{{year nav|
Year '1731' ('
MDCCXXXI') was a
common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the
Gregorian calendar (or a
common year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower
Julian calendar).
Events of 1731
January - June
★
March 16 -
Treaty of Vienna signed between the
Holy Roman Empire,
Great Britain, the
Dutch Republic and
Spain.
July - December
★
December 17 -
George Lockhart, writer, spy and politician, is killed in a duel.
Undated
★
John Bevis observes the
Crab Nebula for the first time.
★
Royal Colony of North Carolina Governor
George Burrington asks the
North Carolina General Assembly to pass an act establishing a town on the
Cape Fear River in what is seen as a political move to shift the power away from the powerful Cape Fear plantation class. The town is laid out in
1733 and later incorporated as
Wilmington in
1740.
★ Royal theatre of
Mantua (
Italy) built by
Ferdinando Galli Bibiena.
Births
★
February -
Charles Churchill, English poet (died
1764)
★
February 11 -
George Washington, First President USA born
★
May 8 -
Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and abolitionist (died
1809)
★
June 21 -
Martha Washington,
First Lady of the United States (died
1802)
★
August -
Henry Constantine Jennings, English gambler and collector (died
1819)
★
October 10 -
Henry Cavendish, English scientist (died
1810)
★
November 9 -
Benjamin Banneker, American surveyor of the District of Columbia (died
1806)
★
November 15 -
William Cowper, English poet (died
1800)
★
December 8 -
František Xaver Dušek, Czech composer (died
1799)
★
December 12 -
Erasmus Darwin, English scientist and grandfather of
Charles Darwin (died
1802)
: ''See also .''
Deaths
★
January 6 -
Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist (born
1672)
★
January 21 -
Thomas Woolston, English theologian (born
1669)
★
January 27 -
Bartolomeo Cristofori, Italian maker of musical instruments (born
1655)
★
February 22 -
Frederik Ruysch, Dutch physician and anatomist (born
1638)
★
March 8 -
Ferdinand Brokoff, Czech sculptor (born
1688)
★
April 24 -
Daniel Defoe, English writer (born
1660)
★
May 1 -
Johann Ludwig Bach, German composer (born
1677)
★
August 27-
Eudoxia Lopukhina, divorced wife of
Peter the Great of Russia (b.
1669)
★
December 26 -
Antoine Houdar de la Motte, French writer (born
1672)
★
December 29 -
Brook Taylor, English mathematician (born
1685)
: ''See also .''