(Australia), in HMS Roebuck, reaches Dirk Hartog Island, at the mouth of what he calls Shark Bay in Western Australia, and he begins producing the first known detailed record of Australian flora and fauna. August 25 – Christian V, King of Denmark–Norway since 1670, dies and is succeeded by his son, Frederick IV (to 1730). September 23 – Total solar eclipse visible in the northern hemisphere across Europe, the Middle East and north India October–December October 3 – The Liverpool Merchant, the first slave ship from the port of Liverpool in England, departs to imprison captured West Africans and transport them to the British colonies, arriving in Barbados on September 18, 1700 with 220 slaves. October 11 – The opera Marthésie, première reine des Amazones (Marthesia, First Queen of the Amazons), composed by André Cardinal Destouches, is performed for the first time, premiering at Fontainebleau near Paris. October – An edict by King Louis XIV establishes an office of police magistrate in almost every village in France, with the title of lieutenant general de police created. November 22 – The Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye, negotiated by Johann Patkul, is signed at a palace of the Tsar of Russia Peter the Great, and representatives of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony to provide for the partition of Swedish Empire between Saxony, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Kingdom of Denmark and the Russian Empire. The attack on Sweden, which takes place on February 22, starts the Great Northern War. December 3 – Baron Jacob Hop is appointed as the treasurer-general of The Hague. December 10 – A major ice storm shuts down the city of Boston for a week and freezing rain brings down many tree branches and causes severe damage to orchards. December 20 – Peter the Great orders the Russian New Year changed, from 1 September to 1 January. Births January–March January 2 – FitzRoy Henry Lee, British officer of the Royal Navy, Commodore Governor of the Colony of Newfoundland (d. 1750) January 9 Christian Tobias Damm, renowned German Classical philologist (d. 1778) Robert Joseph Pothier, French jurist (d. 1772) January 11 – Friedrich Wilhelm Quirin von Forcade de Biaix, Royal Prussian Lieutenant General (d. 1765) January 14 – Jakob Adlung, German organist, teacher, instrument maker, music historian, composer and music theorist (d. 1762) January 16 – Franz Christoph Anton, Count of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, member of