Events that took place in 1754

January–June

• January 28 – Horace Walpole, in a letter to Horace Mann, coins the word serendipity.

• February 25 – Guatemalan Sergeant Major Melchor de Mencos y Varón departs the city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala with an infantry battalion, to fight British pirates that reportedly disembarked on the coasts of Petén (today Belize) and were sacking the nearby towns.

• March 25 – The Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 comes into force in England and Wales, placing marriage in that jurisdiction on a statutory basis for the first time.

• April 30 – Guatemalan Sergeant Mayor Melchor de Mencos y Varón and his troops defeat the British pirates in the battle of San Felipe and the Cobá Lagoon.

• May 28 – The Battle of Jumonville Glen begins the French and Indian War in North America.

• June 19 – The Albany Congress of New England Colonies proposes an American Union.

July–December

• July – Columbia University is founded as King's College by royal charter of King George II of England. The college is originally located in Lower Manhattan. Instruction is suspended in 1776 and the school reopens in 1784 as Columbia College. With the college's growth in the 19th Century, it is renamed Columbia University in 1896.

• December 13 – Osman III (1754–1757) succeeds Mahmud I as Ottoman Emperor.

Undated

• Surveyor William Churton lays out what will become the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina. The town is named Corbin Town for Francis Corbin, a member of the North Carolina governor's council. Corbin Town is renamed Childsburgh in 1759 and finally Hillsborough in 1766.

Ongoing

• Revolt of the Comuneros (New Granada)

• Samuel Johnson writing A Dictionary of the English Language (begun in 1746)

Births

• January 15

• *Richard Martin, Irish founder of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (d. 1834)

• *Jacques Pierre Brissot, French politician (d. 1795)

• January 30 – John Lansing, Jr., American statesman (d. 1829)

• February 13 – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French politician (d. 1838)

• March 4 – Benjamin Waterhouse, Cambridge physician and medical professor (smallpox vaccine pioneer) (d. 1846)

• March 17 – Madame Roland (Jeanne Marie Manon Philipon), French politician (d. 1793)

• March 23 – Baron Jurij Vega, Slovenian mathematician, physicist, and artillery officer (d. 1802)

• May 31 – Dominique Catherine de Pérignon, Marshal of France (d. 1818)

• June 4 – Franz Xaver, Baron Von Zach, German scientific editor and astronomer (d. 1832)

• July 11 – Thomas Bowdler, English physician (d. 1825)

• August 2 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant, French architect (d. 1825)

• August 21 – William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (d. 1839)

• August 23 – King Louis XVI of France (d. 1793)

• September 9 – William Bligh, English sailor (d. 1817)

• September 26 – Joseph Proust, French chemist (d. 1826)

• september 20 – Emperor Paul I of Russia (d. 1801)

• December 24 – George Crabbe, English poet (d. 1832)

• date unknown

• *Usman dan Fodio, Nigerian Islamic theologian (d. 1817)

• *William Drennan, Northern Irish poet (d. 1820)

Deaths

• January 10 – Edward Cave, English editor and publisher (b. 1691)

• January 28 – Ludvig Holberg, Norwegian dramatist and writer (b. 1684)

• February 16 – Richard Mead, English physician (b. 1673)

• March 6 – Henry Pelham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1696)

• March 23 – Johann Jakob Wettstein, Swiss theologian (b. 1693)

• April 2 – Thomas Carte, English historian (b. 1686)

• April 9 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician, and scientist (b. 1679)

• April 15 – Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (b. 1676)

• May 14 – Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée, French writer (b. 1692)

• May 23 – John Wood, the Elder, English architect (b. 1704)

• June 2 – Ebenezer Erskine, Scottish religious dissenter (b. 1680)

• July 4 – Philippe Néricault Destouches, French dramatist (b. 1680)

• October 4 – Tanacharison, Catawba Indian chief (b. c. 1700)

• October 8 – Henry Fielding, English novelist (b. 1707)

• November 27 – Abraham de Moivre, French mathematician (b. 1667)

• December 12 – Wu Jingzi, Chinese writer (b. 1701)

• December 13 – Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1696)