1758
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1 January 1758 The cantata Gefährten zum Ewgen TWV I: 590 by Georg Philipp Telemann (76) is performed for the first time, in Hamburg.
Wenzel Anton, Count von Kaunitz replaces Marie Ernestine Franziska as Count of Rietberg.
Behold the Circle forms, an ode by William Boyce (46) to words of Cibber, is performed for the first time.
2 January 1758 Adriano in Siria, an opera seria by Rinaldo di Capua (53) to words of Metastasio, is performed for the first time, in the Torre Argentina, Rome.
6 January 1758 The third version of Tito Manlio, an opera seria by Niccolò Jommelli (43), is performed for the first time, in the Ducal Theatre, Stuttgart.
8 January 1758 La fausse esclave, an opéra comique by Christoph Willibald Gluck (43) to words after Anseaume and Marcouville, is performed for the first time, in the Vienna Burgtheater.
14 January 1758 Ipermestra, an opera seria by Baldassare Galuppi (51) to words of Metastasio, is performed for the first time, in the Regio Ducal, Milan.
21 January 1758 Alessandro nelle Indie, an opera seria by Niccolò Piccinni (30) to words of Metastasio, is performed for the first time, at the Teatro Argentina, Rome.
22 January 1758 Russian troops occupy Königsberg (Kaliningrad), left open by the retreating Prussians.
24 January 1758 Empress Yelizaveta of Russia demands an oath of allegiance from the Königsberg authorities, effectively annexing East Prussia.
1 February 1758 The Prophetess, or The History of Dioclesian, a musical play by Thomas Augustine Arne (47) to words of Betterton, is performed for the first time, at Covent Garden, London.
11 February 1758 Two works by Niccolò Jommelli (43) are performed for the first time, in the Ducal Theatre, Stuttgart, in honor of the Duke’s birthday: the third version of the opera seria Ezio and the serenata L’asilo d’amore both to words of Metastasio.
21 February 1758 Two odes by William Boyce (46) appear in the first performance of Agis, a tragedy by Home, in the Drury Lane Theatre, London.
12 March 1758 In a furious fight near Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga), the French and their Abanaki allies spring a trap on Rogers’ Rangers, and the two sides battle the afternoon and night. Casualties are high on both sides.
14 March 1758 The remnants of Rogers’ Rangers straggle into Fort Edward (near Glens Falls, New York).
Les Israëlites à la Montagne d’Oreb, an oratorio by Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville (46), is performed for the first time, in Paris. It causes a sensation.
16 March 1758 A British fleet leaves England carrying 14,000 men for service in Nova Scotia.
1 April 1758 Pope Benedict XIV orders an investigation of the Society of Jesus by Cardinal Saldanha, based on allegations from King José of Portugal.
2 April 1758 Prussian forces lay siege to the Austrian garrison of Schweidnitz (Swidnica) in Silesia.
10 April 1758 Giovanni Battista Sammartini (57) is among the founders of the Accademia Filarmonica, Milan, an orchestra of amateur players.
11 April 1758 By the London Convention, signed today, Great Britain will give subsidies to Prussia and a British army is allowed to be maintained in Germany.
16 April 1758 Prussian troops assault the Austrian garrison of Ft. Galgen at Schweidnitz (Swidnica).
18 April 1758 Austrians in Schweidnitz (Swidnica) surrender to besieging Prussians.
29 April 1758 French and British fleets fight an indecisive battle off Pondicherry.
3 May 1758 The British East India Company trading town of Gondelour (Cuddalore), India, just south of Pondicherry), surrenders to the French.
Prospero Lambertini, Pope Benedict XIV, dies in Rome.
8 May 1758 Prussian forces lay siege to Olmütz (Olomouc), 120 km north of Vienna.
9 May 1758 Les fêtes de Paphos, an opéra-ballet by Jean-Joseph Cassanea de Mondonville (46) to words of Voisenon, is performed for the first time, at the Paris Opéra.
15 May 1758 Cardinal Saldanha finds that the Jesuits are guilty of allegations brought by King José of Portugal.
25 May 1758 Modern German orchestral music is heard for the first time in London, with the performance of two symphonies by Franz Xaver Richter (48).
28 May 1758 One-year-old Carl August replaces Ernst August II as Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
1 June 1758 Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick constructs a pontoon bridge across the Rhine near the Dutch border and begins putting his British and Hanoverian army across.
2 June 1758 Most of their colonial troops having fled, the British defenders of Fort St. David at Gondelour, India, surrender to the French. The conquerors destroy the fort and all the buildings of the British East India Company in the town.
The British invasion force arrives off Louisbourg, including 157 ships and 14,000 men.
7 June 1758 Jesuits are forbidden from preaching or hearing confessions in Portugal.
8 June 1758 Optician John Dollond reports to the Royal Society that achromatic (blur-free) lenses can be made, thus disproving Newton.
A British landing force attempts to come ashore at Louisbourg under withering fire from the French defenders. Only a small number manage to make it to shore, but the French, unaware of the relative numbers, withdraw. This allows the British to build a beachhead.
22 June 1758 Domine ad adiuvandum in D for soprano, chorus and orchestra by Johann Christian Bach (22) is performed for the first time, in Milan.
23 June 1758 British and Hanoverian forces defeat a larger French army at Crefeld, 15 km northwest of Düsseldorf. Almost 6,000 people are killed or wounded. This draws the French back to the Rhine and prevents them from coming to the aid of the Empire further east.
William Boyce (46) is named organist to the Chapel Royal.
30 June 1758 Prussian troops are forced to lift their siege of Olmütz (Olomouc) when the Austrians cut off their supplies.
1 July 1758 French forces attack out of Louisbourg making steady progress but after two hours the fight is broken off by both sides.
6 July 1758 Carlo Rezzonico dei conti della Torre becomes Pope Clement XIII.
British artillery begins landing inside the fort at Louisbourg. One hits the hospital, killing the chief surgeon.
8 July 1758 An attack by 17,000 British troops on Ft. Carillon (Ticonderoga) on Lake Champlain is repulsed by the French garrison with 2,000 killed or captured.
21 July 1758 British artillery strikes the French flagship Entreprenant at Louisbourg. The fire reaches the magazine which explodes. This also ignites two other ships. All three are lost.
22 July 1758 British forces begin a 24-hour bombardment of Louisbourg, including the town itself.
24 July 1758 The Austrian government orders all churches to announce from the pulpit it’s displeasure that so many young men have mutilated themselves to avoid military service.
26 July 1758 The French governor of Louisbourg surrenders the fort to the surrounding British.
27 July 1758 British forces enter Louisbourg. There were about 1,300 total casualties in the two-month battle for the garrison. The inhabitants will be transported to France.
3 August 1758 A British fleet defeats the French off Pondicherry, but the French largely escape.
7 August 1758 Francesco Maria Veracini (68) assumes duties as maestro di cappella for the Theatine Fathers of San Gaetano in the church of San Michele agl’Antinori, Florence, a post he will hold until his death.
10 August 1758 The London Magdalen Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes is founded by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce, and Manufactures.
17 August 1758 Four British warships sail into Hillsborough Bay, Île St.-Jean (Prince Edward Island) with orders to remove all of the Acadians on the island. The French surrender Port-la-Joie and all of Île St.-Jean. Some Acadians escape, but 3,000 will be deported.
24 August 1758 The publication of three symphonies by Johann Stamitz (†1) (Eb-1, Eb-2, D-2), along with symphonies by Georg Christoph Wagenseil (43) (no.29) and Franz Xaver Richter (48), is advertised in Annonces, Paris.
25 August 1758 Prussian troops attack a larger Russian army at Zorndorf (Sarbinowo), in Prussian territory northeast of Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. The Russians will withdraw on 27 August. 20,000 people are killed or wounded.
27 August 1758 British troops capture Fort Frontenac (Kingston, Ontario) on Lake Ontario from the French.
3 September 1758 With many of his men sick or wounded, Admiral Comte d’Aché quits India, sailing from Pondicherry for Mauritius.
2300 King José of Portugal, riding in a carriage to Belém, is set upon by three horsemen who fire into his carriage. A quick thinking driver makes immediately for Junqueira. A second group of assassins fire into the back of the carriage. The king makes his escape but is wounded in the arm, shoulder and chest.
4 September 1758 The Portuguese royal palace announces that the king has been taken ill. Last night’s events will not be announced until December.
6 September 1758 Georg Philipp Telemann’s (77) cantata Hilf deinen Volk is performed for the first time, for the installation of Johann Dieterich Winckler as priest in St. Nicolai, Hamburg.
11 September 1758 The publication of six “overtures” by Giovanni Battista Sammartini (57) is advertised in Annonces, Paris. Among them is the Symphony no.58, version A.
12 September 1758 French astronomer and comet-hunter Charles Messier observes the Crab Nebula in Taurus. He begins a catalogue of astronomical entities which are neither comets, stars, nor planets in order not to confuse them with what he is looking for.
18 September 1758 British troops arrive off St. John (New Brunswick). Outnumbered 10-1, the French and Indians there run away.
22 September 1758 Giovanni Matteo Francesco Maria Franzoni replaces Giovanni Giacomo Grimaldi as Doge of Genoa.
24 September 1758 The French and Indian defenders of Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh) kill 270 British and capture 100.
29 September 1758 The cantatas Welch Getrümmel erschüttert TWV 1: 558 and Sing Dank und Ehr TWV 1: 1341 by Georg Philipp Telemann (77) are performed for the first time, in Hamburg.
2 October 1758 The first representative assembly in Canada meets in Halifax and constitutes a parliament for Nova Scotia. 19 of the 22 members elected show up today, chosen by landowning British Protestants.
3 October 1758 Christoph Willibald Gluck’s (44) opéra comique L’île de Merlin, ou Le monde renversé to words of Anseaume after Le Sage and d’Orneval, is performed for the first time, at the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna for the nameday of Emperor Franz (which is actually tomorrow).
13 October 1758 The French fleet of Admiral Comte d’Aché arrives in Mauritius from India.
14 October 1758 Imperial forces defeat the Prussians at Hochkirch, in Saxony. For the Prussians, the day is a catastrophe in which King Friedrich is almost killed. They narrowly escape. 17,000 people are killed or wounded.
30 October 1758 The publication of six symphonies op.4 by Johann Stamitz (†1) (F-3, D-4, cm-1, Eb-4, gm-1, Eb-5a) is advertised in Annonces, Paris.
William Boyce’s (47) ode When Othbert left th’Italian plain, to words of Whitehead, is performed for the first time, in honor of the birthday of King George II.
3 November 1758 Louis Antoine de Bougainville, aide-de-camp to Louis Joseph de Montcalm, French commander in North America, departs Montreal for France. He is to report on the condition of New France and ask for reinforcements.
6 November 1758 Christian Günther III replaces Heinrich as Prince of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen.
12 November 1758 A 9,000-man invasion force sails from Portsmouth heading for Barbados, the first part of Secretary of State William Pitt’s plan to capture Martinique.
14 November 1758 Alexis-Claude Clairaut reads his paper predicting the return of Halley’s Comet, to the Academy of Sciences in Paris.
23 November 1758 Thomas Augustine Arne’s (48) masque The Sultan, or Solyman and Zaide is performed for the first time, at Covent Garden, London.
24 November 1758 The French and Indians burn Fort Duquesne in the face of a British advance. They retreat up the Allegheny River to Fort Machault (Franklin, PA).
25 November 1758 British forces occupy the ruins of Ft. Duquesne on the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. The French have burned and abandoned it. The British will rebuild the fort and name it Ft. Pitt (Pittsburgh).
27 November 1758 Two works by Georg Philipp Telemann (77), to words of Richey, are performed for the first time, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Mattfield couple, Hamburg: the cantata Entbrannter andecht helle Flammen and the serenata Sanfter Balsam, süsser Friede.
3 December 1758 Etienne François, duc de Choiseul replace François Joachim de Piernes de Bernis as Chief Minister of France.
4 December 1758 Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov becomes State Chancellor of Russia.
12 December 1758 The advance guard of the French army in India reaches Madras.
14 December 1758 French and colonial troops enter the Indian district of Madras and begin sacking the town. British troops move in to check them but the battle becomes confused and indecisive street fighting resulting in hundreds of casualties.
20 December 1758 After a six-week voyage, Louis Antoine de Bougainville arrives in France at Morlaix. He is sent to King Louis partly to ask for reinforcements for Canada. He will receive 300 soldiers to take back in March.
25 December 1758 The cantata Es jauchzen die Engel TWV I: 517 by Georg Philipp Telemann (77) is performed for the first time, in Hamburg.
Amateur astronomer Johann Georg Palitzsch aims his telescope where Edmund Halley predicted in 1682 that a comet would reappear some 76 years hence, and sees it, although he does not immediately realize which comet this is. Thereafter, it is known as Halley’s Comet.
26 December 1758 Demofoonte, a dramma per musica by Antonio Ferradini to words of Metastasio, and containing one aria by Johann Christian Bach (23), is performed for the first time, in Milan.
27 December 1758 Buovo d’Antona, a dramma giocosa by Tommaso Traetta (31) to words of Goldoni, is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Moisè, Venice.
30 December 1758 A secret alliance is concluded in Paris in which France agrees to keep troops in Germany until the Empire regains Silesia.
31 December 1758 A British force occupies Goree (Dakar), Senegal.
©Paul Scharfenberger 2004-2012
1 June 2012
Last Updated (Friday, 01 June 2012 04:56)