This Year in History - 1708

Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

Each year, as the holiday season comes around and news becomes thin on the ground, we look back into history for a snapshot of the news in centuries past .....

1708 was a rather dull year for literature, at least from the perspective of modern-day readers looking for works by authors still well known today, but it was an important year for three historians who used their retirement to produce notable works:

The first volume of Theologian Joseph Bingham's 10 volume Antiquities of the Christian Church was published; on its completion in 1722 it provided an exhaustive and methodical account of the antiquities of the Christian Church.

Theater critic and theologian Jeremy Collier published the first volume of his Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain - which, while controversial, became widely used.

Theater prompter John Downes published his history of the Restoration stage, Roscius Anglicanus, which is still considered a valuable resource.

Meanwhile, on the wider stage, Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs, sat on the throne of the newly formed Great Britain (England and Scotland having been joined by the Acts of Union the previous year); the allies, led by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, won a decisive victory in the War of the Spanish Succession at the Battle of Oudenaarde (in what is now Belgium); Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed a chamber musician and organist at the German court; and a native American attack in Massachusetts killed 16 settlers.

This year in history for '08 can be found by clicking the tag at the top of this entry. This year in history for '07 is stored in BookBrowse's "News" section. For example, 1707.