Reader, near this Tomb don't stand
Without some Essence in thy Hand;
For here Kidd's stinking Corpse does lie,
The Scent of which may thee infect. . . .

Born in 1701:

Died in 1701: Events of 1701:
  • William Penn outlines the rights of Pennsylvania colonists with the Charter of Privileges.
  • Louisiana is in dire straits, due to a yellow fever epidemic, as well as the fact that most colonists are off hunting gold and pearls instead of growing food. When Governor Iberville returns to Biloxi, MS, he finds only 150 survivors.
  • Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac builds Fort Ponchartrain on the future site of Detroit with 200 French colonists and Indians.
  • Liu Chow leads an insurrection against Qing rule on Formosa.

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  • Spanish King Charles II (a Hapsburg) died childless the previous year, and left his throne to 17-year-old Philip, Duke of Anjou, who also happened to be a Bourbon grandson of Louis XIV.  Louis could nor resist the opportunity unite France and Spain under one king, and Philip V assumed the throne.  However, everyone knows this will mean war.   In particular, Leopold I, the Hapsburg ruler of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor, finds Philip's accession intolerable.  Also, William, stadtholder of The Netherlands (who also happens to be King of England), does not want France to possess the Spanish Netherlands. The parties spend the year maneuvering and making alliances to prepare for the upcoming war.

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    • German princes in the Holy Roman Empire are forbidden to style themselves as kings.  However, Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, can get around this, since part of his domain, East Prussia, lies outside the Empire. In exchange for military support in the upcoming war, and 150,000 guilders, Emperor Leopold I allows Frederick to declare his domain the "Kingdom of Prussia".
      (January 18), Frederick crowns himself King Frederick I in Königsberg (East Prussia) .
       
    • (February) French occupy border fortresses between the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch republic.
       
    • (March 9) A treaty of alliance between France, Cologne, and Bavaria
       
    • (Spring) The Dutch offer Swedish King Charles XII 300000 rijksdalers for Swedish troops, but Charles demurs, having other fish to fry. 
    • Portugal signs a treaty of alliance with Spain and a nonaggression pact with France.
       
    • (June 12) The English Parliament passes the "Act of Settlement" forbidding any Roman Catholic to possess the Crown of England (or Scotland, Wales or Ireland for that matter).
      • As Charles Stewart cannot speak for himself, his niece, the Duchess of Savoy protests the act to the House of Lords, but it passes nonetheless.
      • As all of William III's children are dead, however, the act makes Charles' Protestant cousin Anne.
      • As Anne is also childless, Sophia, the Electress of Hanover, is next in line.
      • Most importantly, the act erases the concept of divine right and confirms England as a constitutional monarchy.

    • (August)  Prince Eugene of Savoy, an Austrian general, moves his troops into Lombardy.
    • (September 1) The Duc de Villeroi, a French marshal, attacks Eugene at Chiari but is repulsed. He eventually has to retreat back to Cremona.  Eugene lays siege to Mantua.
    • (September) England, Prussia, the Empire, and the Netherlands form a "Grand Alliance" against the Bourbons. Although John Churchill was once suspected of being a Jacobite, he is made commander-in-chief of English forces.
    • (November 3) Prince Eugene may be fighting for the Hapsburgs, but Savoy is on the side of the Bourbons.   Philip and 13-year-old Princess Maria Luisa of Savoy are married in Madrid.
  • Swedish King Charles XII is fighting the Great Northern War against Russian Tsar Peter the Great and Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. This year sees a Russian attack on Livland and a Swedish invasion of Poland.
    • (January 14) Peter founds a nautical school in Moscow. This will eventually grow into the Russian Naval Academy.
    • (June 6) Three Swedish ships sail into the Northern Dvina estuary (on the White Sea) with the intention of attacking Archangelsk, Russia's only seaport. However, the Swedes employ captured Russians as river pilots. The pilots manage to run two of the ships aground at Novodvinsk.
    • (July 19) Charles crosses the Western Dvina River in Courland (now Latvia) and smashes a combined Russian-Saxon army near Riga.  The Saxon army has to evacuate, and Charles controls Courland.
    • (September 5) The Swedish army defending Livonia, under general von Schlippenbach defeats a Russian army attacking them at Rauge.
    • (December 30) Swedish general von Schlippenbach's army is decimated by the Russian army at Erestfer, but they remain strong enough to cause Russian general Boris Sheremetjev to withdraw. In reality, however, Livland is practically defenseless, and the Russians will have more success the following year.

1700 - 1701 - 1702

How they Were Made - 18th Century

Back in the heyday of the IBM XT, AT, and PS/2 systems the friendly and informative POST error codes we see from our modern, Plug 'N' Pray, user-friendly BIOSes were mostly nonexistent. Since ROM and RAM space were fairly limited, IBM used a solution for somewhat verbosely reporting hardware errors found by the POST (as well as some while the system was running). Each possible type of error had a number. I have not been blessed with the opportunity to work on many PCs using this system, however, I am familiar with one dreaded code:

1701 - Hard Disk Failure

Of course, the system did not explain it to you in plain Engrish as I have... you would merely switch on your computer in the morning, to find your screen black and lifeless, displaying only the dreaded numbers, 1701. The system's failure to boot, or its eventual emergence in PC-BASIC, also let you know what was wrong. Thoughts of hours, weeks, even years of lost work flashed through your mind, as you slipped into panic.

Fortunately, the dreaded 1701 was often caused by stiction, which was fairly easy to remedy and get your system back up and running.

The latest BIOS I saw the 1701 error code used on was actually an American Megatrends 80486 model. After this, it was replaced with a far more (less??) friendly "Primary (Secondary?) Hard Disk Failure" or "Hard Disk Controller Failure".

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