1698

January–June

• January 1 - The Abenaki tribe and the Massachusetts colonists sign a treaty, ending the conflict in New England.
• January 4 - The Palace of Whitehall in London, England is destroyed by fire.
• January 23 - George Louis becomes Elector of Hanover.

  July–December

• July 14 - Darien scheme: The first Scottish settlers leave for an ill-fated colony in Panama.
• July 25 - English engineer Thomas Savery obtains a patent for a steam pump.
• August 25 - Peter the Great arrives back in Moscow; General Patrick Gordon has already crushed the Streltsy Uprising, with 341 rebels sentenced to be decapitated.
• September 5 - In an effort to move his people away from Asiatic customs, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposes a tax on beards: all men except priests and peasants are required to pay a tax of either 100 or 60 rubles a year, depending upon status; peasants are required to pay two half kopecks each time they enter a city.
• October 24 - Iberville and Bienville sail from Brest to the Gulf of Mexico, to defend the southern borders of New France; they will eventually found three capitals of Louisiana, as the future American cities of Mobile, Biloxi & New Orleans.
• November - Tani Jinzan, astronomer and calendar scholar, observes a fire destroy Tosa in Japan at the same time as a Leonid meteor shower, taking it as evidence to reinforce belief in the "Theory of Areas".
• November 14 - The first Eddystone Lighthouse, built off Plymouth, England, is illuminated.
• November 16 - A congress begins in Sremski Karlovci, to discuss a treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy League.

  Date unknown

• Bucharest becomes the capital of Wallachia.
• In Africa, Mombasa and Zanzibar are captured by Oman.
• The Whigs sponsor Captain Kidd of New York as a privateer against French shipping.
• Humphrey Hody is appointed regius professor of Greek at Oxford.
• John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough is reinstated in the English army after a period in disgrace.
• Since the establishment of its presidencies in 1689, the British East India Company has been under constant pressure from traders who are not members of the company, and are not licensed by the Crown to trade. Under a parliamentary ruling in favour of free trade, these private newcomers are able to set up a new company, called the New Company or English Company.

  Births

• January 3 - Metastasio,, Italian poet and opera librettist
• February - Colin Maclaurin, Scottish mathematician
• February 16 - Pierre Bouguer, French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer
• March 26 - Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech priest, scientist and inventor
• May 8 - Henry Baker, English naturalist
• May 17 - Gio Nicola Buhagiar, Maltese painter
• July 17 - Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, French mathematician
• July 19 - Johann Jakob Bodmer, Swiss author
• September 6 - Jean Thurel, French soldier
• September 26 - William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire
• November 4 - Caleb Fleming, English dissenting minister, polemicist
• November 28 - Charlotta Frölich, Swedish agronomist
• December 24 - William Warburton, English critic and Bishop of Gloucester
• date unknown
• *Bernard Forest de Bélidor, French engineer
• *William Moraley, English-American indentured servant and autobiographer, a primary source for life in the Province of Pennsylvania
• *Baal Shem Tov, Polish rabbi and founder of the Hasidic movement of Judaism.

  Deaths

• January 15 - Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington, Anglo-Irish nobleman, Lord High Treasurer of Ireland, Cavalier
• January 10 - Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont, French historian
• January 22 - Frederick Casimir Kettler, Duke of Courland and Semigallia
• January 23 - Ernest Augustus, Elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg
• February 16 - Sir James Rushout, 1st Baronet, English politician
• March 6 - Philip Sidney, 3rd Earl of Leicester, English politician
• March 14 - Claes Rålamb, Swedish statesman
• March 16 - Leonora Christina Ulfeldt, Danish countess
• April 11 - Charles Morton, Cornish nonconformist minister
• April 29 - Charles Cornwallis, 3rd Baron Cornwallis, First Lord of the British Admiralty
• May 15 - Marie Champmeslé, French actress
• June 5 - Elizabeth Maitland, Duchess of Lauderdale, influential British noblewoman
• June 11 - Balthasar Bekker, Dutch minister and author of philosophical and theological works
• June 29 - Paluzzo Paluzzi Altieri degli Albertoni, Italian Catholic cardinal
• June 30 - Charles Cheyne, 1st Viscount Newhaven, English Member of Parliament
• July 13 - Charles Somerset, Marquess of Worcester, English politician
• July 18 - Johann Heinrich Heidegger, Swiss theologian
• August 14 - Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, Spanish cleric and bishop
• August 25 - Fleetwood Sheppard, English poet
• August 31 - Miguel Jerónimo de Molina, Spanish prelate and bishop
• September 13 - John Huddleston, English Benedictine priest
• October 11 - William Molyneux, Irish philosopher and writer
• October 23 - David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, German artist
• November 4 - Rasmus Bartholin, Danish physician and scientist
• November 13 - Johann, Count of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg
• November 23 - César-Pierre Richelet, French grammarian and lexicographer
• November 28 - Louis de Buade de Frontenac, Governor of New France
• December 1 - Ferdinand Joseph, Prince of Dietrichstein, German prince
• December 16 - Simone Pignoni, Italian painter
• December 26 - Wolfgang Julius, Count of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, German field marshal
• date unknown
• * Nicholas Barbon, English economist
• * Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, Flemish alchemist
• in fiction - Mircalla Karnstein, Countess of Karnstein