1786 CE

Convention of London between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain: British settlements on the Mosquito Coast of Central America are to be evacuated; Spain expands the territory available to the British in Belize on the Yucatán Peninsula, for cutting mahogany. Convention of London between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain: British settlements on the Mosquito Coast of Central America are to be evacuated; Spain expands the territory available to the British in Belize on the Yucatán Peninsula for cutting mahogany. Captain Francis Light acquires the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah on behalf of the British East India Company, renaming it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne, and establishing the settlement of George Town. This is the first colony of the British Empire in Southeast Asia.

In the 1780s, the 18th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 3 – The third Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States and the Choctaw.source
  • January 3 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Choctaw Nation.United Statessource
  • April 25 – The United States and the Kingdom of Portugal sign their first commercial treaty, but it is never ratified.source
  • June 6 – Nathaniel Gorham is chosen as the new President of the U.S. Confederation Congress to substitute for John Hancock, who cannot take office because of illness.source
  • July 14 – Convention of London between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain: British settlements on the Mosquito Coast of Central America are to be evacuated; Spain expands the territory available to the British in Belize on the Yucatán Peninsula, for cutting mahogany.source
  • 14 July – Convention of London between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain: British settlements on the Mosquito Coast of Central America are to be evacuated; Spain expands the territory available to the British in Belize on the Yucatán Peninsula for cutting mahogany.United Kingdomsource
  • August 11 – Captain Francis Light acquires the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah on behalf of the British East India Company, renaming it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne, and establishing the settlement of George Town. This is the first colony of the British Empire in Southeast Asia.source
  • 25 August – The Great Agricultural Commission (Den Store Landbokommision) is set up with the task of rethinking the relationship between landowners and tenant farmers. It is formally abolished in 1816 but is inactive from 1802.Denmarksource
  • September 11–14 - The Annapolis Convention is held by delegates from six of the 13 states (Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) resulting in the scheduling of the Philadelphia Convention to draft a national constitution.source
  • September 14 – Connecticut cedes to the United States all of its claims to lands between the 41st and 42nd parallels north and west of the Connecticut Western Reserve.source
  • September 26 – Eden Agreement: A commercial treaty is signed between the Kingdoms of Great Britain and France.source
  • 26 September - The Eden Agreement, a trade treaty with Great Britain, is signed.Francesource
  • October 10 – The Confederation Congress of the United States directs backpay for seven months for Virginia officers who have been waiting since 1782.source
  • October 12 – King George III of the United Kingdom appoints Captain Arthur Phillip as the first Governor of New Holland, which comprises the area of modern Australia from the 135th meridian east to the east coast and all adjacent islands in the Pacific Ocean.source
  • 23 October - Charter rights are given to Östersund.Swedensource
  • The Cabinet of Great Britain approves the establishment of a penal colony, at Botany Bay in Australia.source
  • The Parliament of Ireland passes An Act for Promoting the Trade of Dublin, by rendering its Port and Harbour more commodious, creating the Corporation for Preserving and Improving the Port of Dublin (the "Ballast Board"), predecessor of the Commissioners of Irish Lights.Irelandsource
  • Convention of London (1786), a treaty between Britain and Spain over Belize.Spainsource
  • Charles Pratt is created Earl Camden.Walessource

Conflict & Security

  • April 2 – The Creek Nation declares war on the U.S. State of Georgia over the matter of white settlers on land not ceded by the Nation. A truce is negotiated on April 17 between Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray (Hoboi-Hili-Miko) and U.S. Army General Lachlan McIntosh but is soon repudiated. Lucian Lamar Knight, Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials, and Legends (Byrd Printing, 1913) p476source
  • August 29 – Shays' Rebellion begins in Massachusetts.source
  • 2 October - Lofthusreisingen begins, a large peasant revolt in South Norway.Norwaysource
  • October 23 – The 13th century AH begins on the Islamic calendar on the 1st of Muharram 1201 AHsource
  • October 24 – General David Cobb of the Massachusetts militia defeats a body of rebel insurgents at Taunton, Massachusetts in one of the battles of Shays' Rebellion.source
  • The town of Martinsborough, North Carolina, named for Royal Governor Josiah Martin in 1771, is renamed "Greenesville" in honor of United States General Nathanael Greene by the North Carolina General Assembly (the name "Greenesville" is later shortened, to become Greenville).source
  • The town of Martinsborough, North Carolina, itself named for Royal Governor Josiah Martin in 1771, is renamed "Greenesville" in honor of United States General Nathanael Greene by the North Carolina General Assembly; the name "Greenesville" is later shortened to become Greenville.United Statessource
  • Northwest Indian War (1785–1795)United Statessource

Exploration & Expansion

  • June 25 – Gavriil Pribylov discovers St. George Island of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.source
  • August 8 – Mont Blanc is climbed for the first time, by Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat.source
  • September–December – Goethe undertakes his Italian Journey (published in 1817).source
  • October 23 – The settlement of Östersund is established in Sweden.source
  • Winter 1786/87 – English captain George Dixon becomes the first European to visit the Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi.source
  • New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland allowed to import goods from the United States.Canadasource
  • The Danish–Icelandic Trade Monopoly ends.Denmarksource
  • The trade with Iceland is opened to all Danish and Norwegian traders.Norwaysource
  • New Lanark established in South Lanarkshire by David Dale, as a model cotton milling community.Scotlandsource
  • New Lanark established in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, by David Dale, as a model cotton milling community.United Kingdomsource
  • The United States pays protection money to the Sultan of Morocco to ensure the safety of American merchantmen in the Mediterranean Sea from Barbary pirates.United Statessource

Religion & Belief

  • February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.source
  • December 4 – Mission Santa Barbara is founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén as the tenth of the Spanish missions in California.source
  • December 4 – Mission Santa Barbara is founded by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, becoming the 10th mission in the California mission chain.United Statessource
  • December 20 – Robert Burns's Address to a Haggis is first published, in Edinburgh.source
  • St. Catherine's Cathedral completed in KhersonRussiasource
  • Benjamin Francis - Aleluia (collection of hymns)Walessource
  • William Ellis - Ychydig o Hymnau a Chaniadau Newyddion (collection of hymns)Walessource
  • The Kinmel estate is sold to the Rev Edward Hughes for £42,000.Walessource

Economy & Finance

  • March 1 – The Ohio Company of Associates is organized by five businessmen at a meeting at the Bunch-of-Grapes Tavern in Boston to purchase land from the United States government to form settlements in the modern-day U.S. state of Ohio.source
  • August 18 – The Kingdom of Denmark-Norway charters six settlements in Iceland to trade with it, thus ending the Danish–Icelandic Trade Monopoly, and founding Reykjavík.source
  • October 16 – The Confederation Congress establishes the United States Mint to make common coinage and currency for the U.S., to replace individual state coins.source
  • John Molson founds his first brewery in Montreal.Canadasource
  • National income - ₹10,251 millionIndiasource
  • Date unknown - Foundation of the Swedish West India CompanySwedensource
  • Wills, Watkins & Co. open a tobacconists’ shop in Bristol which will become W.D. & H.O. Wills.United Kingdomsource
  • Sinking fund of £1M per annum established to reduce the national debt.United Kingdomsource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 13 – Construction begins in Dublin on the Four Courts Building, with the first stone laid down by the United Kingdom's Viceroy for Ireland, the Duke of Rutland.source
  • 13 March – Construction begins in Dublin on the Four Courts Building, with the first stone laid by the British Viceroy for Ireland, the Duke of Rutland.Irelandsource
  • March 26 – Columbia, South Carolina is chartered as the first planned city in the United States.United Statessource
  • October 6 – HMS Bellerophon begins service with the Royal Navy.source
  • 25 December - Plymouth ironworks is leased to Richard Hill.Walessource
  • James Rumsey tests his first steamboat on the Potomac River, at Shepherdstown, Virginia.source
  • Teaching began at Hólavallarskóli in Reykjavík.Icelandsource
  • Court Riding Arena in Saint Petersburg begins constructionRussiasource
  • Northern Lighthouse Board formed as the Commissioners of Northern Light Houses by act of parliament largely at the urging of the lawyer and politician "Honest" George Dempster, to oversee the construction and operation of (at this time) four Scottish lighthouses: Kinnaird Head, North Ronaldsay, Scalpay and Mull of Kintyre.Scotlandsource
  • Date unknown - Maria Christina Bruhn becomes the first woman to be given a patent as an inventor in Sweden.Swedensource
  • Scottish millwright Andrew Meikle invents a practical threshing machine.United Kingdomsource

Science & Discovery

  • April 27 – British astronomer William Herschel publishes his first list of his discoveries, Catalogue of One Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars; two additional books are published in 1789 and 1802.source
  • August 1 – Caroline Herschel discovers a comet (the first discovered by a woman) from England.source
  • 1 August – Caroline Herschel discovers a comet, the first discovered by a woman, from Datchet.United Kingdomsource
  • Date unknown - The first hot air balloons are released in Sweden by the popular acrobat Antonio Bartolomeo Spinacuta.Swedensource
  • Abraham Rees completes his edition of Chambers 's Encyclopaedia, and is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his work.Walessource

Health & Medicine

  • June 2 – The Tignon law is enacted by Spanish Governor of Louisiana Esteban Rodríguez Miró, to force black women to wear a tignon headscarf.source
  • 2 August – a delusional needlewoman, Margaret Nicholson, attempts to stab the king outside St James's Palace in London; she will be confined for the remaining 42 years of her life in Bethlehem Hospital for the insane.United Kingdomsource
  • August – British Cabinet approves the establishment of a penal colony at Botany Bay to serve as "a remedy for the evils likely to result from the late alarming and numerous increase of felons in this country and more particularly in the metropolis" (London).United Kingdomsource
  • Malaria epidemic in Barcelona ends after killing nearly 100,000 people.Spainsource

Crime & Justice

  • May 21 – The trial in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace ends in Paris.source
  • 21 June – first woman to be burnt at the stake at Newgate Prison in London (as distinct from Tyburn or Smithfield), Phoebe Harris for coin counterfeiting. She is led to the stake past the hanged bodies of her accomplices but is allowed to be strangled before the flames are lit.United Kingdomsource
  • The last reliably recorded wolf in Ireland is hunted down and killed near Mount Leinster, County Carlow, for killing sheep.source
  • Gerassin Pribilof discovers the rookeries on the islands now known as the Pribilofs.Canadasource

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 6 – The outward bound East Indiaman Halsewell is wrecked on the south coast of England in a storm, with only 74 of more than 240 on board surviving.source
  • 6 January – the outward bound East Indiaman Halsewell is wrecked on the Isle of Purbeck in a storm with only 74 of more than 240 on board surviving.United Kingdomsource
  • September 25 – The mine of Huancavelica in the Peruvian Andes collapses killing more than a hundred people. The event is a major setback for quicksilver production in the Spanish Empire.source

Climate & Environment

  • June 10 – An earthquake-caused landslide dam on the Dadu River gives way, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China.source
  • 1 September to 30 November – at 7.50 °C, this is the equal coolest autumn in the CET series with that of 1676, and the coolest since monthly data are accurate to a tenth of a degree.United Kingdomsource
  • September 2 – A hurricane strikes Barbados.source
  • Hester Lynch Piozzi - Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., during the last twenty years of his lifeWalessource

Culture & Society

  • April 11 – Columbia College (modern-day Columbia University) holds its first graduation, with eight students, including DeWitt Clinton.source
  • May 1 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna.source
  • July 31 – The 'Kilmarnock volume' of Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published in Scotland.source
  • 31 July – Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published by John Wilson in Kilmarnock (the text having been submitted to him on 13 July). The volume proves so popular that Burns abandons his plans to emigrate to Jamaica on 1 September for a post as a bookkeeper on a slave plantation and on 27–28 November journeys on a borrowed pony from Mossgiel Farm for his first visit to Edinburgh. Two weeks later he extemporises his "Address to a Haggis" which is first published on 19 December in the Caledonian Mercury.Scotlandsource
  • August 17 – Frederick William II, the paternal nephew of Frederick the Great, becomes King of Prussia.source
  • September 11-14 – Annapolis ConventionUnited Statessource
  • November 7 – The oldest musical organization in the United States, the Stoughton Musical Society, is founded.source
  • November 17 – Six locations are granted municipal rights. This year is regarded as the founding of Reykjavík.Icelandsource
  • November 30 – Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgates a penal reform, making his country the first state to abolish the death penalty. This day is therefore commemorated by 300 cities around the world as Cities for Life Day.source
  • Foundation of Madam Lindes Institut.Denmarksource
  • Creaking Pagoda completed in Tsarskoye SeloRussiasource
  • Fevey - premier of opera by Vasily Pashkevich with libretto by Catherine the GreatRussiasource
  • Date unknown- The first school to give higher education to female students, the Societetsskolan, is founded in Gothenburg.Swedensource

Births

Deaths

  • January 4 – Moses Mendelssohn, Jewish philosopher (born 1729)source
  • January 26 – Hans Joachim von Zieten, Prussian field marshal (born 1699)source
  • 18 February – Ludvig Daae, priest and landowner (born 1723).Norwaysource
  • February 25 – Thomas Wright, British astronomer (born 1711)source
  • April 10 – John Byron, British naval officer (born 1723)source
  • May 15 – Eva Ekeblad, Swedish scientist and agronomist, first female member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (born 1724)source
  • May 21 – Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish chemist (born 1742)source
  • May 25 – Peter III of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria I of Portugal (born 1717)source
  • June 19 – Nathanael Greene, major general in the Continental Army, 3rd Quartermaster General (born 1742)source
  • June 19 – Nathanael Greene, major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (born 1742)United Statessource
  • August 17 – King Frederick II of Prussia ("Frederick the Great") (born 1712)source
  • September 5 – Jonas Hanway, English merchant, traveler, and philanthropist (born 1712)source
  • September 18 – Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Italian luthier (born 1711)source
  • October 2 – Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, British admiral (born 1725)source
  • October 31 – Princess Amelia of Great Britain, Second daughter of George II of Great Britain (born 1711)source
  • November 30 – Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish military leader who aided the United States in its quest for independence, in the American Revolutionary War (born 1746)source
  • Jovan Horvat, general and founder of New SerbiaRussiasource
  • Leopoldo de Gregorio, Marquis of Esquilache (1700–1786) – A key figure in the reformist government of Charles III.Spainsource