January 8 – An avalanche from the Skafjell mountain causes a massive wave in theStorfjordenfjord in Norway that sinks all boats that happen to be in the water at the time and kills people on both shores.[1]
April 28 – A fire atWhite's Chocolate House, near St. James's Palace in London, destroys the historic club and the paintings therein, but is kept from spreading by the fast response of firemen.[5]
June 4 – The English market town ofBlandford Forum is destroyed by fire, with the exception of 26 houses. About one-third of the uninsured losses are paid for by the collection of disaster relief money.[5]
August 15 – KingFrederick William I of Prussia forgives his 19-year-old son,Prince Frederick, who has been confined since November to the town ofKüstrin (nowKostrzyn nad Odrą inPoland) for his 1730 attempt to desert from the Prussian Army.[8] Nine years later, having been politically rehabilitated, Prince Frederick succeeds his father as King and is later remembered as "Frederick the Great".
August 23 – The oldest known sports score in history is recorded in the description of a cricket match at Richmond Green in England, when the team of Thomas Chambers of Middlesex defeats the Duke of Richmond's team by 119 to 79.
September – The first successfulappendectomy is performed by English surgeon William Cookesley.[9]
Swiss mathematicianLeonhard Euler announces his use of the irrational numbere (approximately 2.71828) as thebase for the concept of thenatural logarithm, describing it in a letter to German mathematicianChristian Goldbach.
Patrona Halil, an ethnic Albanian and ajanissary who instigated a mass uprising in 1730 within theOttoman Empire that broughtMahmud I to power as the new Sultan, is strangled to death in Mahmud's presence after the rebellion is suppressed.
^"List of British Merchant Ships, taken or plundered by the Spaniards",The Political State for the Month of April, 1738 of Great Britain (April 30, 1738) p322.
^abcd"Fires, Great", inThe Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance, Cornelius Walford, ed. (C. and E. Layton, 1876) p49
^Hubert Howe Bancroft,History of Alaska, 1730-1865 (A. L. Bancroft & Co., 1886) p45
^ Orcutt Frost,Bering: The Russian Discovery of America (Yale University Press, 2003) p67
^Durant Will and Ariel (1965).The Story of Civilization, VolumeIX: The Age of Voltaire. Simon & Schuster.
^Selley, Peter (2016). "William Cookesley, William Hunter and the first patient to survive removal of the appendix in 1731".Journal of Medical Biography.24 (2):180–3.doi:10.1177/0967772015591717.PMID26758584.S2CID1708483.
