Operation Defoe, a Second World War reconnaissance by the British Special Air Service
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Daniel Defoe, The True-born Englishman: A satyr, published anonymously this year, but dated "1700"; inspired by John Tutchin's The Foreigners (1700), and answered by Tuchin (anonymously) in his The Apostates, this year; Defoe's poem also resulted in many other responses, adaptations and attacks
1 or 2 February - During his first voyage, Captain Woodes Rogers on the Duke encounters marooned privateer Alexander Selkirk and rescues him after four years living on one of the Juan Fernández Islands, inspiring Defoe's book Robinson Crusoe.
Jonathan awakens to find he has been strapped down by the doctor, who explains that he murdered the rest of the crew in order to assemble a Frankenstein's monster for John DeFoe, who has promised to end his nightmares.
In 1701 Defoe, flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of quality, presented the Legion's Memorial to the Speaker of the House of Commons, later his employer, Robert Harley.
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Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's co-operation as an intelligence agent for the Tories.
Due to the influence of Ian Watt's seminal study in literary sociology, The Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding (1957), Watt's candidate, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), gained wide acceptance.
The novel drew from his own experiences of his time in Constantinople and on French and British novels, like Montesquieu's Lettres persanes and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
His political work was tapering off at this point, due to the fall of both Whig and Tory party leaders with whom he had been associated; Robert Walpole was beginning his rise, and Defoe was never fully at home with the Walpole group.