Events

• April 10 – Austrian army attack troops of Frederick the Great at Mollwitz
• December 19 – Vitus Bering dies in his expedition east of Siberia
• December 25 – Anders Celsius develops his own thermometer scale Celsius
• William Browning invents mineral water
• Elizabeth of Russia became czarina.

Ongoing events

• War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748)

Births

• January 14 - Benedict Arnold, General in United States' Revolutionary War, turncoat (d. 1801)
• March 13 - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
• March 25 - Jean Antoine Houdon, sculptor
• September 22 - Peter Simon Pallas, German zoologist (d. 1811)
• October 18 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (d. 1803)
• William Withering, British doctor
• Ali Pasha, Albanian ruler under the Ottoman Empire
• Emperor Momozono of Japan

Deaths

• July 28 - Antonio Vivaldi, Italian composer (b. 1678)