The year is 1745.

Jean Jacques Rousseau is 33 years old, Voltaire is 51, Carl Linnaeus 38 and Benjamin Franklin 39.  The author of Gulliver’s travels, Jonathan Swift died.  In England king George II ruled. Bonnie Prince Charley came to Scotland to claim the English throne, but was defeated at Culloden the year after. In France king Louis XV sat on the throne, in Austria empress Maria Theresia and in Germany the philosopher-king Fredrick II.  In the United Dutch Republics the people called for a prince of Orange-Nassau, who was invited to become the ‘stadtholder’ under the name of Willem IV in 1747. More >