of new St Paul's Cathedral in London. December 14 – The première of Electre by Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon takes place in Paris. December 17 – Deborah Churchill, British pickpocket and prostitute, is executed before a large crowd for being an accomplice to murder. Date unknown Fearful of a Swedish attack, the Russians blow up the city of Tartu, Estonia. The Russians burned the city of Porvoo, Finland (at the time part of Sweden).About Porvoo – Metal Safaris One third of the population of Masuria dies of the plague. Johann Sebastian Bach is appointed as chamber musician and organist, at the court in Weimar. Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico delivers his inaugural lecture to the University of Naples, which will be published in 1709 as his first book, De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione (On the Order of the Scholarly Disciplines of Our Times). Calcareous hard-paste porcelain is produced for the first time in Europe, at Dresden, Saxony, by Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, and developed after his death (October) by Johann Friedrich Böttger. The Company of Merchants of London Trading (with consent of the Parliament of Great Britain) merges with the East Indies, and the more recently established English Company Trading to the East Indies, to form the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, known as the Honourable East India Company. Births January–March January 1 – Anton Wilhelm Plaz, German physician and botanist (d. 1784) January 3 – Johannes Van Rensselaer, member of the prominent colonial Van Rensselaer family (d. 1783) January 10 – Donat Nonnotte, French painter who specialized in portraiture (d. 1785) January 14 – Charles Armand René de La Trémoille, French soldier and president of the States of Brittany (d. 1741) January 15 – Giovanni Salvemini, Italian mathematician and astronomer (d. 1791) January 17 – Henry Brydges, 2nd Duke of Chandos (d. 1771) January 23 – Luigi Crespi, Italian painter (d. 1779) January 25 – Pompeo Batoni, Italian painter (d. 1787) January 26 – William Hayes, composer (d. 1777) January 27 Robert Marsham, English naturalist considered to be the founding father of phenology (d. 1797) Jean-François-Joseph de Rochechouart, French Roman Catholic Cardinal (d. 1777) January 30 – Georg Dionysius Ehret, botanist and entomologist known for his botanical illustrations (d. 1770) February 3 – Johann Michael Hartung, German organ builder and public figure from Dürkheim (d. 1763) February 8 – Václav Jan Kopřiva, Bohemian composer