The Dzungar genocide
The last great nomad empire of Asia is destroyed
In 1755 a Qing army occupied the Dzungar Khanate of the Oirats, weakened by internal strife, and after Amursana's revolt the Qianlong Emperor ordered the Dzungars exterminated. Historians estimate that some 70–80% of roughly 500,000–600,000 people died from massacre, famine and smallpox, while others fled to Russia and the Kazakh steppe. The Qing resettled the emptied land with people from elsewhere, and it later became the province of Xinjiang.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 18th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1755 Lisbon earthquake — same year
- 1756–1763 Seven Years' War — 1 year later
- c. 1760 Start of the Industrial Revolution — 5 years later
- 1769 Watt's steam engine — 14 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1762 Accession of Catherine the Great — 7 years later
- 1764 Founding of the Hermitage — 9 years later
- c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — 13 years later
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — 17 years later
Middle East
- 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani founds the Afghan state — 8 years earlier
Americas
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — 21 years later
Oceania
- 1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — 13 years later
Alive at the time
- Voltaire (aged 61)
- Benjamin Franklin (aged 49)
- Mikhail Lomonosov (aged 44)
- James Cook (aged 27)
- Catherine the Great (aged 26)
- George Washington (aged 23)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (aged 6)
- Carl Linnaeus (aged 48)
- Leonhard Euler (aged 48)
- Elizabeth (aged 46)