1708

September 28: Peter the Great leads Russia to victory over Sweden in Battle of Lesnaya.

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Template:Year article header In the Swedish calendar it was a leap year starting on Wednesday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January 1 – Charles XII of Sweden invades Russia, by crossing the frozen Vistula River with 40,000 men.
January 7 – Bashkir rebels besiege Yelabuga.^[1]
January 12 – Shahu I becomes the fifth Chhatrapati of the Maratha Empire in the Indian subcontinent.
February 26 – HMS Falmouth, a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line built at Woolwich Dockyard for the British Royal Navy, is launched.
March 11 – Anne, Queen of Great Britain, withholds Royal Assent from the Scottish Militia Bill, the last time a British monarch vetoes legislation.
March 23 – James Francis Edward Stuart, Jacobite pretender to the throne of Great Britain, unsuccessfully tries to land from a French fleet in the Firth of Forth in Scotland.
April 8 – Easter Sunday: The first performance of George Frideric Handel's oratorio La resurrezione takes place in Rome.
April 9 – Ottoman princess Emine Sultan, daughter of Sultan Mustafa II, marries Grand Vizier Çorlulu Ali Pasha.
April 28 – The Great Hoei fire breaks out in Kyoto, Japan, destroying the Imperial Palace and a large portion of the old capital.
June 8 – War of the Spanish Succession: Wager's Action, a naval confrontation, takes place between a British squadron under Charles Wager and the Spanish treasure fleet off Cartagena in the Caribbean Sea. Spanish galleon San José explodes and sinks with the loss of almost all her 600 crew and an estimated 8.8 million ounces troy weight in gold;^[2] her wreck is located in 2015.

July 1 – Tewoflos becomes Emperor of Ethiopia.
July 11 – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Oudenarde – Allied forces under the command of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defeat the French in the Spanish Netherlands.^[3]
August – The future Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor weds Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
August 3 – In the Battle of Trenčín, 8,000 soldiers of the Imperial Army of the Habsburgs are victorious over the 15,000 Hungarian Kuruc forces of Francis II Rákóczi.
August 18 – War of the Spanish Succession: Menorca is captured by British forces.^[3]
August 23 – Meidingu Pamheiba is crowned King of Manipur.
August 29 – A French-Native American attack in Haverhill, Massachusetts kills 16 settlers.
September 28 (O.S.); September 29 (Swedish calendar); October 9 (N.S.) – Great Northern War: Battle of Lesnaya – Peter the Great of Russia defeats the forces of the Swedish Empire.
October 12 – War of the Spanish Succession: British forces capture Lille after a two-month siege, although the citadel continues to hold out for another six weeks.^[4]
October 26 – Topping out of new St Paul's Cathedral in London.^[5]
December 14 – The première of Electre by Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon takes place in Paris.^[6]
December 17 – Deborah Churchill, British pickpocket and prostitute, is executed before a large crowd for being an accomplice to murder.

Fearful of a Swedish attack, the Russians blow up the city of Tartu, Estonia.
The Russians burn the city of Porvoo, Finland (at the time part of Sweden).^[7]^[8]
One third of the population of Masuria dies of the plague.
Johann Sebastian Bach is appointed as chamber musician and organist, at the court in Weimar.
Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico delivers his inaugural lecture to the University of Naples, which will be published in 1709 as his first book, De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione (On the Order of the Scholarly Disciplines of Our Times).
Calcareous hard-paste porcelain is produced for the first time in Europe, at Dresden, Saxony, by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, and developed after his death (October) by Johann Friedrich Böttger.
The Company of Merchants of London Trading (with consent of the Parliament of Great Britain) merges with the East Indies, and the more recently established English Company Trading to the East Indies, to form the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, known as the Honourable East India Company.^[9]