text: Marine chronometer invented as a means to accurately determine longitude.


section: Science & Discovery

text: Johann Heinrich Lambert finds a proof that π is irrational.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: April 4

section: Health & Medicine

text: April 4 – A severe epidemic of influenza breaks out in London and "practically the entire population of the city" is afflicted; particularly contagious to pregnant women, the disease causes an unusual number of miscarriages and premature births.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Thomas Boone is transferred south to become the Royal Governor of South Carolina after proving to be unable to work with the local assembly as the Royal Governor of New Jersey.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – William Pitt is dismissed from his position as Secretary of State for the Southern Department after having been a powerful part of a coalition government with the Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle.

source_section: Events › October–December


date: August 6

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: August 6 – The Parlement of Paris votes to close all colleges, associations and seminaries associated with the Jesuit Order, following a long campaign by Louis-Adrien Le Paige.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: February 8

section: Climate & Environment

text: February 8 – An earthquake in London breaks chimneys in Limehouse and Poplar.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: March 8

text: March 8 – A second earthquake occurs in North London, Hampstead and Highgate.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – An 8.5 magnitude earthquake strikes Lisbon in the Kingdom of Portugal, with effects felt as far north as Scotland, but few deaths are reported because of censorship by the Portuguese government.


date: May 4

text: May 4 – The first multiple death tornado in the 13 American colonies strikes Charleston, South Carolina, killing eight people and sinking five ships in harbor.


date: November 11

text: November 11 – The Earl of Egremont, serving as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, initiated a policy which forbids the issuing of any land grants to white settlers in territory occupied by the American Indian tribes.


date: May 9

section: Culture & Society

text: May 9 – Exhibition of 1761, the innaugaral exhibition of the Society of Artists of Great Britain opens at Spring Gardens in London


date: August 15

text: August 15 – The Third Family Compact is executed by King Charles III of Spain and King Louis XV of France, as well as representatives of members of the House of Bourbon, King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Philip, Duke of Parma.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – George III marries Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.


date: September 22

text: September 22 – George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz are crowned.


text: The music for "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman" ("Ah, would I tell you Mom?") is first published in France by a Monsieur Bouin in his book Les Amusements d'une Heure et Demy; in 1806, English poet Jane Taylor publishes her poem, The Star, whose words fit the rhythm of the tune and become the children's song Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.


text: l'Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Élus Coëns de l'Univers is founded.


date: January 17

section: Births

text: January 17 – James Hall, Scottish geologist (d. 1832)

source_section: Births


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Christian Hendrik Persoon, South African mycologist (d. 1836)


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Dorothea von Medem, Latvian diplomat, duchess of Courland (d. 1821)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Charles Pichegru, French general (d. 1804)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Antoine-Francois Andreossy, French general (d. 1828)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – August von Kotzebue, German dramatist (d. 1819)


date: June 7

text: June 7 – John Rennie the Elder, Scottish-born civil engineer (d. 1821)


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Levi Hutchins, American clockmaker, nventor of the alarm clock (d. 1855)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Louis Albert Guislain Bacler d'Albe, French painter and cartographer (d. 1824)


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Matthew Baillie, Scottish physician and pathologist (d. 1823)


date: November 13

text: November 13 – John Moore, British general (d. 1809)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – Pope Pius VIII (d. 1830)


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Marie Tussaud, French wax modeller (d. 1850)


date: December 27

text: December 27 – Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, Russian military commander (d. 1818)


date: January 4

section: Deaths

text: January 4 – Stephen Hales, English physiologist, chemist, and inventor (b. 1677)

source_section: Deaths


date: January 7

text: January 7 – Darkey Kelly, Irish madam and serial murderer, executed by burning


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle, French general and statesman (b. 1684)


text: February 1 – Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix, French historian (b. 1682)


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Clemens August of Bavaria, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne (b. 1700)


date: April 9

text: April 9 – William Law, English minister (b. 1686)


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, Scottish politician (b. 1682)


date: April 17

text: April 17 – Thomas Bayes, English mathematician (b. c. 1702)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Richard Edgcumbe, 2nd Baron Edgcumbe, British baron, politician (b. 1716)


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Princess Elisabeth Albertine of Saxe-Hildburghausen, Duchess consort of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (b. 1713)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Samuel Richardson, English writer (b. 1689)


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Tarabai, Indian queen regent of the Maratha Empire (b. 1675)


date: December 23

text: December 23 – Alestair Ruadh MacDonnell, Scottish Jacobite spy (b. c. 1725)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Princess Dorothea of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, German noble (b. 1685)


date: May 5

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: May 5 (April 24 O.S.) – The Treaty of Saint Petersburg ends the war between Russia and Prussia, and returns all of Russia's territorial conquests to the Prussians.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – The Treaty of Hamburg takes Sweden out of the war against Prussia.


date: November 13

text: November 13 – In the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Louis XV secretly cedes Louisiana (New France) to Charles III of Spain to compensate his ally for territorial losses to Britain.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Less than six months after becoming Russia's Empress, Catherine the Great announces that almost all foreigners are welcome to travel to and settle in Russia, and waives previous requirements that new residents must be members of the Russian Orthodox Church; however, the manifesto adds the phrase kromye Zhydov - "except the Jews".


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Catherine follows the waiver of religious requirement for Russian immigration with a 190-word invitation, translated into various European languages, that invites Europeans to build settlements along arable, but undeveloped, land in southern Russia along the Volga River; when the invitation attracts little notice, she follows on July 22 with a longer manifesto promising free travel expenses and a written guarantee of rights.


text: The town of Charlottesville, Virginia is founded.


text: Neolin, a Lenape prophet, begins to preach in America.


date: January 4

section: Conflict & Security

text: January 4 – Seven Years' War: Britain declares war against Spain and Naples, following their recent alliance with France.


date: January 16

text: January 16 – British forces under Robert Monckton land on the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – The Great Holocaust of the Sikhs is carried out by the forces of Ahmed Shah Abdali in Punjab. In all, around 30,000 men, women and children perish in this campaign of slaughter.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Invasion of Martinique (1762): French forces on Martinique surrender to the British. The island is subsequently returned to France, as part of the Peace of Paris.


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Battle of Wilhelmsthal: The Anglo-Hanoverian army of Ferdinand of Brunswick defeats the French forces in Westphalia. The British commander Lord Granby distinguishes himself.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Catherine II becomes empress of Russia after planning the overthrow of her husband, the Tsar Peter III. The incipient Russo-Prussian alliance falls apart, but Russia does not rejoin the war. Peter is strangled eight days later.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – Battle of Burkersdorf: In his last major battle, Frederick defeats Marshal Daun in Silesia.


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Seven Years' War: The Battle of Havana concludes after more than two months, with the surrender of Havana by Spain to Great Britain.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – King Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha conquers Makwanpur.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – French and Indian War: Battle of Signal Hill – British troops defeat the French in the last battle of the North American theatre of the Seven Years' War, fought in the Newfoundland Colony.


date: September 24

text: September 24–October 6 – Battle of Manila: Troops of the British East India Company take Manila from the Spanish, leading to the British occupation of Manila and its being made an open port.


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Siege of Schweidnitz in Silesia. Prussia takes the strategic fortress from Austria.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Battle of Freiberg: Prince Henry of Prussia, Frederick's brother, defeats the Austrian army of Marshal Serbelloni.


date: March 5

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: March 5 – A Royal Navy fleet with 16,000 men departs Britain from Spithead and sets sail toward Cuba in order to seize strategic Spanish Empire possessions in the Americas.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – Cherokee Indian war chief Ostenaco and his two aides, Standing Turkey (Cunneshote) and Pouting Pigeon, are received by King George III. They had arrived three days earlier at Plymouth on the British frigate Epreuvre as guests of the Timberlake Expedition of Henry Timberlake, to discuss terms of peace with the British government.


section: Religion & Belief

text: Approximate date of the foundation of Zubarah on the northwestern shore of the Qatari Peninsula, by Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, who assumes the chieftainship of the city state and gains authority over the Arab tribes in the area.


text: The Plymouth Synagogue is built in Plymouth, England, the oldest built by Ashkenazi Jews in the English-speaking world.


date: May 26

section: Economy & Finance

text: May 26 – Dissatisfied with the progress of the French and Indian War, King George III dismisses his Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle, and replaces him with his former tutor, Tory politician John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute. The Bute ministry lasts less than a year before Stuart's resignation in 1763.


section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: Louis XV orders the construction of the Petit Trianon, in the park of the Palace of Versailles, for his mistress Madame de Pompadour.


date: March 10

section: Crime & Justice

text: March 10 – Jean Calas, a 68 year old French merchant convicted unjustly of murdering his son because of religious differences, is brutally executed on orders of the Parlement of Toulouse. After his legs and hips are broken and crushed, Calas is tortured on the breaking wheel (la roue), to remain "in pain and repentance for his crimes and misdeeds, for as long as it shall please God to keep him alive."


date: April 2

text: April 2 – A powerful earthquake along the border between modern-day Bangladesh and Myanmar causes a tsunami in the Bay of Bengal that kills at least 200 people.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – The first Saint Patrick's Day Parade in New York City takes place in lower Manhattan, inaugurating an annual tradition; the Ancient Order of the Hibernians organization later becomes the sponsor of the event, which attracts as many a 300,000 marchers in some years.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Innovative publisher Samuel Farley launches the weekly newspaper The American Chronicle, the seventh in New York City.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Orfeo ed Euridice by Cristoph Willibald Gluck was given its first performance.


text: Istoriya Slavyanobolgarskaya is finished by Paisius of Hilendar.


text: James "Athenian" Stuart and Nicholas Revett's architectural treatise Antiquities of Athens is published.


text: The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Kingston, named for King George III, as the county seat of Dobbs County, North Carolina. The name is later shortened to Kinston in 1784.


text: Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract (Du Contrat social, ou Principes du droit politique) and Emile, or On Education (Émile, ou De l’éducation) are published in Amsterdam and The Hague respectively. In Rousseau's native Republic of Geneva they are publicly burned and prohibited in Paris.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Molly Morgan, British convict and settler in Australia (d. 1835)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – John Cooke, English captain (d. 1805)


date: March 22

text: March 22 – William Robert Broughton, British explorer (d. 1821)


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher (d. 1814)


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, British politician (d. 1834)


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Bushrod Washington, American politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1829)


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Joanna Baillie, Scottish writer (d. 1851)


date: October 12

text: October 12 – Jan Willem Janssens, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1838)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Herman Willem Daendels, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1818)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Samuel Morey, American inventor (d. 1843)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1812)


date: November

text: November – Manuel Torres, first Colombian ambassador to the United States (d. 1822)


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, British politician (d. 1847)


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Michael Kelly, Irish composer and singer (d. 1826)


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Empress Elisabeth of Russia dies, and is succeeded by her nephew Peter III. Peter, an admirer of Frederick the Great, immediately opens peace negotiations with the Prussians.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – Manuel de Montiano, Spanish colonial administrator (b. 1685)


date: January 11

text: January 11 – Louis-François Roubiliac, French sculptor (b. 1695)


text: May 19 – Francesco Loredan, doge of Venice (b. 1685)


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, German philosopher (b. 1714)


date: May 31

text: May 31 – Marco Foscarini becomes the new Doge of the Republic of Venice after the death of Francesco Loredan, who had administered the Republic for 10 years.


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Dorothea Erxleben, German physician (b. 1715)


date: July 12

text: July 12 – Prince Sado, son of Yeongjo of Joseon (b. 1735)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Emperor Peter III of Russia (b. 1728)


date: July 28

text: July 28 – George Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe, English politician (b. 1691)


date: August 20

text: August 20 – Shah Waliullah, Islamic reformer (b. 1703)


date: August 21

text: August 21 – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer (b. 1689)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland, British politician (b. 1685)


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Empress Go-Sakuramachi succeeds to the throne of Japan upon the death of her brother, the Emperor Momozono. She reigns for eight years before abdicating on January 9, 1771. She was the last empress regnant of Japan up to this day.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – The seat of colonial administration in the Viceroyalty of Brazil is moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – The colonial authorities in the Province of North Carolina establish Mecklenburg County from the western portion of Anson County. The county is named for Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who married George III in 1761.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war, and France cedes Canada (New France) to Great Britain.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – The Treaty of Hubertusburg puts an end to the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Austria, and their allies France and Russia.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – George Grenville takes office as the new Prime Minister of Great Britain, after the Earl of Bute resigns amid criticism over Britain's concessions in the Treaty of Paris.


date: October 7

text: October 7 – The Royal Proclamation of 1763 is issued by George III of Great Britain, restricting the westward expansion of British North America, and stabilizing relations with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, by barring white settlement of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains.


date: February 23

text: February 23 – The Berbice Slave Uprising starts in the former Dutch colony of Berbice.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – Teedyuscung, known as the "King of the Delaware Indians" (the Lenape tribe) is assassinated by arsonists who burn down his home in Pennsylvania while he is sleeping, in an apparent retaliation for signing the Treaty of Easton to relinquish Lenape claims to the Province of New Jersey.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Outraged by the British success in taking control of land in North America formerly occupied by the French, Pontiac, chief of the Odawa people, convenes a conference near Detroit and convinces the leaders of 17 other nations of the need to attack British outposts.


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Chief Pontiac begins "Pontiac's War" by attacking the British garrison at Fort Detroit, but the surprise attack is given away by a young native girl who informs the British of the plan. Two days later he begins the Siege of Fort Detroit.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Pontiac's War: At what becomes Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.


text: July 28 {O.S. July 17) – The Russo-Circassian War begins, when the Russian Empire attempts to annex Circassia.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Mir Qasim is routed at Odwa Nala. He flees to Patna, where he massacres the English garrison, but is subsequently defeated at Katwa, Murshidabad, Giria, Sooty, Udayanala and Munger.


date: August 5

text: August 5 – Pontiac's War: Battle of Bushy Run – British forces led by Henry Bouquet defeat Chief Pontiac's Indians at Bushy Run, in the Pennsylvania backcountry.


date: December 14

text: December 14 – The Paxton Boys massacre six Conestoga Indians in their homes in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. When the 16 survivors are sheltered in the Lancaster workhouse (jail), the Paxton Boys ride into town and kill them as well, on December 27.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island, is dedicated; by the end of the 20th century, this will be the oldest surviving synagogue in North America.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Charles Townshend becomes President of the Board of Trade in the British government.


date: July 7

text: July 7 – The British East India Company declares Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal, to be deposed.


date: August 3

text: August 3 and 4 – Amsterdam banking crisis: The spectacular bankruptcies of Leendert Pieter de Neufville and Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky lead to a financial contagion which in the following days affects many merchants in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin and Stockholm.


date: November 24

text: November 24 – Bayes' theorem is first announced.


text: The Prussian education system is instituted as a compulsory system for boys and girls from age 5 to 13–14 by the Generallandschulreglement (General School Regulation), a decree of Frederick the Great authored by Johann Julius Hecker.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – Marie-Josephte Corriveau is hanged near her home at Saint-Vallier, Quebec before being gibbeted after being found guilty by a military tribunal of twelve officers of murdering her husband. She becomes famous in French Canadian folklore as "la Corriveau".


date: August

text: August – Fire in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire, destroys 2,600 houses.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – A magnitude 6.2 earthquake shakes Hungary and Slovakia, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). Damage is limited, but 83 are killed.


text: Little Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, is damaged in an earthquake.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – The Théâtre du Palais-Royal, home to the Paris Opera for almost 90 years, is destroyed in an accidental fire.


date: April 23

text: April 23 – The controversial Issue 45 of John Wilkes's satirical newspaper The North Briton is published as a response to a speech four days earlier by King George III praising the end of the Seven Years' War. In what will become a test case for freedom of speech, Wilkes, a member of Parliament, is arrested for libel of the King and imprisoned, then flee to France.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – The Mozart family grand tour of Europe began, lifting the profile of child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – Empress Catherine the Great of Russia endorses Ivan Betskoy's plans for a Foundling Home in Moscow.


text: Joseph Haydn writes his Symphony No. 12 and Symphony No. 13 (August–December) for Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy; also, at about this date, his Symphony No. 40.


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Jean-Baptiste Drouet, French revolutionary politician (d. 1824)


text: January 8 – Edmond-Charles Genêt, French ambassador to the United States during the French Revolution (d. 1834)


date: January 24

text: January 24 – Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langeron, Russian general (d. 1831)


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, King Charles XIV John of Sweden and Charles III John of Norway (d. 1844)


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Jean Victor Marie Moreau, French general (d. of wounds 1813)


date: March 9

text: March 9 – William Cobbett, English journalist, author (d. 1835)


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Jean Paul, German writer (d. 1825)


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Józef Antoni Poniatowski, Polish prince, Marshal of France (d. 1813)


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Theobald Wolfe Tone, Irish patriot (executed 1798)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – John Jacob Astor, German-born American entrepreneur (d. 1848)


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, second son of George III of Great Britain (d. 1827)


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Dmitry Senyavin, Russian admiral (d. 1831)


date: December 28

text: December 28 – John Molson, Canadian entrepreneur (d. 1836)


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, French admiral (suicide 1806)


date: January 2

text: January 2 – John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville, English statesman (b. 1690)


date: March 2

text: March 2 – Antoine Walsh, Irish-French slave trader and Jacobite (b. 1703)


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Catherine Charlotte De la Gardie, Swedish countess (b. 1723)


date: April 8

text: April 8 – Koca Ragıp Pasha, Ottoman (Turkish) Grand Vizier (b. 1698)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave of Great Britain (b. 1715)


date: April 22

text: April 22 – Jared Eliot, Connecticut farmer, writer on horticulture (b. 1685)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – George Psalmanazar, French-born impostor and English writer (b. c. 1679)


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, Swedish writer (b. 1718)


date: August 21

text: August 21 – Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, British statesman (b. 1710)


date: September 20

text: September 20 – Gabriela Silang, Filipina rebel leader, heroine (b. 1731)


date: October

text: October – Anna Maria Garthwaite, British designer (b. 1688)


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Joseph Dupleix – French governor general at Pondichéry (b. 1697)


date: November 23

text: November 23 – Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff, German soldier (b. 1673)


date: November 28

text: November 28 – Naungdawgyi, Burmese king (b. 1734)


date: March 31

text: March 31 – A mutual defense treaty between the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia is signed in Saint Petersburg between representatives of Russia's Empress Catherine the Great and Prussia's King Frederick the Great. By agreement, each nation agrees (for an eight-year period) to commit 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 horses to the defense of the other in case of an attack, and secretly agree to maintain security within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

source_section: Events › January–June


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Residents of French Louisiana are informed for the first time that they will come under Spanish rule as the result of a secret agreement of November 13, 1762 whereby France has ceded all of its North American territory west of the Mississippi River. The Spanish, however, do not take possession until August 17, 1769.


text: May 3 – Baden, one of the member states of the Confederation of Switzerland, declares a policy of remaining neutral in future conflicts, a model that is soon followed by other members of the Confederation and which eventually becomes the basis for Swiss neutrality from 1815 onward.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – King George, on advice of the Privy Council, issues the Royal Determination of the disputed boundary between the colonial provinces of New York and New Hampshire. The King-in-Council "doth hereby order and declare the western banks of the river Connecticut from where it enters the province of Massachusetts Bay, as far north as the 45th degree of north latitude to be the boundary line between the two provinces of New Hampshire and New York."


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The Treaty of Fort Niagara is signed between Great Britain and 44 North American Indian nations, bring an end to the ongoing war that had started in 1756 with most of the northern Indian tribes. Sir William Johnson appears on behalf of Britain, and principal chiefs appear for the Iroquois Confederacy, Wabash Confederacy, Illini Confederacy, Haudenosaunee, Seneca, Wyandot, Menominee, Algonquin, Nipissing, Ojibwa, Mississaugas, Mohawk, Abenaki, Huron, and Onondaga.


date: September 7

text: September 7 – Stanisław August Poniatowski is elected as the King of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


text: The Royal Colony of North Carolina establishes a new county from the eastern portion of Granville County and names it Bute County for John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who had recently resigned his post as Prime Minister of Great Britain. In 1779 the State of North Carolina abolishes the county, when it forms Warren County from the northern portion and Franklin County from the southern portion.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – The Siculicidium is carried out as hundreds of the Székely minority in Transylvania are massacred by the Austrian Army at Madéfalva.


date: July 6

text: July 6 – The last British troops depart Havana, Cuba, two years after having captured it from Spain during the Seven Years' War. The removal of troops follows the treaty between the two Kingdoms, with Spain ceding West Florida to Great Britain in return for the Havana withdrawal.


date: July 26

text: July 26 – In what is described 250 years later as "The first documented United States school shooting", a group of four Delaware Indians invade a schoolhouse near what is now Greencastle, Pennsylvania and kill ten schoolchildren and their teacher, Enoch Brown. The massacre happens in the course of Pontiac's War, as retaliation against white settlement of Indian lands in central Pennsylvania. One student, Archie McCullough, manages to escape the carnage; a memorial is erected 120 years later on August 4, 1884.


date: October 22

text: October 22 – Battle of Buxar: The British East India Company defeats the combined armies of Mir Qasim, the Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh, and Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – Mary Campbell, a captive of the Lenape during the French and Indian War, is turned over to forces commanded by Colonel Henry Bouquet.


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Siege of Darbar Sahib (1764): 30 Sikhs defend the holy site of Golden Temple against 30,000 Afghans.


text: The French government withdraws wartime taxes.


text: Chief Pontiac, participating in an armed conflict with other native tribes against British military, participates in a dialogue and exchange with the military of Britain, resulting eventually in a negotiated peace treaty.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – The settlement of St. Louis is established.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – The day after his return to Paris from a nine-year mission, French explorer and scholar Anquetil Du Perron presents a complete copy of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Zend Avesta, to the Bibliothèque Royale in Paris, along with several other traditional texts. In 1771, he publishes the first European translation of the Zend Avesta.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – After the British victory in the French and Indian War, the first post-war British expedition to explore the newly acquired territories east of the Mississippi River comes under attack by Tunica warriors. The 340 British Army men, under the command of Major Arthur Loftus, were at a spot south of Natchez, Mississippi and were forced to flee in their boats back toward the port of New Orleans while under fire from an unknown number of Tunicas firing from both banks.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Following lobbying by George Johnstone, the Governor of British West Florida, Britain's Lords of Trade vote to recommend the northern boundary for the new province to run from the confluence of the Yazoo River and the Mississippi (at modern-day Vicksburg, Mississippi) to the Chattahoochee River (at modern-day Phenix City, Alabama), and the Privy Council soon approves, bringing about 38000 sqmi km2 under the West Florida's jurisdiction.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Conditional repatriation of the Acadians in Canada, French colonists who took up arms against the British during the war, is approved by order of King George III on advice of the Privy Council. The Council offers settlement to any Acadians willing to take an oath of allegiance to the British Crown and that those living in New Brunswick are to "be allowed to settle in Nova Scotia, but that they should be dispersed in small numbers in various localities."


text: French Carthusian monks at Grande Chartreuse perfect a commercial recipe for Chartreuse (liqueur).


date: April 1

text: April 1 – A solar eclipse occurs. On the same day, the undefeated Thoroughbred racehorse Eclipse, named after the event, is foaled at Keats Gore, near East Ilsley in Berkshire.


text: Cesare Beccaria - On Crimes and Punishments (Dei delitti e delle pene), a founding work of penology

source_section: Events › Publications


text: Immanuel Kant - Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen)


date: January 19

text: January 19 – John Wilkes is expelled from the House of Commons of Great Britain, for seditious libel.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – The Sugar Act is passed in Great Britain.


date: June 29

text: June 29 – One of the strongest tornadoes ever recorded hits Woldegk, Germany.


text: Voltaire - Dictionnaire philosophique


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Francisco Javier de la Torre arrives in Manila to become the new Spanish Governor-General of the Philippines.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Eight-year-old child prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performs a private concert before King George III and Queen Charlotte in Great Britain, and has an encore on May 19.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – The English-language Quebec Gazette is established in Quebec City, Canada (the oldest surviving newspaper in North America).


date: July 8

text: July 8 – The Niagara Conference begins at the invitation of Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern district, who hosts "one of the largest conventions of red men ever held on the continent" to negotiate the end of the hostilities from the French and Indian War. Reportedly, 2,000 representatives of the North American tribes meet at upstate New York coming from distances ranging "From Dakota to Hudson's Bay, and from Maine to Kentucky."


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Johnson arrives at the Niagara River site to meet with the representatives of the Indian nations.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – English scholar Edward Gibbon conceives the idea of writing The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, "as I sat musing amid the ruins of the Capitol".


text: Horace Walpole - The Castle of Otranto "a story, translated by William Marshal, Gent., from the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto", the first Gothic novel


text: Catherine the Great establishes the first secondary education school for females in Russia – The Smolny Institute, for girls of the nobility in St. Petersburg.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – John Gray, last verified American Revolutionary War veteran (d. 1868)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, 26th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1845)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, French marshal (d. 1830)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – Rudolph Ackermann, German-born English entrepreneur (d. 1834)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – Princess Élisabeth of France, sister of Louis XVI (executed 1794)


date: May 5

text: May 5 – Robert Craufurd, Scottish general (k. 1812)


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Edward Livingston, American jurist, statesman (d. 1836)


date: June 5

text: June 5 – James Smithson, British mineralogist, chemist and posthumous founder of the Smithsonian Institution (d. 1829)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – José Gervasio Artigas, Uruguayan hero of independence (d. 1850)


text: June 21 – Sidney Smith, British admiral (d. 1840)


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Ann Radcliffe, English Gothic novelist (d. 1823)


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Judah Leib Ben-Ze'ev, Galician Jewish modern Hebrew philologist, lexicographer, Biblical scholar and poet (d. 1811)


date: September 7

text: September 7 – Pierre Lorillard II, American businessman, real estate tycoon (d. 1843)


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Claude-Victor Perrin, Duc de Belluno, Marshal of France (d. 1841)


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Giuseppe Alessandro Furietti, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1685)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor of England (b. 1690)


date: March 17

text: March 17 – George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, English astronomer (b. c.1696)


date: March 25

text: March 25 – Mikhail Mikhalovich Golitsyn, Russian naval officer (b. 1684)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – The prince-electors, a group of nine German princes who select the next leader of the Holy Roman Empire, vote for the last time as the health of the Emperor Francis I declines. The electors (including Britain's King George III, who also rules as Elector of Hanover) approve Francis's son, Prince Joseph of Austria as King of the Romans. Upon the death of Francis in 1765, Prince Joseph becomes the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Pietro Locatelli, Italian composer (b. 1695)


text: May 3 – Francesco Algarotti, Italian philosopher (b. 1712)


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Ralph Allen, English businessman and politician (b. 1693)


date: July 7

text: July 7 – William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath, English politician (b. 1683)


date: July 23

text: July 23 – Gilbert Tennent, Irish-born religious leader (b. 1703)


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Robert Dodsley, English writer (b. 1703)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, Prime Minister of Great Britain (b. 1720)


date: October 22

text: October 22 – Jean-Marie Leclair, French composer and violinist (murdered) (b. 1697)


date: October 26

text: October 26 – William Hogarth, English painter and satirist (b. 1697)


date: January 29

text: January 29 – One week before his death, Mir Jafar, who had been enthroned as the Nawab of Bengal and ruler of the Bengali people with the support and protection of the British East India Company, abdicates in favor of his 18-year-old son, Najmuddin Ali Khan.


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Royal assent is given to the Duties in American Colonies Act 1765, historically referred to as the Stamp Act, imposing the first direct tax levied from Great Britain on the thirteen American colonies, effective November 1. The revenue measure (which requires the purchase of a stamp to be affixed for validation of all legal documents, but also to licensed newspapers and even playing cards and dice) is made to help defray the costs for British military operations in North America, including the French and Indian War.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – At Fort Tombecbe, near what is now the town of Epes, Alabama, representatives of the British Empire and of the Choctaw Indian tribe in Mississippi sign a peace treaty in the wake of French cession of claims to the British. A boundary is fixed between land to be occupied by the Choctaws and for lands which British settlers can use; in addition, the British agree to provide a police official and a gunsmith at Fort Tombecbe for the Choctaws to use for trespassing complaints and for weapons repairs. By 1775, however, the Choctaws are outnumbered in Mississippi.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – The Isle of Man is brought under British control, the Isle of Man Purchase Act (coming into force 10 May) confirming HM Treasury's purchase of the feudal rights of the Dukes of Atholl, as Lord of Mann over the island, and revesting them into the British Crown.


date: July 10

text: July 10 – King George III dismisses George Grenville from the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain, and replaces him with another Whig Party statesman, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Lord Rockingham.

source_section: Events › July–December


date: July 12

text: July 12 – On orders of Chief Pontiac, War Chief Wahpesah of the Kickapoo people releases British Indian Affairs negotiator George Croghan from 35 days of detention. At the same time, Pontiac authorizes a Shawnee Chief, Nanicksah, to sign a treaty with the British on behalf of the Great Lakes tribes, settling the French and Indian War.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – Having eliminated all of his rivals for leadership of Persia, Karim Khan Zand returns in triumph to his home in Shiraz and makes it his capital then begins construction of citadels, mosques, schools and other buildings.


text: July 23 – Headed by Odawa Chief Pontiac and George Croghan, a party of Great Lakes tribesmen and British soldiers travel along the Wabash River and obtain the release of all white prisoners of war remaining in the Miami people and Odawa villages between Ouiatenon (near modern-day Granville, Indiana) and Detroit.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – The Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – The Stamp Act goes into effect in the thirteen American colonies.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, requiring private households in the thirteen American colonies to house British soldiers if necessary.


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Three days after getting the news that the Stamp Act has passed, American colonists invade the British Army arsenal near the New York City Hall and sabotage guns inside by spiking them.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – At Yale College, eight students attack the residence of Yale's President Thomas Clap because of his promotion of "New Light" Calvinist doctrine; and "with Evil Intent" and "with Strong hand burst and take off the gates of the yard of the mansion house and Carry away and with Screaming and Shouting... throw into said House Numbers of large stones with Cattles Horns into the windows of said House." The students plead guilty and pay nominal fines, and Clap resigns at the end of the 1765–66 school year.


text: In Lisbon, the auto-da-fé parade (often an excuse for violence against Jews or Christian 'heretics') is abolished.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Spain's five-member "special junta", appointed by Prime Minister Jerónimo Grimaldi, delivers its report regarding "ways to address the backwardness of Spain's commerce with its colonies and with foreign nations". The report provides detailed orders to be delivered to José de Gálvez, the visitador general in charge of New Spain.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – After completing the portion of the Mason–Dixon line marking the semi-circular boundary between Pennsylvania and Delaware, English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon begin the two-and-a-half-year process of plotting out the 230-mile boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland along the latitude of 39°43′20″ N.


text: The first chocolate factory in the Thirteen Colonies is established by Dr. James Baker at Dorchester, Massachusetts.


text: It is believed that the first true restaurant opens in Paris, where a tavern-keeper named Boulanger sells cooked dishes at an all-night place on the Rue Bailleul.


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Joseph II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.


text: Desai Atash Behram is established in Navsari, India.


date: April 26

text: April 26 – At Saint Petersburg, German engineer Christian Kratzenstein presents to the Russian Academy of Sciences a perfected version of the arithmetical machine originally invented by Gottfried Leibniz. Kratzenstein claims that his machine solves the problem with the Leibniz machine has with calculations above four digits, perfecting the flaw where the machine is "prone to err whenever it is necessary to make a number of 9999 move to 10000", but the machine is not developed further.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – During a stroll in the park "on a fine Sabbath afternoon" at Glasgow Green, Scottish engineer James Watt receives the inspiration that provides the breakthrough in his development of the steam engine; he recounts later that "The idea came into my mind, that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication was made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Russian Empress Catherine II issues a decree authorizing the new way to produce vodka (by freezing).


date: October 17

text: October 17 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a Mr. McCullough, the Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest at the Stamp Act. A Dr. Huston is appointed to the position.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that Dr. Huston, the recently instated Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest at the Stamp Act.


date: March 9

text: March 9 – After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have committed suicide.


date: August 14

text: August 14 – In protest of the Stamp Act, Bostonians attack the home of official Andrew Oliver.


date: August 26

text: August 26 – In protest of the Stamp Act, Bostonians destroy the home of lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau's house in Switzerland is stoned by a mob.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – François Antoine announces he has killed the Beast of Gévaudan.


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Not long after British rule has started over the formerly French colony of Quebec, an accidental fire destroys one quarter of the town of Montreal.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Prince Joseph of Austria marries Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria in Vienna.


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, issues a decree abolishing the historic punishments against unmarried women in Germany for "sex crimes", particularly the Hurenstrafen (literally "whore shaming") practices of public humiliation.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Qianlong, the Emperor of China issues a decree that copper engravings be made to depict all of his victories in battle. In the interest of amity with the Chinese, King George III of Great Britain gives priority to the sale of British copper, and King Louis XV of France assents to the use of French artisans.


text: Catherine the Great establishes the first secondary education school for non-noble females in Russia: the Novodevichii Institute, for the daughters of commoners.


text: January 23 – Thomas Todd, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1826)


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Meta Forkel-Liebeskind, German writer, scholar (d. 1853)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher, theologian (d. 1841)


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Duke Charles Felix of Savoy (d. 1831)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Emma, Lady Hamilton, English mistress of Horatio Nelson (d. 1815)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Abigail Adams Smith, firstborn daughter of Abigail Adams and John Adams (d. 1813)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Comte d'Erlon, French marshal (d. 1844)


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Thomas Muir, Scottish advocate, revolutionary (d. 1799)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Harry Burrard-Neale, British Royal Navy officer and politician (d. 1840)


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Pope Gregory XVI (d. 1846)


date: September 25

text: September 25 – Michał Kleofas Ogiński, Polish-Lithuanian, and later Russian imperial statesman and composer


date: September 30

text: September 30 – José María Morelos, leader of Mexican War of Independence (d. 1815)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – Sir Thomas Fremantle, British captain and politician (d. 1819)


date: November 28

text: November 28 – George William Manby, English author and inventor (d. 1854)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Teresia Constantia Phillips, British autobiographer (b. 1709)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Jean-Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie, Director-general of the Colony of Louisiana (b. 1726)


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Elisabetta de Gambarini, English composer (b. 1730)


date: March 3

text: March 3 – William Stukeley, English archaeologist (b. 1687)


text: March 27 – Arthur Dobbs, Irish politician and governor of the Royal Colony of North Carolina (b. 1689)


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Edward Young, English poet (b. 1683)


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian author and scientist (b. 1711)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – Abigail Williams, American accuser in the Salem witch trials (b. 1681)


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Alexis Clairaut, French mathematician (b. 1713)


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Jean-Baptiste Bénard de la Harpe, French explorer of North America (b. 1683)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1688)


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Giovanni Paolo Panini, Italian painter and architect (b. 1691)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, English military leader (b. 1721)


date: December 20

text: December 20 – Louis, Dauphin of France, heir apparent to the French throne (b. 1729)


date: March 18

text: March 18 – American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, which has been very unpopular in the British colonies; the persuasion of Benjamin Franklin is considered partly responsible. The Declaratory Act asserts the right of Britain to bind the colonies in all other respects.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).


date: December 2

text: December 2 – The Law on the Freedom of Printing abolishes censorship in Sweden and guarantees freedom of the press, making Sweden the first country of the world to introduce constitutional protection of press freedom, and to pass wide-ranging freedom of information legislation.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Burmese–Siamese War: Outside of the walls of the Thailand capital of Ayutthaya, tens of thousands of invaders from Burma (under the command of General Ne Myo Thihapate and General Maha Nawatra) are confronted by Thai defenders led by General Phya Taksin. The defenders are overwhelmed and the survivors take refuge inside Ayutthaya. The siege continues for 15 months before the Burmese attackers collapse the walls by digging tunnels and setting fire to debris. The city falls on April 9, 1767, and King Ekkathat is killed.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – An observer in Wilmington, North Carolina reports to the Edinburgh newspaper Caledonian Mercury that three ships have been seized by British men-of-war, on the charge of carrying official documents without stamps. The strict enforcement causes seven other ships to leave Wilmington for other ports.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Protesting against the Stamp Act 1765, members of the New York City Sons of Liberty travel to Pennsylvania and set fire to a British supply of tax stamps before the stamps can be taken to distributors in the province of Maryland.


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Meermin Slave Mutiny: Captive Malagasy people seize a Dutch East India Company slave ship in the Indian Ocean.


date: February

text: February – Ferocious wolf attacks occur in France, such as the Beast of Gévaudan or Wolves of Périgord.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.


date: April 9

text: April 9 – African slaves are imported directly into the American colony of Georgia for the first time, as the sloop Mary Brow arrives in Savannah with 78 captives imported from Saint-Louis, Senegal.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – The revolt in Quito (at this time part of Spain's Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada; the modern-day capital of Ecuador) is ended peacefully as royal forces enter the city under the command of Guayaquil Governor Pedro Zelaya. Rather than seeking retribution from the Quito citizens over their insurrection that has broken the monopoly over the sale of the liquor aguardiente, Zeleaya oversees a program of reconciliation.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – A British sloop-of-war is searching all vessels passing near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, and some vessels have been seized, according to an observer in New York City, in the Province of New York, reporting to the Pennsylvania Gazette.


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Mapuches in Chile launch a series of surprise attacks against the Spanish starting the Mapuche uprising of 1766.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – John Penn, the Colonial Governor of Pennsylvania and one of the four Penn family owners of the Pennsylvania land grant, issues a proclamation forbidding British American colonist residents from building settlements on lands in the west "not yet purchased of the Nations" of the Iroquois Indians.


date: October 4

text: October 4 – The kingdom of France formally cedes its rights to the Malouines Islands to Spain. On March 24, Spain renames the islands the Malvinas, and in 1833, the United Kingdom re-colonises the recently abandoned territory and renames it the Falkland Islands.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Christian VII becomes King of Denmark-Norway.


date: September 13

text: September 13 – The position of Patriarch of the Serbs, established on April 9, 1346 as the authority over the Serbian Orthodox Church, is abolished by order of Sultan Mustafa III of the Ottoman Empire; the patriarchate is not re-established until 1920 following the creation of Yugoslavia at the end of World War One.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Seventeen days after the Stamp Act's repeal in London, news reaches America of the decision.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – In a paper read to the Royal Society, British theoretical chemist Henry Cavendish first describes his process of producing what he refers to as "inflammable air" by dissolving base metals such as iron, zinc and tin in a flask of sulfuric acid or hydrochloric acid, drawing the conclusion that the vapor that was released is different from air. Seven years later, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier bestows the name "hydrogen" on the gas.


text: April 9 – American botanist John Bartram completes his first exploration and cataloging of North American plants after more than nine months.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – King Carlos III of Spain issues a royal cédula from Aranjuez to round up all ethnic Chinese in the Philippines and to move them to ghettoes in various provinces.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a British sloop off Wilmington, North Carolina, has seized a sloop sailing from Philadelphia, and another sailing from Saint Christopher, on the charge of carrying official documents without stamps. In response, local residents threaten to burn a Royal Man-of-War attempting to deliver stamps to Wilmington, forcing the ship to return to the mouth of the Cape Fear River.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, is tortured and beheaded, before his body is burnt on a pyre, along with a copy of Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique nailed to his torso, supposedly for the crime of not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, and for other sacrileges, including desecrating a crucifix.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – During the occupation of New York, members of the 28th Foot Regiment of the British Army chop down the liberty pole that was erected by the Sons of Liberty on June 4. The Sons of Liberty put up a second pole the next day, and that pole is cut down on August 22.


date: December 5

text: December 5 – James Christie holds the first sale at Christie's auction house in London.


date: August 13

text: August 13 – A hurricane sweeps across the French island colony of Martinique, killing more than 400 people and destroying the plantation owned by Joseph-Gaspard de La Pagerie, the father of the future French Empress Joséphine.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain, as King Charles III, and figurehead for Jacobitism.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – John Mills is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, with Benjamin Franklin as one of his sponsors.


date: May 30

text: May 30 – The Theatre Royal, Bristol, opens in England. Also this year in England, the surviving Georgian Theatre (Stockton-on-Tees) opens as a playhouse.


date: June 4

text: June 4 – On the occasion of the 28th birthday of King George III, members of the Sons of Liberty in Manhattan erect a liberty pole as a protest for the first time. The historic symbol, a tall "wooden pole with a Phrygian cap" is placed "on the Fields somewhere between Broadway and Park Row". British soldiers cut down the pole in August.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Crown Prince Gustav of Sweden weds Princess Sophia Magdalena of Denmark. They become King Gustav III and Queen Consort Sophia of Sweden upon his ascension to the throne in 1771.


date: November 29

text: November 29 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returns to Salzburg, after the Mozart family grand tour of Europe.


date: November

text: November – Raja Lumu consolidates his claim to the Selangor Sultanate by marriage to the niece of the Sultan of Perak.


text: Childsburgh, the Orange County, North Carolina seat laid out as Corbin Town in 1754, and renamed in 1759, is renamed Hillsborough, in honor of Wills Hill, 1st Marquess of Downshire, Earl of Hillsborough.


text: Dr. James Fordyce's two-volume compendium Sermons to Young Women is published in London.


date: January 3

text: January 3 – Nguyễn Du, Vietnamese poet (d. 1820)


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Thomas Malthus, English demographer, economist (d. 1834)


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Charles-Louis de Fourcroy, French Consul at A Coruña, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (d. 1824)


date: April 22

text: April 22 – Germaine de Staël, French author (d. 1817)


text: May 30 – Robert Darwin, medical doctor and father of Charles Darwin (d. 1848)


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Dominique Jean Larrey, French surgeon, innovator in battlefield medicine (d. 1842)


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Jacob Perkins, American physicist, inventor and engineer (d. 1849)


date: July 21

text: July 21 – Thomas Charles Hope, Scottish chemist, discoverer of strontium (d. 1844)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – John Dalton, English chemist and physicist (d. 1844)


date: September 25

text: September 25 – Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, Prime Minister of France (d. 1822)


date: October 3

text: October 3 – John Walbach, French baron and officer in the United States Army, with a military career spanning over 57 years (d. 1857)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Emmanuel de Grouchy, Marquis de Grouchy, French marshal (d. 1847)


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, Austrian field marshal (d. 1858)


date: December 3

text: December 3 – Barbara Fritchie, U.S. patriot in the Civil War (d. 1862)


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Thomas Birch, English historian (b. 1705)


date: January 19

text: January 19 – Giovanni Niccolò Servandoni, French architect and painter (b. 1695)


date: January 21

text: January 21 – James Quin, English actor (b. 1693)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Lorraine and Bar become French again, on the death of Stanisław Leszczyński, King of Poland and last Duke of Lorraine.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Jane Colden, American botanist (b. 1724)


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Samuel Chandler, English non-conformist minister (b. 1693)


date: May 20

text: May 20 – Malhar Rao Holkar, Indian nobleman (b. 1693)


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Adrien Maurice de Noailles, 3rd Duke of Noailles, French soldier (b. 1678)


text: July 9 – Jonathan Mayhew, American minister, patriot (b. 1720)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Elisabeth Farnese, queen of Philip V of Spain (b. 1692)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Samuel Finley, American clergyman and educator (b. 1715)


text: July 17 – Giuseppe Castiglione, Italian missionary to China (b. 1688)


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Archibald Bower, Scottish historian (b. 1686)


date: September 23

text: September 23 – John Brown, English divine and author (b. 1715)


text: January 9 – William Tryon, governor of the Royal Colony of North Carolina, signs a contract with architect John Hawks to build Tryon Palace, a lavish Georgian style governor's mansion on the New Bern waterfront.


date: February 19

text: February 19 – The Earl of Shelburne, British Secretary of State for the Southern Department (which has jurisdiction over Britain's American colonies) fires the unpopular Governor of West Florida, George Johnstone, and summons him back to London.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, acting on behalf of Great Britain, meets with representatives of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy at German Flatts, New York, opening negotiations on the boundary between the New York colony and the Native Americans, eventually concluded by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – The Genoese island of Capraia is conquered by the Corsican Army after a ten-week campaign.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Šćepan Mali, nicknamed "Stephen the Little", is selected as the legislature at Podgorica to be the Tsar of Montenegro, representing "a short but an important break in the succession of the Petrovic dynasty".

source_section: Events › October –December


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Under the coercion of Russian occupation armies, the legislature of Poland follows the wishes of Russian Minister Nicholas Repnin and agrees to allow the kingdom to become a Russian protectorate.


date: November 20

text: November 20 – The new American Colonies Act 1766, commonly called the "Declaratory Act", goes into effect, virtually providing for Great Britain's Parliament to govern lawmaking in 13 colonies and exacerbating tensions there.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – Oconostota and Attakullakulla, Chiefs of the Cherokee people in the Carolinas, depart from Charleston, South Carolina on a ship voyage to New York City, where they are welcomed by British colonial officials as a prelude to negotiations with Britain's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – Future Pennsylvania chief executive John Dickinson begins publishing his revolutionary "Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in the Pennsylvania Chronicle.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Phraya Taksin, a minor provincial official in Siam (now Thailand), crowns himself as King of Siam, establishing the Siamese Thonburi Kingdom, taking the regnal name of Borommaracha IV and begins a 14-year reign of liberation and conquest; historically, he is known as "Taksin the Great".


date: December 29

text: December 29 – Oconostota and Attakullakulla arrive at Johnstown, New York where they, along with leaders of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal nations) meet with Sir William Johnson to begin peace negotiations with the British Empire.


date: February 16

text: February 16 – On orders from head of state Pasquale Paoli of the newly independent Republic of Corsica, a contingent of about 200 Corsican soldiers begins an invasion of the small island of Capraia off of the coast of northern Italy and territory of the Republic of Genoa. By May 31, the island is conquered as its defenders surrender.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – Antonio de Ulloa, the Colonial Governor of Spanish Louisiana (Luisiana), dispatches Captain Francisco Ríu y Morales up the Mississippi River to establish two forts, one at San Luis (now St. Louis, Missouri) and to set up a colony for displaced French-speaking Acadians and protect shipping on the river.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Troops of the Burmese Konbaung dynasty sack the Siamese city of Ayutthaya, ending the Burmese–Siamese War (1765–1767) after 15 months, and bringing the four-century-old Ayutthaya Kingdom to an end. King Ekkathat is found dead inside the city walls on April 9.


date: May 3

text: May 3 – A fleet of ships from the Republic of Genoa arrives at Capraia and sends 150 men ashore to drive out the Corsicans, but the outnumbered Genoese marines are "quickly cut to pieces".


date: October 28

text: October 28 – A boycott, of 38 types of goods imported from England, is resolved by Boston merchants meeting at Faneuil Hall as a response to the taxes imposed by Great Britain, and one of the first "Buy American" campaigns is started in order to encourage the purchase of items manufactured and produced in the 13 colonies. Copies of the agreement, to be signed by participating merchants, are circulated beyond the Province of Massachusetts Bay to other colonial provinces in New England.


date: June 17

text: June 17 – British Royal Navy Captain Samuel Wallis becomes the first European to visit the island of Tahiti in the Pacific Ocean, during HMS Dolphins second circumnavigation; he also sights Mehetia.


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean is sighted from HMS Swallow, by 15-year-old Midshipman Robert Pitcairn, on a British Royal Navy expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret, the first definite European sighting.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – The Spanish Empire's Governorate of the Río de la Plata and Governorate of Paraguay begin the process of expulsion of the 456 members of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) from southern South America, placing them on five ships bound for Spain.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Scottish-born American merchant and shipowner Andrew Sprowle of Portsmouth, Virginia, establishes the Gosport Shipyard on the western shore of the Elizabeth River in the Virginia Colony, on the site of what will eventually become the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.


date: February 27

text: February 27 – King Carlos III of Spain issues a decree expelling the Jesuits from the dominions of the Spanish Empire worldwide.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Enforcement begins of the February 27 decree by King Carlos III of Spain, ordering the suppression of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in the colonies in Spanish America. Over the next few months approximately 2,200 Jesuit priests and missionaries are deported.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Suppression of the Jesuits begins, in the Spanish Empire and Kingdom of Naples.


date: May 16

text: May 16 – Ahmed al-Ghazzal, the emissary from Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah of Morocco to the Spanish Empire, makes a triumphant return to Marrakesh with almost 300 Muslims who had been held captive in Spain, as well as sacred Islamic manuscripts that had been seized by the Spanish in 1612. The negotiation of the release had started with al-Ghazzal's meeting with Spain's King Carlos III on August 21, 1766.


date: November 3

text: November 3 – King Ferdinand IV of the Spanish dominated Kingdom of Naples follows Spain's lead and orders the expulsion of the Jesuits from Naples and has them marched northward to the Neapolitan border with the Papal States.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Francisco de Paula Bucareli, the Governor of Buenos Aires (at the time, a province within the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru), hosts the caciques who are the Guarani chiefs of the 30 mission towns established by Jesuit missionaries, in an effort to gain Guarani peoples' support in the expulsion of the Jesuits.


date: March 13

text: March 13 – British Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, having already pushed through the unpopular Townshend Acts to recoup war expenses from Britain's American colonies, presents a comprehensive plan for more taxes in a closed door session of the House of Commons, with most proposals passed within a month.


date: August 26

text: August 26 – Construction begins on Tryon Palace in New Bern, North Carolina. The construction proves more expensive than initially expected, leading the government to increase local taxes. This stirs resentment among some North Carolinians, and helps prolong the War of the Regulation.


date: October 24

text: October 24 – In France, several anti-Jewish regulations in place since October 12, 1661, are repealed by the King's Council that advises Louis XV. While Jewish merchants are still prohibited from owning their own retail stores, they are allowed to sell merchandise on credit to gentile merchants at legal interest rates, to legally enforce debts, and to sell jewelry.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The first annual volume of The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, produced by British Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, gives navigators the means to find longitude at sea, using tables of lunar distance.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – At the Foundling Hospital in London, Dr. William Watson becomes the first physician to conduct a controlled clinical trial, selecting 32 boys and girls of similar age who have not yet had smallpox. He divides them into three groups in order to test treatments before inoculation for smallpox, with one group receiving a mixture of mercury and jalap, another senna glycoside, and the third getting no pre-treatment at all.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – At the new King's College medical school in New York City (later the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons), Dr. John Jones gives the first lecture by a surgical professor in North America.


text: July 3 – Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, is first published.


date: November 29

text: November 29 – The Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, in her capacity as Queen of Hungary, issues an edict against the Romani people (commonly called the "gypsies"), prohibiting them from marrying and calling for gypsy children to be taken away by the government so that they can be brought up by Christian families, a proclamation that "produced little or no effect in comparison with the trouble involved".


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Jean-Baptiste Say, French economist, originator of Say's law (d. 1832)


date: January 16

text: January 16 – Cornélie Lebon (née de Brambilla), Belgian born French engineer (d. 1812)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link, German naturalist, botanist (d. 1851)


date: May 4

text: May 4 – Tyagaraja, Indian Carnatic music composer (d. 1847)


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Manuel Godoy, Spanish statesman (d. 1851)


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès, French geographer, author and translator (d. 1846)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Kyokutei Bakin, Japanese author (d. 1848)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, son of John Adams and Abigail Adams (d. 1848)


date: July 28

text: July 28 – James Asheton Bayard Sr., U.S. Senator from Delaware (d. 1815)


date: August 25

text: August 25 – Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, French revolutionary (d.1794)


date: September 20

text: September 20 – José Maurício Nunes Garcia, Brazilian composer (d. 1830)


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Benjamin Constant, Swiss writer (d. 1830)


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, member of the British Royal Family (d. 1820)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – Andreas Hofer, Austrian national hero (d. 1810)


date: January 7

text: January 7 – Thomas Clap, first president of Yale University (b. 1703)


date: January 22

text: January 22 – Johann Gottlob Lehmann, German mineralogist, geologist (b. 1719)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, French colonizer and Governor of Louisiana (b. 1680)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Maria Josepha of Saxony, Dauphine of France (b. 1731) (tuberculosis)


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Florida Cevoli, Italian Capuchin Poor Clare and Blessed (b. 1685)


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Georg Philipp Telemann, German composer (b. 1681)


date: September 4

text: September 4 – Charles Townshend, English politician (b. 1725)


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Frederick North, Lord North becomes the new British Chancellor of the Exchequer after the sudden death of Charles Townshend.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria (b. 1751) (smallpox)


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, Russian military leader (b. 1683)


date: November 5

text: November 5 – John Reading (New Jersey governor), Colonial Governor of New Jersey (b. 1686)


date: November 14

text: November 14 – The Timucua Indian tribe, native to central Florida, becomes extinct with the death of the last speaker of the Timucuan language, Juan Alonso Cabale. Eight years earlier, the last 95 surviving Timucuan people had been forcibly relocated by the Spanish colonial government to Guanabacoa, a township in western Cuba.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Jacques Bridaine, French Catholic preacher and missionary (b. 1701)


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Emer de Vattel, Swiss philosopher (b. 1714)


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Samuel Adams's circular letter is issued by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and sent to the other Thirteen Colonies. Refusal to revoke the letter will result in dissolution of the Massachusetts Assembly, and (from October) incur the institution of martial law to prevent civil unrest.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – With Russian troops occupying the nation, opposition legislators of the national legislature having been deported, the government of Poland signs a treaty virtually turning the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth into a protectorate of the Russian Empire.


date: February 27

text: February 27 – The first Secretary of State for the Colonies is appointed in Britain, the Earl of Hillsborough.


date: February 29

text: February 29 – Five days after the signing of the treaty, a group of the szlachta, Polish nobles, establishes the Bar Confederation, to defend the internal and external independence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth against Russian influence, and against King Stanisław August Poniatowski.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Britain's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir William Johnson, concludes a peace agreement with the leaders of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal nations) of the northern American lands, and with Chiefs Oconostota and Attakullakulla of the Cherokee nation in the southern American lands.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – After the Treaty of Versailles, the island of Corsica is ceded by Genoa to France.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – Almost all merchants and traders in the British colony of New York sign a pact not to import British manufactured goods as long as the Townshend Acts are in effect, nor to do business with nonassociators to the pact.


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Louis XV appoints René de Maupeou as Grand Chancellor of France (an office he will hold until 1790), and orders him to crush the judicial opposition.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – William Pitt resigns from his position as Prime Minister of Great Britain.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Representatives of the Cherokee nation sign the Treaty of Hard Labour with British representative John Stuart and relinquish all claims to the land between the Ohio River and the Allegheny Mountains, now the United States state of West Virginia.


text: November 5 – The Treaty of Fort Stanwix is signed between the five nations of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca) relinquishing their claims to territory south of the Ohio River to the British.


date: December 15

text: December 15 – The king's refusal to sign state documents results in the December Crisis (1768) in Sweden.


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Catherine the Great of Russia dispatches troops under General Pyotr Krechetnikov to intervene in a civil war in Poland, at the request of Poland's King Stanisław August Poniatowski, a move that will ultimately lead to the Partitions of Poland.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Massacre of St George's Fields: John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton, severely criticising King George III. This action provokes protesters to riot; in the Southwark district of London, troops fire on the mob, killing seven.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): Russia captures the fortress of Bar.


date: July 14

text: July 14 – The massacre of Polish people (most likely by the Russians) at the village of Balta, now a part of Ukraine but at the time an Ottoman Empire town on the frontier with Poland, leads to the Russo-Turkish War.


date: September 22

text: September 22–29 – The Massachusetts Convention of Towns, assembling in Boston, resolves on a written objection to the impending arrival of British troops rather than more militant action but causes panic in London.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – The British Army's 29th Infantry Regiment of foot soldiers, which will carry out the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, arrives in Boston Harbor along with three other regiments. The 700 foot soldiers march through the Massachusetts colony's capital as a show of force and begin their occupation. Within a year, there will be "nearly 4,000 armed redcoats in the crowded seaport of 15,000 inhabitants."


date: October 4

text: October 4 – The Sultan Mustafa III of the Ottoman Empire begins the Russo-Turkish War after the Russians refuse to withdraw troops from Poland.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – French colonists in Louisiana refuse to accept the colony's acquisition by Spain and begin an uprising that forces Spanish Governor Antonio de Ulloa to flee.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – The New York Chamber of Commerce, first of its kind in the American colonies, is founded by 20 New York merchants at Bolton and Sigel's Tavern at 54 Pearl Street in New York City. Former New York City mayor John Cruger Jr. is elected the Chamber's first president.


date: July 1

text: July 1–3 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, on his circumnavigation westbound, sails through the Bougainville Strait and along the north shore of Bougainville Island in the Solomons.


date: August 26

text: August 26 – James Cook departs from Plymouth aboard on his first voyage of discovery.


text: New Smyrna, Florida, the largest attempt at colonization by the British in the New World, is founded by Dr. Andrew Turnbull.


date: June 14

text: June 14 – The largest mass meeting ever held in New England, up to this time, takes place at the Old South Church to support a petition demanding that the British remove a ship which has been hindering navigation in Boston Harbor.


text: Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the founder of the Al Khalifa dynasty, constructed Qal'at Murair in the town of Zubarah in present-day Qatar. The fortress served to consolidate his control over Zubarah and neighboring tribes.


date: December 21

text: December 21 – King Prithvi Narayan Shah unifies several small kingdoms to establish modern-day Nepal; this dynasty will end in 2008.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – The first of the weekly numbers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, edited by William Smellie, are published in Edinburgh; one hundred are planned.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – King Louis XV decrees that all cities and towns in France will be required to post house numbering on all residential buildings, primarily to facilitate the forced quartering of troops in citizens' homes.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – The palace of the Ottoman Grand Vizier is destroyed by a fire in Constantinople


date: August 30

text: August 30 – A fire burns much of the Library of the Vatican.


date: December 1

text: December 1 – The slave ship Fredensborg sinks off Tromøya, Norway.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – The Cotopaxi volcano erupts in what is now Ecuador, at the time part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada, covering the towns of Hambato and Tacunga with ash, but not causing fatalities.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – A powerful hurricane sweeps across Cuba during the Festival of Santa Teresa, killing hundreds of people. Spain's King Carlos III begins a precedent of ordering the colonial government to fund disaster relief, a task previously left to the Catholic Church.


text: The Steller's sea cow, discovered on Bering Island in 1741, is driven to extinction.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses, in London.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – "The Liberty Song", the first American patriotic song, is published in the Boston Gazette and includes the refrain "In freedom we're born".


date: July 25

text: July 25 – The Imperial Court of China's Emperor Qianlong and his three senior grand councilors, Fuheng, Yenjisan and Liu T'ung-hsun, issues a directive to officials in the Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces warning them about the need to respond to rumors of sorcery.


text: December 10 – The Royal Academy is founded in London, with Joshua Reynolds as its first President.


text: The Petit Trianon, originally designed for Madame de Pompadour, is completed in the park of the Palace of Versailles, and inaugurated by Louis XV.


text: The Complete Farmer: Or, a General Dictionary of Husbandry, written by "A Society of Gentlemen", a group of members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts in Britain, concludes publication in weekly numbers and is first published in book form.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Maria Edgeworth, Irish novelist (d. 1849)


date: January 17

text: January 17 – Smith Thompson, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1843)


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Édouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise, French marshal (d. 1835)


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Joseph Fourier, French mathematician, physicist (d. 1830)


date: March

text: March – Tecumseh, Native American (Shawnee) chief (d. 1813)


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, English general (d. 1854)


date: July 20

text: July 20 – Praskovia Kovalyova-Zhemchugova, Russian serf, actress and opera soprano (d. 1803)


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Charlotte Corday, French murderer of Jean-Paul Marat (d. 1793)


date: August 6

text: August 6 – Jean-Baptiste Bessières, French marshal (d. 1813)


date: September 4

text: September 4 – François-René de Chateaubriand, French writer, diplomat (d. 1848)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, British general and politician (d. 1854)


date: October 6

text: October 6 – Josef Madersperger, Austrian tailor, inventor and sewing machine pioneer (d. 1850)


date: November 3

text: November 3 – Karađorđe Petrović, leader of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire, founder of the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty (d. 1817)


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian (d. 1834)


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Sir Robert Rich, 4th Baronet, British cavalry officer (b. 1685)


date: February 29

text: February 29 – John Mitchell, colonial American physician and botanist (b. 1711)


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher, writer (b. 1694)


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Francis Fauquier, English statesman and Royal Governor of Virginia since 1758 (b. 1703)


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Prithvi Singh begins a reign of 10 years as the new Raja of Jaipur (part of the modern-day Indian state of Rajasthan), 12 days after the death of Madho Singh.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Laurence Sterne, Irish writer (b. 1713)


date: April 9

text: April 9 – Sarah Fielding, English writer (b. 1710)


date: April 19

text: April 19 – Canaletto, Italian artist (b. 1697)


date: June 8

text: June 8 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar, archaeologist (b. 1717)


date: June 28

text: June 28 – George Hadley, English lawyer and amateur meteorologist (b. 1685)


date: July 6

text: July 6 – Conrad Beissel, German-born American religious leader (b. 1691)


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1693)


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, French astronomer (b. 1688)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Francesco Maria Veracini, Italian composer (b. 1690)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – The British House of Commons votes not to allow MP John Wilkes to take his seat after he wins a by-election, on the grounds that he was an outlaw when standing.


date: May 9

text: May 9 – France conquers Corsica, ending the Corsican War of Independence.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Ireland's House of Commons rejects a spending bill passed by Great Britain's parliament, by a 94–71 margin.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): Russian forces take the Ottoman fortress of Chocim in Bukovina.


date: November 12

text: November 12 –The Gorkhali Army conquer the last standing Malla Kingdom of Bhaktapur marking the end of The Malla dynasty in Nepal.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – The Sino-Burmese War (1765–69) is ended by a truce.


date: March 16

text: March 16 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville returns to Saint-Malo, following a three-year circumnavigation of the world with the ships Boudeuse and Étoile, with the loss of only seven out of 330 men; among the members of the expedition is Jeanne Baré, the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe. She returns to France some time after Bougainville and his ships.


date: April 13

text: April 13 – James Cook arrives in Tahiti, on the ship HM Bark Endeavour, preparing for the 1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti on June 3. After the voyage, the data is found to be inaccurate in determining the distance between the Sun and Earth.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – Charles III of Spain sends Spanish missionaries, who found California missions in San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Monterey, and begin the settlement of California.


date: June 7

text: June 7 – Frontiersman Daniel Boone first begins to explore modern-day Kentucky.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – Recently appointed as the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, Irish-born soldier of fortune Alejandro O'Reilly sails into the French fort of La Balize with 21 Spanish ships, along with 2,056 soldiers, cannons and ammunition, and informs French Louisiana Governor Charles Philippe Aubry of his royal commission to take Louisiana on behalf of the King of Spain.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – James Cook names White Island, off the coast of New Zealand.


date: October 7

text: October 7 – James Cook lands in New Zealand, at Poverty Bay.


date: October 9

text: October 9 – In the first encounter between the Māori people and Europeans (at the future site of Gisborne, New Zealand), one Maori is shot and killed after he steals a sword from one of the officers of the Cook expedition. Several more Māori are killed in fighting the next day.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – A party of the expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola becomes the first Europeans to reach San Francisco Bay. Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega and his group accidentally discover the area while searching for Drakes Bay in Alta California.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Mozart departs Italy, after the last of his three tours there.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Cardinal Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli is elected as the 249th pope, succeeding the late Clement XIII and choosing to take the regnal name of Pope Clement XIV.


date: July 16

text: July 16 – Father Junípero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first of the 21 California missions.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – Scottish inventor James Watt is granted a British patent for "A method of lessening the consumption of steam in steam engines" – the separate condenser, a key improvement (first devised by Watt in 1765) and the basis for the Watt steam engine which stimulates the Industrial Revolution.


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Richard Arkwright patents a spinning frame in England, able to spin threads mechanically.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates a steam-powered artillery tractor (see drawing) in France.


date: June 3

text: June 3 – A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in historical times. The transit is viewed by King George III of Great Britain, at the Kew Observatory.


text: First recorded use of 'literally' as a metaphorical intensifier.


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Brescia Explosion: The city of Brescia, Italy is devastated when the Church of San Nazaro is struck by lightning. The resulting fire ignites 200,000 lb (90,000 kg) of gunpowder being stored there, causing a massive explosion, which destroys 1/6 of the city and kills 3,000 people.


date: September

text: September – Massive droughts in Bengal lead to the Bengal famine of 1770, in which ten million people, a third of the population, will die, the worst natural disaster in human history (in terms of lives lost).


date: August 3

text: August 3 – The party of Gaspar de Portolà becomes the first white group to set foot in the area now known as Santa Monica, California.


date: September 6

text: September 6–9 – David Garrick holds a Shakespeare Jubilee festival at Stratford-upon-Avon in England.


date: December 13

text: December 13 – Dartmouth College is established in Hanover, New Hampshire, as John Wentworth, the Royal Governor, conveys a charter from King George III of Great Britain.


text: The Authorized King James Version of the Bible is published in England in the Oxford standard text, edited by Benjamin Blayney.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Jane Marcet, British science writer (d. 1858)


date: January 2

text: January 2 – Nannette Streicher, German piano maker, composer, music educator and writer (d. 1833)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Princess Pauline of Anhalt-Bernburg; German regent and social reformer (d. 1820)


date: March 1

text: March 1 – François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, French general (d. 1796)


date: March 2

text: March 2 – DeWitt Clinton, American politician and naturalist, 6th Governor of New York (d. 1828)


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Joseph Williamson, English philanthropist, builder of the Williamson Tunnels (d. 1840)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – William Smith, English geologist, cartographer (d. 1839)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Thomas Lawrence, English painter (d. 1830)


date: June 18

text: June 18 – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, British statesman, diplomat, and soldier (suicide 1822)


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Hudson Lowe, Irish-born soldier and future jailer of Napoleon on Saint Helena (d. 1831)


date: August 23

text: August 23 – Georges Cuvier, French naturalist and zoologist; known as the Father of Paleontology (d. 1832)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – David Hosack American physician and botanist, a Hamilton family doctor (d. 1835)


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Alexander von Humboldt, German explorer, scientist (d. 1859)


date: October 6

text: October 6 – Isaac Brock, British general, administrator (d. 1812)


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Charles Sackville, 2nd Duke of Dorset, English cricketer (b. 1711)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Pope Clement XIII (b. 1693)


text: February 2 – Pope Clement XIII dies, the night before preparing an order to dissolve the Jesuits.


date: April 5

text: April 5 – Marc-Antoine Laugier, French Jesuit priest, architectural theorist (b. 1713)


text: April 13 – Anna Canalis di Cumiana, morganatic spouse of Victor Amadeus II of Savoy (b. 1680)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – Chief Pontiac, Ottawa chief (murdered) (b. c. 1719)


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Edward Holyoke, American President of Harvard University (b. 1689)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche, French astronomer (b. 1722)


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Daniel Finch, 8th Earl of Winchilsea, English politician (b. 1689)


date: August 29

text: August 29 – Edmond Hoyle, English game expert (b. 1672)


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Michel Ferdinand d'Albert d'Ailly, French astronomer (b. 1714)


date: November 3

text: November 3 – Diane Adélaïde de Mailly, third of the five famous French de Nesle sisters (b. 1713)


date: November 23

text: November 23 – Constantine Mavrocordatos, Prince of Wallachia and Prince of Moldavia (b. 1711)


date: December 8

text: December 8 – Joseph Friedrich Ernst, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (b. 1702)


text: Lucius Aurelius Commodus Caesar (age 15) and Marcus Peducaeus Plautius Quintillus become Roman Consuls.

source_section: Events › By place › Roman Empire


text: Commodus is given the title Augustus, and is made co-emperor, with the same status as his father, Marcus Aurelius.


text: Second Marcomannic War: Marcus Aurelius and Commodus begin war against the Quadi and the Marcomanni.


text: A systematic persecution of Christians begins in Rome; the followers take refuge in the catacombs.


text: Chinese troops suffer a crushing defeat against a confederacy of Central Asian tribes, led by the Xianbei (see Wu Hu).

source_section: Events › By place › Asia


text: Forty-eight Christians are martyred in Lyon (Saint Blandina and Pothinus, bishop of Lyon, are among them).


text: The churches in southern Gaul are destroyed after a crowd accuses the local Christians of practicing cannibalism.


text: Zhu Huan, Chinese general of the Eastern Wu state (d. 238)


text: Lucius Aurelius Commodus Pompeianus, Roman politician


text: Wang Can, Chinese politician, scholar and poet (d. 217)


text: Sun Yu, Chinese warlord and cousin of Sun Quan (d. 215)


text: Cao Ang, Chinese warlord and son of Cao Cao (d.197)


text: Huo Jun, Chinese general of the Eastern Han (d. 216)


text: Herodes Atticus, Greek politician (b. AD 101)


text: Polycarpus, Greco-Roman bishop (b. AD 69)


text: Blandina, Christian martyr and saint (b. 162)


text: Pothinus, Roman bishop and martyr (b. AD 87)


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Gaspar de Portolà and Father Junípero Serra establish Monterey, the presidio of Alta California territory for Spain from 1777–1822, United Mexican States 1824–1846, until the California Republic.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – King Louis XV of France issues the "Edict of December", dismissing the rebellious magistrates of the Parlements of Paris and the other 13 provinces.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – Boston Massacre: Eleven American men are shot (five fatally) by British troops, in an event that helps start the American Revolutionary War five years later.

source_section: Events › January– March


text: April 20 – Battle of Aspindza: Georgian king Erekle II defeats the Ottoman forces, despite being abandoned by an ally, Russian General Totleben.


date: June 9

text: June 9 – Falklands Crisis (1770): Some 1,600 Spanish marines, sent by the Spanish governor of Buenos Aires in five frigates, seize Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands. The small British force present promptly surrenders.


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Battle of Chesma and Battle of Larga: The Russian Empire defeats the Ottoman Empire in both battles. When the news of the defeat reaches the Ottoman city of Smyrna (July 8), the crowd attacks the Greek community of the city (perceived as favourable to the Russian cause) and kills an estimated 200 Greeks and three Western Europeans (although some reports estimate the number of victims at 3,000 or even 5,000 including "3 or 4 thousands who die due to the fright").

source_section: Events › July– September


text: August 1 (July 21 O.S.) – Russo-Turkish War (1768–74) – Battle of Kagul: Russian commander Pyotr Rumyantsev routs 150,000 Turks.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – In Hillsborough, North Carolina, the Regulator Movement riots against local authorities.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Scottish explorer James Bruce arrives at Gondar, capital of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia) and is received by the Emperor Tekle Haymanot II and Ras Mikael Sehul.


date: March 26

text: March 26 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew aboard complete the circumnavigation of New Zealand.


date: April 12

text: April 12 – The Townshend Acts are repealed by Britain's Parliament by the efforts of Prime Minister Frederick North, with the exception of the increased duties on imported tea. The American colonists, in turn, stop their embargo on British imports.


date: April 18

text: April 18 (April 19 by Cook's log) 18:00 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew become the first recorded Europeans to encounter the eastern coastline of the Australian continent. Land is sighted at Point Hicks, and named after Lieutenant Hicks who first observes landform at 6am.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – First voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook drops anchor on in a wide bay, about 16 km (10 mi) south of the present city of Sydney, Australia. Because the young botanist on board the ship, Joseph Banks, discovers 30,000 specimens of plant life in the area, 1,600 of them unknown to European science, Cook names the place Botany Bay on May 7.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – First voyage of James Cook: grounds on the Great Barrier Reef.


date: August 22

text: August 22 (August 23 by Cook's log) – First voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook determines that New Holland (Australia) is not contiguous with New Guinea, and claims the whole of its eastern coast for Great Britain, later naming it all New South Wales.


text: c. September – Johann Gottfried Herder meets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Strasbourg.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Phillis Wheatley becomes the first African American woman to have her work published, after having written a poetic elegy to the late Reverend George Whitefield.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – France's Secretary of the Navy, César Gabriel de Choiseul, is dismissed from his position by the king.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The foundation of Fort George, Bombay is laid by Colonel Keating, principal engineer, on the site of the former Dongri Fort.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – James Bruce discovers what he believes to be the source of the Nile.


text: The Baron d'Holbach's (anonymous) materialist work Le Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral is produced in Neuchâtel.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Lexell's Comet (D/1770 L1) passes the Earth at a distance of 2184129 km, the closest approach by a comet in recorded history.


text: Joseph-Louis Lagrange proves Bachet's conjecture.


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Christopher Seider, an 11-year-old boy in Boston in the British Province of Massachusetts Bay, is shot and killed by a colonial official, Ebenezer Richardson. The funeral sets off anti-British protests that lead to the massacre days later.


text: Joseph Priestley, English chemist, recommends the use of a rubber eraser to remove pencil marks.