Third Battle of Panipat
The Maratha defeat clears the way for the British in India
On 14 January 1761 the Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Indian allies crushed the Maratha army commanded by Sadashivrao Bhau. It was one of the largest battles of the 18th century: estimates of those killed in the fighting and the massacres that followed range from 60,000 to 100,000. Maratha power was weakened for a decade, the Durranis did not hold northern India, and the British East India Company filled the vacuum.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1755 Lisbon earthquake — 6 years earlier
- 1756–1763 Seven Years' War — 5 years earlier
- c. 1760 Start of the Industrial Revolution — 1 year earlier
- 1769 Watt's steam engine — 8 years later
- 1783–1784 Laki eruption — 22 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1762 Accession of Catherine the Great — 1 year later
- 1764 Founding of the Hermitage — 3 years later
- c. 1768 Extinction of Steller's sea cow — 7 years later
- 1772–1795 Partitions of Poland — 11 years later
- 1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — 22 years later
Middle East
- 1747 Ahmad Shah Durrani founds the Afghan state — 14 years earlier
Americas
- 1776 US Declaration of Independence — 15 years later
Oceania
- 1768–1771 Cook's first voyage — 7 years later
Alive at the time
- Voltaire (aged 67)
- Benjamin Franklin (aged 55)
- Mikhail Lomonosov (aged 50)
- James Cook (aged 33)
- Catherine the Great (aged 32)
- George Washington (aged 29)
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (aged 12)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (aged 5)
- Carl Linnaeus (aged 54)
- Leonhard Euler (aged 54)