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The 1780s

762 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 18th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1780 CE73 entries

  • May 4 – The first Epsom Derby horse race is run on Epsom Downs, Surrey, England. The victor is Diomed.
  • June 2 – An Anti-Catholic mob led by Lord George Gordon marches on the Parliament of Great Britain, leading to the outbreak of the Gordon Riots in London.
  • November 4 – Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II: In the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, Túpac Amaru II leads an uprising of Aymara and Quechua peoples and mestizo peasants as a protest against the Bourbon Reforms.

1781 CE75 entries

  • June 12 – Ohmiya (近江屋), as predecessor for Takeda, a major worldwide pharmaceutical brand, is founded in Doshomachi (道修町), Osaka, Japan.
  • August 30 – American Revolution: A French fleet under Comte de Grasse enters Chesapeake Bay, cutting British General Charles Cornwallis off from escape by sea.
  • December – A school is founded in Washington County, Pennsylvania that will later be known as Washington & Jefferson College.

1782 CE68 entries

  • January 15 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the United States Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.
  • April 6 – Rama I overthrows King Taksin of Siam (now Thailand) in a coup d'état, and moves the political capital from Thonburi, across the Chao Phraya River to Rattanakosin Island, the historic center of Bangkok.
  • December 12 – American Revolutionary War: Action of 12 December 1782: A naval engagement off Ferrol, Spain, in which the British ship commanded by James Luttrell successfully attacks a convoy of French and American ships attempting to supply the United States.

1783 CE77 entries

  • January 20 – At the palace of Versailles, Great Britain signs preliminary peace treaties with the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain.
  • March 15 – Newburgh Conspiracy: A potential uprising in the Continental Army stationed at Newburgh, New York, is defused, when George Washington asks the officers to support the supremacy of the United States Congress.
  • November 27 – English rector John Michell concludes that some stars might have enough gravity force to prevent light escaping from them, so he calls them "dark stars".

1784 CE67 entries

  • January 15 – Henry Cavendish's paper to the Royal Society of London, Experiments on Air, reveals the molecular composition of water.
  • February 28 – John Wesley ordains ministers for the Methodist Church in the United States.
  • April 23 – The Congress of the Confederation passes the Ordinance of Governance to set guidelines for adding to the original 13 states in the United States of America.

1785 CE75 entries

  • January 1 – The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.
  • January 20 – Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút: Invading Siamese forces, attempting to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong River by the Tây Sơn.
  • January 27 – The University of Georgia in the United States is chartered by the Georgia General Assembly meeting in Savannah. The first students are admitted in Athens, Georgia in 1801.

1786 CE73 entries

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • December 4 – Mission Santa Barbara is founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén as the tenth of the Spanish missions in California.

1787 CE75 entries

  • June 28 – Princess Wilhelmina of Orange, sister of King Frederick William II of Prussia, is captured by Dutch Republican patriots, taken to Goejanverwellesluis and not allowed to travel to The Hague.
  • September 13 – Prussian troops invade the Dutch Republic; two days later the Rhinegrave Salm gives up Utrecht. Within a few weeks 40,000 Patriots (out of a population of 2,000,000) go into exile in Northern France.
  • November 21 – Treaty of Versailles (1787) signed, forming an alliance between the Kingdom of France and the Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, future Emperor of Vietnam.

1788 CE79 entries

  • July 13 – A hailstorm sweeps across France and the Dutch Republic, with hailstones 'as big as quart bottles' that take 'three days to melt'; immense damage is done.
  • October – King George III of the United Kingdom becomes deranged; the Regency Crisis of 1788 starts.
  • December – Robert Burns writes his version of the Scots poem Auld Lang Syne.

1789 CE100 entries

  • January 21 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts. The anonymous author is William Hill Brown.
  • February 4 – George Washington is unanimously elected the first president of the United States, by the United States Electoral College.
  • September 25 – The United States Congress proposes a set of 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, for ratification by the states. Ratification for 10 of these proposals is completed on December 5, 1791, creating the United States Bill of Rights.