Events January–March January 1 – At least 664 African slaves drown, when the Dutch West Indies Company slave ship Leusden capsizes and sinks in the Maroni River, during its arrival in Surinam. The Dutch crew escapes, and leaves the slaves locked below decks to die. January 3 – George Frideric Handel's opera Faramondo is given its first performance. January 7 – After the Maratha Empire of India wins the Battle of Bhopal over the Jaipur State, Jaipur cedes the Malwa territory to the Maratha in a treaty signed at Doraha. February 4 – Court Jew Joseph Süß Oppenheimer is executed in Württemberg. February 11 – Jacques de Vaucanson stages the first demonstration of an early automaton, The Flute Player at the Hotel de Longueville in Paris, and continues to display it until March 30. February 20 – Swedish Levant Company founded. March 28 – Mariner Robert Jenkins presents a pickled ear, which he claims was cut off by a Spanish captain in the Caribbean in 1731, to the Parliament of Great Britain, which votes, 257 to 209, for war against Spain, leading to the War of Jenkins' Ear the following year. March/April – Battle of the Dindar River: Emperor Iyasu II of Ethiopia is defeated by the Funj people. April–June April 15 – Serse, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, premieres in London. April 18 – Spain's Royal Academy of History (Real Academia de la Historia) is established by decree of King Philip V of Spain. April 28 – Pope Clement XII issues the papal bull In eminenti apostolatus, prohibiting Roman Catholics from being members of Masonic societies. May 24 – John Wesley, newly returned from America, experiences a spiritual rebirth at a Moravian Church meeting in Aldersgate, in the City of London, essentially launching the Methodist movement; the day is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day (his younger brother Charles had a similar experience three days earlier). May 25 – The military phase of Cresap's War between the British North American Provinces of Maryland and Pennsylvania is ended when King George II of Great Britain negotiates a cease-fire. June 24 – British inventor Lewis Paul receives a patent for roller cotton-spinning machinery. June 27 – The Spanish Empire's Council of the Indies votes, 6 to 4, to re-establish the Viceroyalty of New Granada, incorporating modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. King Philip V issues the order on