1676 in England
List of events
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Incumbents
- Monarch â Charles II
Events
- 18 February â Isaac Newton observes to Robert Hooke that "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".[1]
- 2 March â first performance of George Etherege's play The Man of Mode.[1]
- 26 May â fire in Southwark destroys 625 houses.[2]
- September to November â major influenza epidemic; the first to be recorded as such.[2]
- 11 December â first performance of William Wycherley's play The Plain Dealer.[1]
Undated
- Construction begins on Trinity College Library in Cambridge, designed by Sir Christopher Wren.[2]
- The Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, designed by Wren, is completed this summer.
- Consecration of the first Greek Orthodox church in England, at Hog Lane, London.[2]
- The first fossilised bone of what is now known to be a dinosaur is discovered by Robert Plot, the femur of a Megalosaurus from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton.[3]
Births
- 4 January â Sir William Lowther, 1st Baronet, of Marske, Member of Parliament (died 1705)
- 19 January â John Weldon, composer (died 1736)
- baptised 30 January â Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane, courtier and landowner (died 1744)
- 14 June â Sir John Rogers, 2nd Baronet, lawyer and politician (died 1744)
- 21 June (Old Style) â Anthony Collins, philosopher (died 1729)
- 26 August â Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1745)[4]
- 14 November â Benjamin Hoadly, clergy (died 1761)
- 29 November â Sir Henry Bunbury, 3rd Baronet, politician (died 1733)
- 30 December â John Philips, poet (died 1709)
Deaths
- 4 March â Sir Edward Turnour, Speaker of the House of Commons (born 1617)
- 22 March â Lady Anne Clifford, literary patron (born 1590)
- 23 May (bur.) â William Samwell, architect (born 1628)
- 12 July â Henry Stubbe, writer and scholar (born 1632; drowned)
- 10 September â Gerrard Winstanley, religious reformer (born 1609)
- 11 October â Anthony Terill, theologian (born 1623)
- 25 December â
- Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice (born 1609)
- William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, soldier, politician and writer (born 1592)
- Chesten Marchant, last monoglot speaker of the Cornish language