Frederick, Hans Hermann von Katte is beheaded at the Küstrin Prison. Frederick's father, King Frederick William, forces the prince to watch the execution. December 9 – The first documented notice in North America about freemasonry is published in The Pennsylvania Gazette in an article by its publisher, Benjamin Franklin. December 27 – The Dutch East India Company ends an almost 11-year effort of trying to maintain a colony around Delagoa Bay in southern Africa in modern-day Mozambique. The entire population of the settlement, Fort Lydzammheid (near modern-day Maputo) is evacuated by the ships Snuffelaar, Zeepost and Feyenoord and the group returns to Cape Town. Date unknown The Missouria tribe is all almost destroyed when hundreds are killed in an attack by the Meskwawi and Sauk. Births January 3 – Velu Nachiyar, queen regnant of Sivaganga (d. 1796) March 7 – Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, last prime minister of the French monarchy (d. 1807) April 1 – Salomon Gessner, Swiss painter and newspaper publisher (d. 1788) April 16 – Henry Clinton, British general (d. 1795) April 26 – John Moore, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1805) May 13 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1782) May 28 – Maria Angela Ardinghelli, Italian scientific translator (d. 1825) June 21 – Motoori Norinaga, Japanese philologist, scholar of the kokugaku school (d. 1801) June 30 – Lokenath Brahmachari, Indian saint, yogi and mystic (d. 1890) July 10 – Jean-Baptiste Willermoz, French Freemason (d. 1824) July 12 Anna Barbara Reinhart, Swiss mathematician (d. 1796) Josiah Wedgwood, English pottery manufacturer and abolitionist (d. 1795) July 26 – Charles Messier, French astronomer (d. 1817) August 1 – Frederick Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, English Anglican prelate (d. 1803) August 27 – Johann Georg Hamann, German philosopher (d. 1788) September 7 – Elisabetta de Gambarini, English composer (d. 1765) September 17 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Prussian army officer (d. 1794) November 23 – William Moultrie, American general (d. 1805) December 14 – James Bruce, Scottish explorer (d. 1794) December 25 – Philip Mazzei, Italian physician, friend of Thomas Jefferson (d. 1816) December 30 – William Hamilton, British diplomat, antiquary (d. 1803) date unknown John Cook, American farmer, President of Delaware (d. 1789) Anne Rossignol, African slave trader (d. 1810) John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, Scottish peer and colonial governor in the Americas (d. 1809) White Eyes, Indigenous