March 22 - Britain's House of Commons votes in favor of £1,000,000 of appropriations to expand the British Army and Royal Navy operations in North America.
March 26 - General Edward Braddock and 1,600 British sailors and soldiers arrive at Alexandria, Virginia on transport ships that have sailed up the Potomac River. Braddock, sent to take command of the British forces against the French in North America, commandeers taverns and private homes to feed and house the troops.
May 3 - France dispatches 3,600 troops to protect its Canadian colonies in Quebec from a British invasion, dispatching 2,400 to Quebec city and 1,200 to Louisbourg in Nova Scotia, unaware that a squadron of 11 fully armed warships from Britain's Royal Navy had sailed toward Canada on April 27.
May 17 - Spanish missionary Tomas Sanchez and three families establish a settlement on the north side of the Rio Grande in New Spain. Sanchez names it Villa de Laredo. The new settlement is the northernmost part of the colony of Nuevo Santander, founded by José de Escandón, 1st Count of Sierra Gorda, which now comprises parts of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and the U.S. state of Texas. The portion of Villa de Laredo north of the river later becomes Laredo, Texas; the remaining portion south of the river is later renamed Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
May 19 - General Braddock hosts Iroquois leaders Scaroyady, Kaghswaghtaniunt, and Silver Heels at Fort Cumberland, the British Army base in the colony of Maryland. The three chiefs pledge their alliance with the British in advance of Braddock's expedition into the Ohio Country.
May 24 - France completes the construction of Fort Duquesne, its new base to the west of the British colony of Pennsylvania. The British capture the fort during the French and Indian War and rename it Fort Pitt. The site, at the junction of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River, is now Pittsburgh.
May 30 - General Braddock's troops begin a difficult trek across the heavily wooded Allegheny Mountains from western Maryland into the Ohio country.
At the entrance of the Saint Lawrence River, a squadron of Royal Navy ships, under the command of British Admiral Edward Boscawen, intercepts the nine French ships dispatched to save Canada; seven of the nine ships are concealed by fog and are able to reach their destination; another of the transports escapes.
June 16 - After a two-week siege, the French commander of Fort Beauséjour in North America surrenders to the British, marking the end of "Father Le Loutre's War".
July 9 - French and Indian War - Braddock Expedition: British troops and colonial militiamen are ambushed, and suffer a devastating defeat inflicted by French and Indian forces. During the battle, British General Edward Braddock is mortally wounded. Colonel George Washington survives.
July 17 - In a convoy of ships from Great Britain, returning to India for the East India Company, the lead ship Dodington wrecks at Port Elizabeth, losing 247 of its 270 passengers and crew, and a chest of gold coins from Robert Clive, worth £33,000. In 1998, 1,400 coins are offered for sale, and in 2002 a portion is given to the South African government.
July 25 - The decision to deport the Acadians is made, during meetings of the Nova Scotia Council meeting in Halifax. From September 1755-June 1763, the vast majority of Acadians are deported to one of the following British Colonies in America: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Contrary to popular belief, no Acadians are sent to Louisiana. Those sent to Virginia are refused and then sent on to Liverpool, Bristol, Southampton and Penryn in England. In 1758 the Fortress of Louisbourg falls, and all of the civilian population of Isle Royal and Isle St. Jean are repatriated to France. Among them were several thousand Acadians, who had escaped the deportation by fleeing into those areas. Very few Acadians successfully escape the deportation, and do so only by fleeing into some of the northern sections of present day New Brunswick. The event inspires Longfellow to write the epic poem Evangeline.
September 2 - A powerful hurricane strikes the east coast of the British colony of North Carolina, killing 150 people and sinking five British and colonial merchant ships at Portsmouth Island.
September 6 - The Russian Academy of Sciences awards its prize for "the best explanation of the true causes of electricity including their theory" to Switzerland's Johann Euler for his paper Disquisitio de causa physica electricitatis.
September 8 - The one-day Battle of Lake George is fought. French Army troops led by Jean Erdman, Baron Dieskau, and Canadian colonists led by Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre drive south into Britain's New York province. They are met by British Army troops under General William Johnson being supplemented by 200 Mohawk troops led by the Mohawk war chief, Theyanoguin. After Theyanouguin and other Mohawks are killed in the battle, the clan matrons of the Mohawk nation forbid the men from participating in the war against the French until a French defeat seems certain.
September 16 - Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, the new British Minister to Russia, secures an alliance signed by Empress Catherine the Great. The Russian Empire agrees to provide up to 55,000 troops to defend the Electorate of Hanover against invasion by Prussia. At the time, King George II of Great Britain is also the ruler of the German duchy; the Russian troops are provided in return for an annual payment of £600,000.
October 12 - Having completed the Expulsion of the Acadians from St. John's Island, the British colonial Governor of Nova Scotia, Charles Lawrence, issues a proclamation that his office will receive proposals from English settlers "for the peopling and cultivating as well of the lands vacated by the French, as every other part of this valuable province."
October 16 - The Penn's Creek massacre is carried out by against white settlers who have moved into the Susquehanna Valley in the Pennsylvania colony, in territory also claimed by the Delaware Indians. The Delawares attack the Penn's Creek village, located near what is now Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and kill 25 of the 26 men, women and children living there.
October 17 - The Mount Katla volcano erupts in Iceland, and continues ejecting ash for the next 120 days, finally ceasing on February 13. An estimated 1.5 cubic kilometers of tephra is discharged by the volcano.
November 1 - More than 40,000 people are killed by the 8.5 magnitude 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The tremor begins at 9:40 in the morning local time off of the Atlantic coast of Portugal and sends a tsunami that strikes the coasts of Portugal, Spain and Morocco. : Lisbonearthquake kills more than 40,000
December 17 - Anton, Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, is dismissed by his opponents on the Ecclesiastical Council, and briefly imprisoned for 18 months before being allowed to move to Russia; in 1764, Anton is again made the Georgian Orthodox Church's leader.
Date unknown
Wolsey, the clothes manufacturer, is established in Leicester, England; the business celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2005.
