Year 1696 (MDCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 10-day slower Julian calendar).

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The year 1696 had the earliest dates for equinoxes and solstices for 400 years in the Gregorian calendar, because this year was the last leap year of the century, and subsequent years (by skipping leap day, also in 1700) allowed the equinoxes to edge towards later dates. However, prior to the 1582 Gregorian reform, the equinoxes were even much earlier, by the extra 10-day shift (see 1903).

Events of 1696

thumb|210px|right| [[January 27: HMS Sovereign of the Seas accidentally burns.]]

January–June

• January 27 – In England, the ship HMS Royal Sovereign (formerly HMS Sovereign of the Seas 1638) catches fire and burns at Chatham, after 57 years of service.

• January 29 (O.S.) – Peter the Great becomes sole tsar of Russia, upon the death of Tsar Ivan V.

• January 31 – In the Netherlands, undertakers revolt after funeral reforms in Amsterdam.

• January – In England, the Recoinage Act is passed in Parliament.

• January – Colley Cibber's play Love's Last Shift is performed at the Theatre Royal.

• March 7 – English king Willem III departs from the Netherlands.

• April – Fire destroys the Gra Bet (or Left Quarter) of Gondar, the capital of Ethiopia.

• May 31 – John Salomonsz is elected chief of Saint-Eustatius.

July–December

• July 18 – The fleet of Tsar Peter I of Russia occupies Azov at the mouth of the Don River.

• July 29 – French king Louis XIV and Victor Amadeus van Savoye sign a peace treaty.

• August 13 – The State of Drenthe announces Willem III as mayor.

• August 22 – Forces of Venice and Turkish troops clash near Molino.

• October 29 – Fuller Baptist Church is founded in Kettering, England.

• November 21 – John Vanbrugh's Relapse or Virtue in Danger premieres in London.

• December 7 – Connecticut Route 108, one of Connecticut's oldest highways is laid-out to Trumbull.

• December 19 – Jean-Francois Regnard's "Le Joueur" premieres in Paris.

• December 24 – The Inquisition burns a number of Marrano Jews in Evora, Portugal.

Undated

• Freedom of the press is granted by the British government which had already relaxed censorship following the Bill of Rights in 1689. Technically, freedom of the press came about because Parliament decided not to renew its Licensing Act in 1695. It is from this time that sport is increasingly reported.

• Lloyd's News, forerunner of Lloyd's List is founded.

• Polish replaces Ruthenian as an official language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

• A famine wipes out almost a third of the population of Finland and a fifth of the population of Estonia.

• Abington, Pennsylvania is settled.

• William Penn offers an elaborate plan for intercolonial cooperation largely in trade, defense, and criminal matters.

• The Second Pueblo Revolt occurs.

• Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captures and destroys St. John's, Newfoundland.

Births

• January 5 – Giuseppe Galli-Bibiena, Italian architect/painter (d. 1757)

• March 27 – Antoine Court, French Huguenot minister (d. 1760)

• March 5 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Italian painter (d. 1770)

• June 11 – Francis Edward James Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (d. 1758)

• June 27 – William Pepperrell, English colonial soldier (d. 1759)

• July 14 – William Oldys, English antiquarian and bibliographer (d. 1761)

• August 2 – Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1754)

• August 12 – Maurice Greene, English composer (d. 1755)

• September 27 – Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptorist Order (d.1787)

• October 10 – Chen Hongmou, Chinese scholar and philosopher (d. 1771)

• October 13 – John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey, English statesman and writer (d. 1743)

• November 2 – Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania's ambassador to the Iroquois Confederacy (d. 1760)

• December 22 – James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia as a colony (d. 1785)

• date unknown – Benning Wentworth, colonial governor of New Hampshire (d. 1770)

Deaths

• January 11 – Charles Albanel, French missionary explorer in Canada (b. 1616)

• February 8 – Tsar Ivan V of Russia (b. 1666)

• February – Ahom King Supaatphaa or Gadadhar Singha

• March 14 – Jean Domat, French jurist (b. 1625)

• March 18 – Robert Charnock, English conspirator (b. c.1663)

• April 17 – Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné, French writer (b. 1626)

• April 30 – Robert Plot, British naturalist (b. 1640)

• May 10 – Jean de La Bruyère, French writer (b. 1645)

• May 26 – Albertine Agnes of Nassau, regent of Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe (b. 1634)

• May 30 – Henry Capell, 1st Baron Capell, First Lord of the British Admiralty (b. 1638)

• June 17 – John III of Poland (b. 1629)

• August 2 – Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, Scottish military commander at the Massacre of Glencoe (b. 1630)

• September 17 – John III Sobieski, King of Poland (b. 1629)

• December 4 – Meisho, empress of Japan (b. 1624)

• date unknown – Daibhidh Ó Duibhgheannáin (b. 1651)

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