- Feb 7 Andre Cardinal Destouches, French composer (Les élémens), dies at 76
- Feb 8 Jan van Huysum, Dutch still life painter (specialised in fruit and flowers), dies at 66
- May 24 Graf Valentin Potocki, Polish nobleman
- Jun 13 Jan Frans van Bloemen, Flemish landscape painter, dies at 87
- Jun 16 Johann Baptista Ruffini, Italian trader (b. 1672)
- Jun 18 Ambrose Philips, English poet (b. 1674)
- Jul 3 William Jones, Welsh mathematician (b. 1675)
- Jul 12 Charles de la Boische, Marquis de Beauharnois, Governor of New France
- Aug 13 Johann Elias Schlegel, German writer and critic, dies at 30
- Sep 10 Émilie du Châtelet, French mathematician and physicist (translation of Newton's Principia), dies in childbirth at 42
- Sep 14 Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, English soldier and politician, dies at 73
- Oct 4 Franz Freiherr von der Trenck, Austrian soldier (b. 1711)
- Oct 26 Louis-Nicholas Clerambault, French composer/organist, dies at 72
- Nov 27 Balthasar Schmid, German composer and printer, dies at 44
- Nov 27 Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, German composer and librettist, dies at 59
- Dec 5 Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, French Canadian trader and explorer of North Dakota and the upper Missouri River, dies at 64
- Dec 10 Gabrielle Chôtelet [La belle Emilie], French writer (Voltaire), dies at 42
- Dec 19 Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer, dies at 76
- Dec 20 Pakubuwono II, susuhunan of Mataram Java, dies
- Dec 23 Mark Catesby, English naturalist (Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands), dies at 66
Assassination
Car Crash
Hanging
Killed in Action
Plane Crash
Poisoning