Events
January–March
- January 23 – The Principality of Liechtenstein is created, within the Holy Roman Empire.
- February 3 – The Riksdag of the Estates recognizes Ulrika Eleonora‘s claim to the Swedish throne, after she has agreed to sign a new Swedish constitution. Thus, she is recognized as queen regnant of Sweden.
- February 20 – The first Treaty of Stockholm is signed.
- February 28 – Farrukhsiyar, the Mughal Emperor of India since 1713, is deposed by the Sayyid brothers, who install Rafi ud-Darajat in his place. In prison, Farrukhsiyar is strangled by assassins on April 19.
- March 17 – The coronation of Ulrika Eleonora as Queen of Sweden takes place in Stockholm
April–June
- April 4 – The French army under James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick invades the Basque provinces of Spain, with 20,000 troops crossing into Navarre.
- April 19 – In Louisiana (New France), Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville‘s brother Serigny arrives on a French man-of-war, bringing news that war had been declared between France and Spain (from December 1718).
- April 25 – Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe.
- April 26 – King Philip V of Spain departs Madrid and leads 15,000 men of the Spanish Army into Navare to fight the French under Berwick.
- May 14 – In Louisiana (New France), Bienville, from Mobile, captures Pensacola, but Pensacola is later recaptured by the Spanish, and again re-taken by Bienville.
- June 4 – Battle of Ösel Island: A Russian naval force defeats the Swedish fleet.
- June 18 – Captain John Perry fixes Dagenham Breach.
- June 10 – Battle of Glen Shiel: British forces defeat the Jacobites and their Spanish allies.
- June 20 – Battle of Francavilla: The Austrians are defeated by the Spanish.
July–September
- July 11 – Russia‘s Baltic Sea fleet is first spotted from the Swedish coast, starting the Russian Pillage of 1719–21 as part of the Great Northern War.
- July 16 – The Carlsten fortress in Sweden surrenders to a Danish and Norwegian force after a siege of seven days. Colonel Henrich Danckwardt, who surrendered the fortress to Peter Tordenskjold after being away from it while it was still defensible, is beheaded on September 16.
- August 13 – In the Battle of Stäket, Crown Prince Frederick I of Sweden leads the successful defense of Stockholm from Russian Admiral Fyodor Apraksin‘s Baltic Fleet during the Russian Pillage.
- August 20 – Princess Maria Josepha of Austria, at one time the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria’s Habsburg Empire, marries Frederick Augustus, Elector of Saxony ten days of renouncing any claim to the Austrian throne.
- September 3 – The three-story tall Opernhaus am Zwinger, one of the largest opera houses in the world at the time, opens in Dresden by staging Antonio Lotti‘s Giovi in Argo.
- September 18 – James Figg claims the title of bare-knuckle boxing champion of England and defends his title 270 times before retiring in 1730.
- September 29 – owned as the 12th Mughal Emperor of India at Shahjahanabad (now Delhi), 12 days after the death of Shah Jahan II from tuberculosis.
October–December
- October 11 – Fernando Manuel de Bustillo Bustamante y Rueda, the Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines, is assassinated in a blood coup d’etat by supporters of the Archbishop of Manila, whom Bustamante had imprisoned.
- October 14 – The British Army, under the command of Major General George Wade, invade and capture the forts of Vigo on the Atlantic coast of Spain.
- October 21 – The Red Canal is opened in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, after seven years of construction, at a ceremony in the presence of the Tsar Peter the Great.
- October 28 – Sweden and Denmark sign an armistice, halting combat in the Great Northern War between them, with final terms agreed to in the Treaty of Frederiksborg on July 3, 1720.
- November 9 – In a treaty between Sweden and Hanover at the close of the Great Northern War, Sweden cedes the Duchies of Bremen and Verden (in northern Germany) to Hanover.
- December 22 – Andrew Bradford publishes the American Weekly Mercury, Pennsylvania’s first newspaper.