Mention the changing trends of 18th century .
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For the first time, science became a central piece of public discourse. Until then, much of what is now considered scientific inquiry was pursued by a relatively small group of academics whose writings did not enjoy widespread circulation. Beginning in the late 17th century, there was a twofold development in academia that would bring about a rapid democratization of scientific knowledge. The first was the foundation of the Paris Academy and the Royal Society of London, two institutions whose primary purpose was to do scientific research and report their conclusions to the public.  Cover of the Acta
Eruditorum, 1726Over the succeeding decades, several other institutions would be founded on the model of these two, including the Berlin Academy, the St. Petersburg Academy, the Turin Society, and many others. Frequently, these academies operated under the patronage of a particular monarch, and as such were subject to the changing desires of those individuals. While this made life in academia somewhat erratic, there was a great deal more continuity and freedom than had existed previously.
The second major development in academic life was the rise of scientific journals. These publications were often produced by the academies themselves (e.g., London's Philosophical Transactions and Paris's Mémoires), though a fair number were produced independently (e.g., the Acta Eruditorum and Crelle's Journal). These new journals circulated to a wide audience that included many outside the scientific community. In one sense, these are among the first "popular science" magazines, in that scientific results were reported to an audience of non-specialists. As such, the 18th century was a time when scientific tracts could become bestsellers. One of Euler's books, Lettres à une princesse d'Allemagne (Letters to a German Princess), went through thirty-eight printings in nine different languages, and remained in print for a century.
By the middle of the 18th century, the scientific revolution was in full swing; decades of research had been compiled, exchanged, corroborated, and communicated to the public. As the most prolific mathematician and scientist of the time, Leonhard Euler made significant contributions to many different fields, including optics, mechanics, artillery, naval science, planetary motion, and several branches of calculus. More recently, the 20th century science historian Clifford Truesdell has calculated that of all the mathematical and scientific work published during the whole of the 18th century, a full 25% was written by Euler.
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The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 to December 31, 1800 in the Gregorian calendar. During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. This was an age of violent slave trading, and global human trafficking. The reactions against monarchical and aristocratic power helped fuel the revolutionary responses against it throughout the century.
In continental Europe, philosophers dreamed of a brighter age. For some, this dream turned into a reality with the French Revolution of 1789, though later compromised by the excesses of the Reign of Terror (1793–1794) under Maximilien Robespierre. At first, many monarchies of Europe embraced Enlightenment ideals, but with the French Revolution they feared losing their power and formed broad coalitions for the counter-revolution. The Ottoman Empire experienced an unprecedented period of peace and economic expansion, taking part in no European wars from 1740 to 1768. As a consequence the empire did not share in Europe's military improvements during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), causing its military to fall behind and suffer defeats against Russia in the second half of the century.
18th century music included the Baroque period (including Johan Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel) and the classical period (including Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).
The 18th century also marked the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as an independent state. The once-powerful and vast kingdom, which had once conquered Moscow and defeated great Ottoman armies, collapsed under numerous invasions. Its semi-democratic government system was not robust enough to rival the neighboring monarchies of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire which divided the Commonwealth territories between themselves, changing the landscape of Central European politics for the next hundred years.
European colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world intensified and associated mass migrations of people grew in size as the Age of Sail continued. Great Britain became a major power worldwide with the defeat of France in North America in the 1760s and the conquest of large parts of India. However, Britain lost many of its North American colonies after the American Revolution, which resulted in the formation of the newly independent United States. The Industrial Revolution started in Britain in the 1770s with the production of the improved steam engine. Despite its modest beginnings in the 18th century, steam-powered machinery would radically change human society and the environment.
Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, with an emphasis on directly interconnected events. To historians who expand the century to include larger historical movements, the "long" 18th century may run from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 or even later.