1670
La Salle explores Lake Michigan and then is the first European to sail down the length of the River Mississippi, arriving in the Gulf of Mexico.
1670
Jamaica, now under English control, becomes the world's largest exporter of sugar.
1670
The Hudson's Bay Company receives its royal charter.
1670
Dutch traders establish small coffee plantations in Southern India.
1670
Fort Albany is established by the Hudson's Bay Company.
1671
Robert Boyle of the Royal Society advocates the systematic exploration of the world's oceans.
1672 - 1674
The Third Anglo-Dutch War is fought at sea.
1673 - 1674
Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette explore the Mississippi River from Lake Michigan to Arkansas.
1673
La Salle establishes fur trading posts in the Ohio River valley and upper Mississippi.
1675 - 1676
King Philip's War is fought between the Native Americans and colonists in Massachusetts.
1679 - 1682
La Salle journeys down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and claims the region, which he dubs Louisiana, for France.
1680 - 1686
William Dampier, Bartholomew Sharp and Basil Ringrose raid Spanish shipping and ports in the South Seas.
1681
La Salle establishes Fort St Louis on the Mississippi.
1682
La Salle further explores the lower Mississippi, founding Fort Prudhomme.
1682
Edmund Halley charts and describes the orbit of a comet which is named after him.
1683 - 1684
Engelbert Kaempfer journeys through Persia, Ceylon Java and Siam to reach Japan.
1686 - 1690
British forces unsuccessfully attack the Mughal Empire, in what is known as Child's War.
1687
Simon de la Loubere leads a French trade mission to Siam.
1688
Edward Lloyd opens Lloyd's Coffee House in London, which becomes a centre for the insurance trade.
1688 - 1697
The War of the League of Augsburg pits France against Spain, the Dutch Empire, England, Scotland, Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire. Under the Treaty of Ryswick, France recognises William III as King of England, Scotland and Ireland, retains Alsace, Pondicherry and Acadia, but returns Catalonia to Spain and Freiburg and other territories to the Holy Roman Empire.
1690
The East India Company establishes a trading base in Calcutta.
1693 - 1698
Jean-Baptiste Labat embarks upon a series of voyages around the Caribbean.
1694
The Hudson's Bay Company York Factory is captured by the French; it is recaptured a year later.
1698
Thomas Savery invents a steam engine.
1699 - 1701
William Dampier is sent on a mission to explore New Holland, mapping the western coast of Australia and reaching the Dampier Strait, to the west of New Guinea.
1702 - 1713
The War of the Spanish Succession pits France and Bavaria against Austria, Britain, the Dutch Republic, Portugal, Savoy and Hanover. Under the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain - divided between supporters of the Habsburgs and Bourbons - cedes a series of territories in Europe to the allies, whilst France recognises British sovereignty over Rupert's Land and Newfoundland, and cedes Acadia and its half of Saint Kitts to Great Britain.
1705
Thomas Newcomen invents a steam piston engine.
1708
The use of copper sheathing in ships is first suggested by Charles Perry.
1708
The East India Company formally enters the opium traffic.
1711
The East India Company establishes a factory at Canton.
1714
The British government establishes the Board of Longitude, offering a prize for a method of determining longitude at sea, with the awards ranging from £10,000 to £20,000 depending on accuracy.
1715
France occupies Mauritius.
1716
John Law sets up the Mississippi Company to assist French trade in North America. In 1717 it becomes the Company of the West.
1718
The Bahamas are made a British crown colony.
1721 - 1723
Jacob Roggeveen reaches Easter Island, during an unsuccessful expedition to discover the Great Southern landmass.
1725 - 1728
Vitus Bering sails through the strait which bears his name, separating America and Asia.
1727
Coffee is introduced to Brazil via Dutch Guiana.
1733
The East India Company begins to export opium to China.
1733 - 1743
Vitus Bering completes his second expedition to Kamchatka.
1735
John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter, completes his chronometer, a clock based on a pair of weighted beams connected by springs, whose motion was not influenced by gravity or the motion of a ship.
1740 - 1744
George Anson circumnavigates the globe aboard the Centurion.
1740 - 1748
The War of the Austrian Succession is fought in Europe, India and North America. France, Spain, Prussia, Bavaria are pitted against Britain, the Dutch Republic, Hanover and the Holy Roman Empire.
1741 - 1742
A British expedition led by Christopher Middleton searches for the Northwest Passage, turning back after encountering ice at Repulse Bay.
1743
Emiliam Basov establishes a fur trading post on Bering Island.
1746
James Cook is apprenticed to a shipowner in Whitby.
1747
Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easyoffers the first Western curry recipe.
1747
Andreas Sigismund Marggraf develops a method of extracting sugar from sugar beet.
1750
Coffee is planted in Sulawesi.
1751
Sugar cane is introduced to Louisiana by Jesuit missionaries.
1755 - 1763
The Seven Years' War pits Britain and Prussia (later joined by Portugal) against France, the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden and Russia (later joined by Spain.) Under the Treaty of Paris, France and Spain cede a series of possessions to Britain in the Americas and Caribbean. France cedes further possessions in India, limiting its presence on the subcontinent to a few enclaves.
1755
James Cook joins the Royal Navy.
1757
Siraj-ud-Daula, Nawab of Bengal, challenges the power of the East India Company and attacks Calcutta. A number of captives die after being imprisoned in an overcrowded dungeon remembered as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta'.
1757
Britain occupies Bengal and its opium growing districts after victory at the Battle of Plassey.
1758
Britain takes Senegal from the French.
1758
James Cook learns hydrography in Nova Scotia and helps to chart the Saint Lawrence River.
1759
British forces capture Quebec.
1759
John Harrison invents the No. 1 'Sea Watch', which solves the problem of fixing longitude at sea.
1763
Stepan Glotov reaches Kodiak Island.
1763 - 1767
James Cook undertakes his survey of the coasts and waters of Newfoundland.
1764 - 1766
John Byron circumnavigates the world on HMS Dolphin. He surveys Tierra del Fuego and claims the Falkland Islands for Britain.
1766 - 1769
Louis Antoine de Bougainville circumnavigates the globe on a voyage intended to make scientific discoveries, visiting Tahiti and naming the Bougainevillea. He brings Pacific Islander, Ahu-Toru back to Paris.
1766 - 1767
Jonathan Carver leads an expedition to seek the Northwest Passage by land and river.
1766 - 1768
An expedition led by Samuel Wallis circumnavigates the globe, encountering Tahiti and some of the Society Islands, after becoming separated from Philip Carteret's expedition.
1766 - 1769
An expedition under Philip Carteret circumnavigates the globe, reaching the Carteret Islands, the Duke of York Islands, and Pitcairn.
1767
James Rennell completes the first geographic survey of Bengal.
1767
The Townshend Revenue Act places high taxes on a range of goods supplied to the American colonies.
1768
French trader and navigator Jean-François-Marie de Surville leaves India in search of a wealthy island in Pacific, supposedly located by the British. Surville dies en route.
1768 - 1774
Peter Simon Pallas explores Russia, collecting specimens, travelling as far east as Lake Baikal.
1768 - 1771
Cook leads his first circumnavigation aboard the Endeavour, accompanied by the naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. The expedition observes the transit of Venus from Tahiti, later charting the coastlines of Australia and New Zealand.
1769
James Watt patents his steam engine.
1770 - 1772
Samuel Hearne traces the Coppermine River to the Arctic Ocean.
1771 - 1772
Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec leads a voyage in search of Terra Australis.
1772 - 1775
James Cook leads his second circumnavigation, the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. The expedition circumnavigates Antarctica, reaches New Zealand, the New Hebrides and Norfolk Island.
1772
Sir Joseph Banks, who opts out of Cook's second voyage, sails to Iceland via the Hebrides and the Orkneys.
1773
The East India Company initiates a government opium monopoly in its Indian territories.
1773
Constantine Phipps leads an expedition to the Arctic. Among those aboard is a young Horatio Nelson.
1774
Juan Bautista De Anza and Francisco Garcés explore California, pioneering the Mojave Road to the Pacific and becoming the first Europeans to known to have sighted San Francisco Bay.
1775
Benjamin Franklin charts the Gulf Stream by use of a thermometer, establishing a fast route for transatlantic voyages.
1775
Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra leads an expedition to the Pacific Northwest of North America.
1775 - 1783
The American War of Independence sees thirteen of Britain's North American colonies, assisted by France, Spain and the United Provinces, defeat Britain.
1776
The Marquis Claude Francois de Jouffroy d'Abbans invents a steamship.
1778
Joseph Banks suggests that the British should try growing tea in India.
1779
The North West Company is founded in Montreal, in competition with the Hudson's Bay Company.