Events of 1746

January–June

• January 8 – Bonnie Prince Charlie occupies Stirling.

• January 17 – Battle of Falkirk: British Government forces are defeated by Jacobite forces.

• April 16 – The Battle of Culloden brings an end to the Jacobite Rising.

• June – Samuel Johnson is contracted to write his A Dictionary of the English Language.

• June 16 – Battle of Piacenza: Austrian forces defeat French and Spanish troops.

• June 29 – Catherine of Ricci (b. 1522) is canonized.

July–December

• August 1 – The wearing of the kilt is banned in Scotland by the Dress Act (Note: the actual effective date of the Dress Act was August 1, 1747, not 1746 – see the text at Dress Act).

• August 18 – Two of the four rebellious Scottish lords, Earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmeniro, are beheaded in the Tower (Lord Lovat was executed in 1747).

• September 20 – Bonnie Prince Charlie flees to the Isle of Skye from Arisaig, after the unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1745, marked by the Prince's Cairn on the banks of Loch nan Uamh

• October 22 – The College of New Jersey is founded (it becomes Princeton University in 1896).

• October 28 – An earthquake demolishes Lima and Callao, in Peru.

Undated

• The town of Vilkovo (Odes'ka oblast', Ukraine) is founded.

• Royal Colony of North Carolina Governor Gabriel Johnston moves to the province's largest and most prosperous city of New Bern. As a result, New Bern replaces Edenton as the capital of North Carolina (a title it holds until Raleigh is established in 1792).

Births

• January 12 – Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss pedagogue (d. 1827)

• January 24 – King Gustav III of Sweden (d. 1792)

• February 4 – Tadeusz Kościuszko, Polish general and nationalist (d. 1817)

• February 5 – Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, American politician and soldier (d. 1825)

• March 7 – André Michaux, French botanist (d. 1802)

• March 30 – Francisco Goya, Spanish painter (d. 1828)

• July 3 – Henry Grattan, Irish politician (d. 1820)

• July 7 – Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian astronomer (d. 1826)

• July 23 – Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish military leader, aided the United States in its quest for independence in the American Revolutionary War (d. 1786)

• September 28 – Sir William Jones, English philologist (d. 1794)

• November 27 – Robert R. Livingston, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1813)

• date unknown

• *Hong Liangji, Chinese scholar, statesman, political theorist, and philosopher

• *Isaac Swainson, English botanist (d. 1812)

Deaths

• February 28 – Hermann von der Hardt, German historian (b. 1660)

• March 18 – Anna Leopoldovna, regent of Russia (b. 1718)

• March 20 – Nicolas de Largillière, French painter (b. 1656)

• May 6 – William Tennent, Scottish-American theologian (b. 1673)

• May 22 – Thomas Southerne, Irish playwright (b. 1660)

• June 14 – Colin Maclaurin, Scottish mathematician (b. 1698)

• July 2 – Thomas Baker, English antiquarian (b. 1656)

• July 9 – King Philip V of Spain (b. 1683)

• July 28 – John Peter Zenger, American printer (b. 1697)

• August 6 – Christian VI, King of Denmark and Norway (b. 1699)

• October 2 – Josiah Burchett, English Secretary of the Admiralty (b. c. 1666)

• November 14 – Georg Wilhelm Steller, German naturalist (b. 1709)

• December 6 – Lady Grizel Baillie, Scottish poet (b. 1665)

• December 8 – Charles Radclyffe, British politician (b. 1693)