1721 - 1730
- 1721
- A smallpox epidemic sweeps through London, but Lady Mary Wortley Montague saves her 5-year-old daughter by having her inoculated in front of London's leading physicians, who are duly impressed. Out of earshot she gives her daughter this advice: "Hide your learning...as if it were a physical defect."
- George I is so impressed with Lady Montague's inoculation demonstration, he decides to allow two of his grandchildren to be inoculated also (BUT this is only after he has 11 charity school children and 6 Newgate prisoners inoculated first!).
- 1722:
- Rather a dull year for trivia, other than the settlement of Manchester, New Hampshire in the colonies (We women have to take some kind of break now and then).
- 1723:
- A new opera star arises on the horizon. Her name is Francesca Cuzzoni, and she makes her debut singing a duet with soprano Margherita Durastanti. Her voice and talent are so strong that on the succeeding night the normal 1/2 guinea performance tickets fetch as much as 3 guineas, and that's IF you can even find one. (She will continue singing, to the tune of £2000 a season, at the King's Theatre until 1728.)
- The son of Peterborough's bishop, White Kennett writes a satirical poem title "Armor", extolling the virtues of using a condom (Oh! My word! The scandal! Like they say, it's always the quiet and pious ones you have to watch).
- 1724:
- The colony of Rhode Island allows women the right to own property, but NOT the right to vote (So what's new?).
- English novelist Daniel Defoe writes "I thought a woman was a free agent, as well as a man, and was born free, and could she manage herself suitably (There's always a catch, isn't there?), might enjoy that liberty to as much purpose as the men do; that the laws of matrimony were indeed otherwise...and those such that a woman gave herself entirely away from herself, in marriage, and capitulated only to be, at best, but an upper servant" (At least he elevated the title!).
- 1725:
- Our friend Peter the Great finally kicks the bucket at age 52, leaving Catherine, age 41 to reign as Catherine I. (However, while mama's back is turned, daughter Elizabeth, 14, has her fun by taking countless, handsome military officers as lovers. As the saying goes, like mother, like daughter...).
- 15-year-old Louis XV of France weds the 22-year-old daughter of the former king of Poland, Stanislas Leszczynski. Enamored of his older, wiser woman at first, Louis soon changes his mind when he finds his wife looks upon their intimate relations only as her "duty". Despite this, she does her "duty", birthing 10 children during their marriage.
- Actress turned novelist Eliza Haywood (She once scandalized and shocked all of London Society with her Roman à clef, which in today's society would be a tell-all book with the true names concealed) writes Memoirs of a Certain Island Adjacent to Utopia, which she follows with two periodicals published in 1744 and 1747, titled The Female Spectator and The Parrot (We bet these made for some interesting reading).
- 1726:
- Ballet star La Camargo (Marie-Ann Cupis) makes her debut on stage at the age of 16, much to the dislike of the current twirling star, Mme. Francois Provost, 46. (Cat fight, anyone?)
- Sophia Dorothea of Celle falls ill with a fever and dies in November. During her fevered rantings, she raves about her ex-husband George I's cruelty and wickedness, which so enrages the king that he refuses to allow her name, nor that of her mother's, to be inscribed upon their coffins. (Men just can stand to hear the truth, can they?)
- The first professor of midwifery in the British Isles is....you guessed it, a man. Dr. Joseph Gibson.
- 1727:
- Catherine the Great dies at 44 after a short reign, and is succeeded by her son, Peter. (But oh, what a reign it was!)
- George I dies too, of apoplexy while riding in a carriage. George II assumes power. However, his wife, Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach is much smarter and wiser than he is, and exerts her influence whenever and wherever she can (Behind every successful man is a good woman).
- An opera is staged starring Faustina Bordoni and her rival, Francesca Cuzzoni, who consequently come to blows onstage in the presence of the Princess of Wales, who's attending the theatre. (That had to be one exciting opera performance!)
- 1728:
- Bordoni falls ill, and the Royal Academy is forced to close early. Cuzzoni's career begins on its downward spiral, and she will eventually die in 1770 - alone, impoverished, and obscure - due to her wasteful spending and extravagant lifestyle.
- 1729:
- Ballet dancer Marie Salle causes a raucous when she dances Les Caracteres de la Danse without the traditionally worn mask covering her face.
- 1730:
- Peter II dies of smallpox at 14, the same day he was to be married. His cousin Anna Ivanova (notice, another woman) is elected ruler by the Supreme Privy Council. Angry because they limit her powers, she stages a coup, overthrows the Council, and summons her lover, Ernst Johann Biren. The son of a former groom to the Duke of Courland (her late husband, coincidentally), she names Biren the new Duke, gives him an estate and 50,000 crowns a year, and together they will rule for 10 years; but not so nicely. During their reign they will exile thousands of people to Siberia.
- Scandal in the theatre! Actress Adreinne Lecouvreur succumbs in Paris at the ripe age of 37; rumor has it that she's been poisoned by her rival, the duchesse de Bouillon (soup, anyone?). Lecouvreur is adored by many admirers, including Voltaire and Marshal de Saxe, so when she's refused a Christian burial because she was (gasp!) an actress, her faithful admirers secrete her body away and bury her in the rue de Boulogne.
1714 - 1720 | 1731 - 1740
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