French-born English dramatist (b. 1663)
• May 7 – Mary of Modena, queen of James II of England (b. 1658)
• May 30 – Arnold Joost van Keppel, 1st Earl of Albemarle, Dutch favorite of William III of England (b. 1670)
• July 28 – Etienne Baluze, French scholar (b. 1630)
• July 30 – William Penn, American settler, founder of Pennsylvania (b. 1644)
• November 22 – Blackbeard, English pirate (b. c. 1680)
• November 30 – King Charles XII of Sweden (b. 1682)
• December 6 – Nicholas Rowe, English poet and dramatist (b. 1674)
• December 9 – Vincenzo Coronelli, Italian cartographer and encylopedist (b. 1650)
• December 10 – Stede Bonnet, the "gentleman pirate" (birth unknown)

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See also Category: 1718 deaths.