Events January–March January 16 – The application of the Nueva Planta decrees to Catalonia make it subject to the laws of the Crown of Castile, and abolishes the Principality of Catalonia as a political entity, concluding the unification of Spain under Philip V. January 27 – The Tugaloo massacre changes the course of the Yamasee War, allying the Cherokee nation with the British province of South Carolina against the Creek Indian nation. January 28 – The town of Crieff, Scotland, is burned to the ground by Jacobites returning from the Battle of Sheriffmuir. February 3 – The 1716 Algiers earthquake sequence began with an 7.0 mainshock that caused severe damage and killed 20,000 in Algeria. February 10 – James Edward Stuart flees from Scotland to France with a handful of supporters, following the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715. February 24 – Jacobite leaders James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater and William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure are executed in London. March 8 – King Charles XII of Sweden leads an invasion of Norway, crossing the border at Basmo near the modern-day town of Marker March 10 – Simon Fraser, a former Scottish rebel who had helped end the Siege of Inverness during the first Jacobite rising, is given a pardon by King George I of Great Britain. March 18 – Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri arrives in Lhasa to become one of the first Europeans to attempt to bring Christianity to Buddhist Tibet. March 23 – Jeremias III becomes the new Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, leader of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. April–June April 13 – Austria, ruled by King Charles VI, renews its alliance with the Republic of Venice, leading the Ottoman Empire, ruled by Ahmed III, to declare war. May 20 – John Law founds the Banque Générale Privée in Paris. May 26 – Two regular companies of field artillery, each 100 men strong, are raised at Woolwich, by Royal Warrant of King George I of Great Britain. May 28 – John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, suffers a paralytic stroke. June 9 – In India, 600 imprisoned members of the failed Sikh Khalsa rebellion against the Mughal Empire are executed on orders of the Emperor Farrukhsiyar. Banda Singh Bahadur, leader of the rebellion, is brutally tortured and mutilated before being killed. June 19 – The new Tokugawa Shogun of Japan, Tokugawa Yoshimune, assumes control of