9 April – Scottish JacobiteSimon Fraser, forfeited Lord Lovat, is beheaded by axe on Tower Hill in London for high treason, the last person to be executed in this way in Britain. Around twenty would-be spectators of the event are killed when a grandstand collapses.
Benjamin Robins presents a paper to the Royal Society describing the physics of a spinning projectile following his investigation of rifle barrels.[4][5]
25 October – War of the Austrian Succession: Second Battle of Cape Finisterre: British fleet puts an end to French naval operations for the remainder of the war.
12 December – Anna Seward, poet, "the Swan of Lichfield" (died 1809)
Francis Salvador, London-born Sephardic Jew, plantation owner, the first Jew elected to public office in British America, and the first Jew to die in the cause of the United States (American Revolutionary War) (died 1776)