Editing 1740 (section)

=== January&ndash;March ===
* [[January 8]] &ndash; All 237 crewmen on the [[Dutch East India Company]] ship ''[[Rooswijk]]'' are drowned when the vessel strikes the shoals of [[Goodwin Sands]], off of the coast of England, as it is beginning its second voyage to the Indies. The wreckage is discovered more than 250 years later, in 2004.<ref>Wendy van Duivenvoorde, ''Dutch East India Company Shipbuilding: The Archaeological Study of Batavia and Other Seventeenth-Century VOC Ships'' (Texas A&M University Press, 2015) p145</ref>
* [[February 20]] &ndash; The [[North Carolina General Assembly]] incorporates the town of Newton as [[Wilmington, North Carolina|Wilmington]], [[Royal Colony of North Carolina|North Carolina]], named for [[Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington]] and patron of Royal Governor [[Gabriel Johnston]].
* [[March 16]] &ndash; [[Edward I (Moskito)|King Edward of the Miskito Indians]] signs a treaty making his kingdom, located on the coast of modern-day [[Nicaragua]], a protectorate of Great Britain.<ref>"Mosquito Coast", in ''Historical Dictionary of the British Empire'', ed. by Kenneth J. Panton (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015) p384</ref>
* [[March 25]] &ndash; Construction begins on [[Bethesda Orphanage]] for boys near [[Savannah, Georgia]], founded by [[George Whitefield]].