The French capture forts Oswego and William…

The anti-rabbinical Frankist sect has abandoned Judaism for a “higher” Torah based on the Zohar (which is the most important work in the Kabbala, the Jewish mystical movement).

Hence, its members also call themselves Zoharists.

As a result of the disclosures at Satanov of Frankism’s practices, including orgiastic, sexually promiscuous rites, the congress of rabbis in Brody proclaims a universal Cherem (excommunication) against all "impenitent heretics", and makes it obligatory upon every pious Jew to seek them out and expose them.

The rabbis also demand that the Church burn the Frankists at the stake as heretics (as demonstrated in the recent work of Pawel Maciejko.)

The Sabbateans inform Dembowski, the Catholic Bishop of Kamenetz-Podolsk, that they reject the Talmud and recognize only the sacred book of Kabbalah, the Zohar, which does not contradict the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.

They state that they regard the Messiah-Deliverer as one of the embodiments of the three divinities.

The bishop takes the "Anti-Talmudists", or "Zoharists", under his protection and in 1757 arranges a religious disputation between them and the rabbis.

The Anti-Talmudists present their theses, to which the rabbis give a very lukewarm and unwilling reply lest they offend the Church dignitaries who are present, who see in the Frankists a means of converting the Jews.

The Frankists claim that the Talmud, the rabbinical compendium of law and commentary, should be discarded as blasphemous.

They are also partly responsible for the revival of the canard that the Jews use Christian blood for Passover rituals.

To preserve his following, Frank publicly commits his supporters to mass baptism.

The bishop decides that the Talmudists have been vanquished, and orders them to pay a fine to their opponents.

He also orders the burning of all copies of the Talmud in the bishopric of Podolia, a sentence that is carried into effect in the public streets in 1757.

Osman III reigns as the Ottoman Sultan for barely two years before dying without issue at fifty-eight on January 30, 1757.

A cousin succeeds him as Mustafa III.

The Third Carnatic War has spread beyond southern India and into Bengal, where British forces capture the French settlement of Chandernagore (now Chandannagar) in 1757.

Ahmad Shah is too preoccupied with the rebellion of Nasir Khan Baluch, to the west, to devote attention to the threat in the east, when an alliance of Mughals, Sikhs, and Marathas pose the first concerted challenge to to his authority in the Punjab.

Thus, under the force of attacks from Sikhs and Marathas, Ahmad Shah's son Timur, appointed governor of the Punjab, is forced in 1757 to retreat from Lahore to Peshawar.

Jews obtain the right to the keys to the ghetto of Florence, with Tuscany under the rule of the House of Lorraine, and are granted the right to perform certain trades hitherto prohibited; silverwork, for example.

Archaeologists will locate a Wichita village at the Deer Creek Site dating from the 1750s on the Arkansas River east of Newkirk, Oklahoma.

By 1757, however, it appears that all the Wichita have migrated south to the Red River.

Qing attention now becomes focused on the Khalka prince Chingünjav, a descendant of Genghis Khan, who between the summer of 1756 and January 1757 has mounted a Khalka Mongol rebellion against the Qing, the most serious until the dynasty's demise in 1911.

Before dealing with Amursana, the majority of Qianlong's forces are reassigned to ensure stability in Khalka until Chingünjav's army is crushed by the Qing in a ferocious battle near Lake Khövsgöl in January, 1757.

Clive and Watson now move against Calcutta on January 2, 1757, and the garrison of five hundred men surrenders after offering a scanty resistance. 

With Calcutta recaptured, the Council is reinstated and a plan of action against the Nawab is prepared.

The fortifications of Fort William are strengthened and a defensive position is prepared in the north-east of the city.

A force of six hundred and fifty men under Captain Coote and Major Kilpatrick storms and sacks the town of Hooghly, twenty-three miles (thirty-seven kilometers) north of Calcutta, on January 9, 1757.

The French and their native allies, based at Fort St. Frédéric (located at what is now Crown Point, New York) and Fort Carillon (known to the British as Fort Ticonderoga), have continued to scout and probe the British defenses on Lake George and the upper Hudson River.

The British, who have fewer native allies, have resort to companies of rangers for their scouting and reconnaissance activities.

The ranger companies, organized and directed by Robert Rogers, had eventually became known as Rogers' Rangers.

In the winter of 1757, Rogers and several companies of his rangers are stationed at Fort William Henry at the southern end of Lake George and at Fort Edward on the upper Hudson.

These forts are principally garrisoned by elements of the 44th and 48th Regiments, and form the frontier between the British province of New York and the French province of Canada.

Captain Rogers had led a scouting expedition from Fort Edward on January 15, stopping at Fort William Henry to acquire provisions, snowshoes, and additional soldiers.

The company had left Fort William Henry on January 17 with eighty-six men, heading down the frozen Lake George.

The next day, twelve men had turned back because of injuries.

The remaining men had continued north, ...