Shpanberg sets off for the Kuril Islands…

The Hidatsa people who, like the Mandan, speak a Siouan language, have also moved into the Upper Missouri region.

Mandan tradition states that the Hidatsa were a nomadic tribe until their encounter with the Mandan, who taught them to build stationary villages and cultivate agriculture.

The Hidatsa had continued to maintain amicable relations with the Mandan and constructed villages north of them on the Knife River.

Later the Pawnee and Arikara had moved from the Republican River north along the Missouri River.

They are Caddoan language speakers, and the Arikara are often early competitors with the Mandan, although both are horticulturalists.

They build a settlement known as Crow Creek village on a bluff above the Missouri. The modern town of Chamberlain, South Dakota will develop about eleven miles south of here.

Shpanberg is best known for exploring the Kuril Islands (one of which, Shikotan, will be renamed Shpanberg by the Russians in 1796) and for finding a sea route to Japan.

The first Russian naval squadron to visit the island of Honshu, under Martin Shpanberg’s command, land in a scenic area which is now part of the Rikuchu Kaigan National Park.

The sailors, sespite the prevalent policy of sakoku, are treated with politeness if not friendliness.

This is the first diplomatic encounter of the Russians and the Japanese.

China's Qing government announces that all western businessmen have to use the Cohong in Guangzhou to trade.

The Cohong is a guild of thirteen hong (factory) merchants authorized by the Chinese Central Government to handle trade, particularly rights to trade tea and silk, with the West.

The Great Plague of 1738, an outbreak of the bubonic plague lasting for two years, affects areas in the modern nations of Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, and Austria.

There are no significant military operations in 1738.

The Russian Army fails to cross the Dniester and has to leave Ochakiv and Kinburn Fortress due to an outbreak of plague.

A peace agreement is reached in 1738 through French mediation, but the war continues as the Turks advance along the Danube toward Belgrade.

The plague hits the Banat region in February 1738, having been spread there by the Imperial Army.

Other cities in the region are also stricken.

One hundred and eleven deaths between October 1737 and April 1738 are reported in Zărneşti, and ...

...seventy in Codlea.