Year 1724 (MDCCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1724

January - June

• January 14 - King Philip V of Spain abdicates the throne.
• January 28 - The Saint Petersburg State University is established.
• February 20 - The premiere of Giulio Cesare, an Italian opera by George Frideric Handel, takes place in London.
• May 29 - Pope Benedict XIII, born Pierro Orsini, succeeds Pope Innocent XIII as the 245th pope.

Blenheim Palace completed.

• June 23 - Treaty of Constantinople is signed, partitioning Persia between the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

July - December

• July 27 - Wild Peter of Hanover is captured near Helpensen in Hanover.
• November 11 - Joseph Blake (alias Blueskin), highwayman, is hanged in London.
• November 16
  • Jack Sheppard is hanged in London.
  • Willem Mons, lover of Catherine I of Russia, is executed and his head preserved in alcohol.

Undated

• China expels foreign missionaries.
• Blenheim Palace construction is completed. It is presented as a gift to the Duke of Marlborough for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.
• Catherine I is officially named czarina by her husband, Peter the Great, in Russia.
• The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction.
• Mahmud of Afghanistan goes insane.
• Longman, the oldest publishing house in England, is founded.

Births

• January 24 - Frances Brooke, English writer (d. 1789)
• February 16 - Christopher Gadsden, American statesman
• February 28 - George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, British field marshal (d. 1807)
• February 29 - Eva Marie Veigel, ballet dancer known as La Violette (d. 1822)
• April 12 - Lyman Hall, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1790)
• April 22 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher (d. 1804)
• April 29 - John Michell, English scientist and geologist (d. 1793)
• May 7 - Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Alsatian-born Austrian general (d. 1797)
• May 19 - Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, British admiral and politician (d. 1779)
• June 8 - John Smeaton, English civil engineer (d. 1792)
• July 2 - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (d. 1803)
• July 31 - Noël François de Wailly, French lexicographer (d. 1801)
• August 23 - Abraham Yates, American Continental Congressman (d. 1796)
• August 25 - George Stubbs, English painter (d. 1806)
• August 27 - John Joachim Zubly, Swiss-born Continental Congressman (d. 1781)
• September 3 - Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, British soldier and Governor of Quebec (d. 1808)
• October 31 - Christopher Anstey, English writer (d. 1805)
• December 12 - Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, British admiral (d. 1816)
• December 13 - Franz Aepinus, German scientist (d. 1802)
• December 18 - Louise of Great Britain, queen of Frederick V of Denmark (d. 1751)
• December 24 - Johann Conrad Ammann, Swiss physician and naturalist (d. 1811)
• December 30 - Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, French painter (d. 1805)

Deaths

• February 12 - Elkanah Settle, English writer (b. 1648)
• March 7 - Pope Innocent XIII (b. 1655)
• March 15 - Marie Jeanne of Savoy-Nemours, Regent of Savoy (b. 1644)
• March 19 - Lewis Watson, 1st Earl of Rockingham, politician (b. 1655)
• May 3 - John Leverett the Younger, American President of Harvard (b. 1662)
• May 21 - Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, English statesman (b. 1661)
• June 15 - Henry Sacheverell, English churchman and politician (b. 1674)
• October 2 - François-Timoléon de Choisy, French writer (b. 1644)
• October 29 - William Wollaston, English philosophical writer (b. 1659)
• November 11 - Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, English highwayman (executed) (b. c. 1700)
• November 16 - Jack Sheppard, English criminal (executed) (b. 1702)
• November 18 - Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Portuguese naturalist (b. 1685)
• November 24 - Ernst Ludwig I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen (b. 1672)
• December 27 - Thomas Guy, English philanthropist (b. 1644)