August 20, 1738. July–September July 1 – English metallurgist William Champion is granted a patent for his process of extracting zinc from other materials in a furnace. July 10 – Thomas Pellow of Cornwall finally escapes captivity, 23 years after having been captured by Barbary pirates and held as a slave in Morocco. He arrives in British territory when the ship he is on sails into Gibraltar Bay on July 21, and later recounts his story in the book The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner: Three and Twenty Years in Captivity Among the Moors. August 10 – Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739): The Russian army begins its attempt to cross the Dniester River and fails after three weeks; they are later decimated by plague. September 18 – Samuel Johnson composes his first solemn prayer (published 1785). October–December October 22 – The excavation of Herculaneum, a Roman city buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, begins near the Italian city of Resina on orders from King Charles III of Spain to his engineer, Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre. November 18 – The Treaty of Vienna is ratified, ending the War of the Polish Succession. Under the terms of the treaty, Stanisław Leszczyński receives Lorraine in exchange for renouncing the Polish throne. December 27 – After setting off from Rotterdam in August with 240 immigrants to America, the British ship Princess Augusta is wrecked near Block Island off of the coast of the colony of Rhode Island. During the voyage, 200 passengers and seven crew died from illness spread by contaminated water. Another 20 die after the crew leaves and rows to shore. The wreck later becomes the subject of the legend of the "Palatine Light" ghost ship and of John Greenleaf Whittier's 1867 poem "The Palatine". Date unknown China's Qing government announces that all western businessmen have to use the Cohong in Guangzhou to trade. Pierre Louis Maupertuis publishes Sur la figure de la terre, which confirms Newton's view that the earth is an oblate spheroid, slightly flattened at the poles. Black Forest clockmaker Franz Ketterer produces one of the earliest cuckoo clocks. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, having completed a law degree, is hired as a court musician by Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great (Bach will remain in Frederick's service until 1768). Holy Royal Arch is founded. Rémy Martin is granted exclusive permission by King Louis XV of