date: September 12

text: September 12 – Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple, English politician (b. 1711)


date: October 11

section: Deaths

text: October 11 – Kazimierz Pułaski, veteran commander of Polish, Russian, and American troops (b. 1745)

source_section: Deaths


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, French painter (b. 1699)


date: December 23

text: December 23 – Augustus Hervey, 3rd Earl of Bristol, British admiral and politician (b. 1724)


section: Conflict & Security

text: In Hepu and Jiaozhi (modern day Northern Vietnam) during the second Era of Northern Domination, a rebellion led Liang Long broke out and last for three years until it was quelled by general Zhu Jun of the Han dynasty.

source_section: Events › By place › Asia


text: Last (7th) year of Xiping era and start of Guanghe era of the Chinese Han dynasty.


text: In India, the decline of the Kushan Empire begins. The Sassanides take over Central Asia.


section: Exploration & Expansion

text: Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus arrive at Carnuntum in Pannonia, and travel to the Danube to fight against the Marcomanni.

source_section: Events › By place › Roman Empire


section: Religion & Belief

text: The Montanist heresy is condemned for the first time.

source_section: Events › By place › Religion


section: Culture & Society

text: Bruttia Crispina marries Commodus, and receives the title of Augusta.


section: Births

text: Peng Yang, Chinese official (d. 214)

source_section: Births


text: Zhang Cheng, Chinese general (d. 244)


text: Lü Meng, Chinese general (d. 220)


date: February 12

text: February 12 – Agrippinus, patriarch of Alexandria


text: Song, Chinese empress of the Han dynasty


date: February 19

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: February 19 – The legislature of New York votes to allow its delegates to cede a portion of its western territory to the Continental Congress for the common benefit of the war.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The legislature of Pennsylvania votes, 34 to 21, to approve An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.


date: March 11

text: March 11 – The First League of Armed Neutrality is formed by Russia with Denmark and Sweden to try to prevent the British Royal Navy from searching neutral vessels for contraband (February 28 O.S.).


date: May 13

text: May 13 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by American settlers, in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: December 16

text: December 16 – Emperor Kōkaku accedes to the throne of Japan.

source_section: Events › October–December


text: The Duke of Richmond calls, in the House of Lords of Great Britain, for manhood suffrage and annual parliaments, which are rejected.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: January 16

text: January 16 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Cape St. Vincent: British Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats a Spanish fleet.


text: March 11 – General Lafayette embarks on at Rochefort, arriving in Boston on April 28, carrying the news that he has secured French men and ships to reinforce the American side in the American Revolutionary War.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – American Revolutionary War: The Spanish commander of the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception on the San Juan River in modern-day Nicaragua surrenders it to the British San Juan Expedition.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – American Revolutionary War: Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces after 44 days of siege.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – American Revolutionary War – Waxhaw Massacre: Loyalist forces under Colonel Banastre Tarleton kill surrendering American soldiers.


date: June 7

text: June 7 – The Gordon Riots in London are ended by the intervention of troops. About 285 people are shot dead, with another 200 wounded and around 450 arrested.


date: June 23

text: June 23 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Springfield: The Continental Army defeats the British in New Jersey.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – American Revolutionary War: Spanish admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova captures a British convoy totalling 55 vessels amongst Indiamen, frigates and other cargo ships off Cape St. Vincent.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: August 16

text: August 16 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Camden: British troops inflict heavy losses on a Patriot army at Camden, South Carolina.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Benedict Arnold gives detailed plans of West Point to Major John André. Three days later, André is captured, with papers revealing that Arnold was planning to surrender West Point to the British.


date: September 25

text: September 25 – Benedict Arnold flees to British-held New York.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – American Revolutionary War: In Tappan, New York, British spy John André is hanged by American forces.


date: October 7

text: October 7 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of Kings Mountain: Patriot militia forces annihilate Loyalists under British Major Patrick Ferguson, at Kings Mountain, South Carolina.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II: In the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, Túpac Amaru II leads an uprising of Aymara and Quechua peoples and mestizo peasants as a protest against the Bourbon Reforms.


date: December 20

text: December 20 – The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War begins.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – American Revolutionary War: The British San Juan Expedition sails from Jamaica under the command of Captains John Polson and Horatio Nelson to attack the Captaincy General of Guatemala (modern-day Nicaragua) in New Spain.


date: July 11

text: July 11 – French soldiers arrive in Newport, Rhode Island to reinforce the colonists, in the American Revolutionary War.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – American Revolutionary War: The British San Juan Expedition is forced to withdraw.


text: Jose Gabriel Kunturkanki, businessman and landowner, proclaims himself Inca Túpac Amaru II.


text: Western countries pay 16,000,000 ounces of silver for Chinese goods.


text: Nikephoros Theotokis starts introducing Edinoverie, an attempt to integrate the Old Believers into Russia's established church.


section: Economy & Finance

text: The Jameson Irish Whiskey distillery is founded in Dublin, Ireland.


date: July 17

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: July 17 – The first bank created in the United States, the Bank of Pennsylvania, is chartered.


text: The Woodford Reserve bourbon whiskey distillery begins operation in Kentucky.


text: The original Craven Cottage is built by William Craven, 6th Baron Craven, in London, on what will become the centre circle of Fulham F.C.'s pitch.


section: Science & Discovery

text: Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to Principles of Morals and Legislation, presenting his formulation of utilitarian ethics, is printed (but not published) in London.


date: June 2

section: Health & Medicine

text: June 2 – An Anti-Catholic mob led by Lord George Gordon marches on the Parliament of Great Britain, leading to the outbreak of the Gordon Riots in London.


text: The Kingdom of Great Britain reaches c.9 million population.


date: August 24

section: Crime & Justice

text: August 24 – King Louis XVI abolishes the use of torture in extracting confessions in French law courts.


text: In Ireland, Lady Berry, who is sentenced to death for the murder of her son, is released when she agrees to become an executioner (she retires in 1810).


date: September 29

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: September 29 – The Danish ship-of-the-line Printz Friderich runs aground on the Kobbergrund shoal and is a total loss


date: November 28

text: November 28 – A lightning strike in Saint Petersburg begins a fire that burns 11,000 homes.


date: May 19

section: Climate & Environment

text: May 19 – New England's Dark Day: An unaccountable darkness spreads over New England, regarded by some observers as a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.


date: October 10

text: October 10–16 – The Great Hurricane flattens the islands of Barbados, Martinique and Sint Eustatius; 22,000 are killed.


date: March 26

text: March 26 – The British Gazette and Sunday Monitor, the first Sunday newspaper in Britain, begins publication.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – The University of Münster in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany is founded.


date: May 4

text: May 4 – The first Epsom Derby horse race is run on Epsom Downs, Surrey, England. The victor is Diomed.


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Alexander Hamilton marries Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton


text: The amateur dramatic group Det Dramatiske Selskab is founded in Christiania, Norway.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Henry Baldwin, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1844)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Johannes van den Bosch, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1844)


date: February 25

text: February 25 – John Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1862)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Leonard du Bus de Gisignies, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1849)


date: April 7

text: April 7 – William Ellery Channing, influential American Unitarian theologian and minister (d. 1842)


date: April 29

text: April 29 – Charles Nodier, French author (d. 1844)


date: May 1

text: May 1 – John McKinley, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1852)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Elizabeth Fry, British humanitarian (d. 1845)


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian military strategist (d. 1831)


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Anastasio Bustamante, 4th President of Mexico (d. 1853)


date: August 29

text: August 29 – Richard Rush, United States Attorney General under James Madison, United States Secretary of the Treasury under President John Quincy Adams (d. 1859)


text: August 29 – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French painter (d. 1867)


date: November 13

text: November 13 – Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of The Punjab (Sikh Empire), (d. 1839)


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Mary Fairfax Somerville, British mathematician (d. 1872)


date: January 13

text: January 13 – Duchess Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Prussian princess (b. 1722)


date: February 14

text: February 14 – William Blackstone, English jurist (b. 1723)


date: June 3

text: June 3 – Thomas Hutchinson, American colonial governor of Massachusetts (b. 1711)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine, Austrian military leader (b. 1712)


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, French philosopher (b. 1715)


date: August 19

text: August 19 – Johann de Kalb, Bavarian-French military officer who served as a major general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (b. 1721)


date: September 4

text: September 4 – John Fielding, English magistrate, social reformer (b. 1721)


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, French writer (b. 1711)


text: September 8 – Enoch Poor, American Revolutionary general (b. 1736)


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, academic, first teacher of deaf-mutes in France (b. 1715)


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Marie Anne de Vichy-Chamrond, marquise du Deffand, French salon holder (b. 1697)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – John André, British Army officer of the American Revolutionary War (executed) (b. 1750)


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Sir James Steuart, Scottish economist (b. 1712)


text: December 26 – John Fothergill, English physician (b. 1712)


date: January 2

text: January 2 – Virginia passes a law ceding its western land claims, paving the way for Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation.


date: January

text: January – William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister of Great Britain, enters Parliament, aged 21.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – The Articles of Confederation are ratified by Maryland, the 13th and final state to do so.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The United States Continental Congress implements the Articles of Confederation, forming its Perpetual Union as the United States in Congress Assembled.


date: April 14

text: April 14 – The Continental Congress votes a resolution thanking U.S. Captain John Paul Jones for his services.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – American Revolution: Graves gives up trying to break through the now-reinforced French fleet and returns to New York, leaving Cornwallis to his fate.


date: November 5

text: November 5 – John Hanson is elected President of the Continental Congress.


text: Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor abolishes serfdom.


text: The Bank of North America is chartered by the Continental Congress.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Battle of Jersey: British troops prevent the French from occupying Jersey in the Channel Islands.


date: January 17

text: January 17 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Cowpens: The American Continental Army, under Daniel Morgan, decisively defeats British forces in South Carolina.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War – Capture of Sint Eustatius: British forces take the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Eustatius, with only a few shots fired. On November 26 it is retaken by Dutch-allied French forces.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Guilford Court House: American General Nathanael Greene loses to the British.


date: March

text: March – Riots break out in Socorro, Santander, and spread to other towns.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – American Revolutionary War: The Spanish capture the sloop-of-war off Málaga, Spain.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – The rebellion by Túpac Amaru II, against the Spanish colonial government of Peru, is ended as Tupac, his wife and two of his sons are captured at Checacupe. "The Rebellion of Tupac-Amaru II", in The Hispanic American Historical Review (February 1919) p20


date: April 10

text: April 10 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson, age 14, is slashed by a British officer's sword at his home near Waxhaw, North Carolina, after refusing to clean the officer's boots, an event that leaves physical and psychological scars.


date: April 25

text: April 25 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Hobkirk's Hill takes place in Camden, South Carolina


date: May 9

text: May 9 – General John Campbell, defender of the British colony of West Florida, surrenders the capital at Pensacola to Spanish forces commanded by Bernardo de Galvez.


date: May 18

text: May 18 – A Spanish army sent from Lima puts down the Inca rebellions, and captures and savagely executes Túpac Amaru II.


date: July 29

text: July 29 – American Revolution – Skirmish at the House in the Horseshoe: A Tory force under David Fanning attacks Phillip Alston's smaller force of Whigs, at Alston's home in Cumberland County, North Carolina (in present day Moore County, North Carolina). Alston's troops surrender, after Fanning's men attempt to ram the house with a cart of burning straw.


date: August 30

text: August 30 – American Revolution: A French fleet under Comte de Grasse enters Chesapeake Bay, cutting British General Charles Cornwallis off from escape by sea.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – American Revolution – Battle of the Chesapeake: A British fleet under Thomas Graves arrives and fights de Grasse, but is unable to break through to relieve the Siege of Yorktown.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – American Revolution – Battle of Groton Heights: A British force under Benedict Arnold attacks a fort in Groton, Connecticut, achieving a strategic victory.


date: September 8

text: September 8 – American Revolution – Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina: The war's last significant battle, in the Southern theatre, ends in a narrow British tactical victory.


date: September 28

text: September 28 – American Revolution: American and French troops begin a siege of the British at Yorktown, Virginia.


date: October 19

text: October 19 – American Revolution: Following the Siege of Yorktown, General Charles Cornwallis surrenders to General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the armed struggle of the American Revolution.


date: November 29

text: November 29 – English slave traders begin to throw approximately 142 slaves taken on in Accra overboard alive from the slave ship Zong in the Caribbean Sea to conserve supplies for the remainder; the Liverpool owners subsequently attempt to reclaim part of their value from insurers.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – American Revolutionary War – Second Battle of Ushant: The British Royal Navy, commanded by Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt in , decisively defeats the French fleet in the Bay of Biscay.


date: March 16

text: March 16 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart arrives in Vienna after being fired by the Archbishop of Salzburg. He would stay there for the rest of his brief life.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – Future New York mayor James Duane, North Carolina representative William Sharpe and future Connecticut governor Oliver Wolcott deliver the first report to the U.S. Continental Congress about the national debt and report it to be 24,057,157 and 2/5 dollars.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Ohmiya (近江屋), as predecessor for Takeda, a major worldwide pharmaceutical brand, is founded in Doshomachi (道修町), Osaka, Japan.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Industrial Revolution: The Iron Bridge opens across the River Severn in England.


date: October 20

text: October 20 – A Patent of Toleration, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in the Habsburg monarchy.


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Sir William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus. Originally he calls it Georgium Sidus (George's Star), in honour of King George III.


text: Charles Messier publishes the final catalog of Messier objects.


text: Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers tungsten.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – French spy François Henri de la Motte is hanged and drawn before a large crowd at Tyburn, London in England for high treason.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces, led by Benedict Arnold.


date: September 4

text: September 4 – Los Angeles is founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Ángeles de Porciuncula ("City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula"), by a group of 44 Spanish settlers in California.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – The first bagpipes competition is held in the Masonic Arms, Falkirk, Scotland.


text: November 29 – Henry Hurle officially founds the Ancient Order of Druids in London, England.


date: December

text: December – A school is founded in Washington County, Pennsylvania that will later be known as Washington & Jefferson College.


text: Immanuel Kant publishes his Critique of Pure Reason.


text: Reverend Samuel Peters publishes his General History of Connecticut, using the term blue law for the first time.


text: 'Journalisme' appears for the first time (in French).


text: Phillips Exeter Academy is founded in New Hampshire.


date: January 30

text: January 30 – Adelbert von Chamisso, German poet and scientist (d. 1838)


text: March 13 – Karl Friedrich Schinkel, German architect, painter (d. 1841)


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Dominique Jacques de Eerens, Governor general of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1840)


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Swaminarayan, Indian Hindu reformer and deity (d. 1830)


date: June 9

text: June 9 – George Stephenson, English engineer, designer of railway locomotives Locomotion No. 1, Rocket (d. 1848)


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Siméon Denis Poisson, French mathematician, physicist (d. 1840)


text: July 27 – Mauro Giuliani, Italian composer (d. 1829)


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Eugène de Beauharnais, French nobleman, son of Napoleon's wife Joséphine (d. 1824)


date: September 5

text: September 5 – Anton Diabelli, Austrian music publisher, editor and composer (d. 1858)


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Bernard Bolzano, Czech philosopher and mathematician (d. 1848)


date: November 6

text: November 6 – Maha Bandula, Commander-in-chief of the Burmese military forces (d. 1825)


date: November 29

text: November 29 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, teacher, philosopher, sociologist (d. 1865)


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Alexander Berry, Scottish adventurer, Australian pioneer (d. 1873)


date: December 11

text: December 11 – Sir David Brewster, Scottish physicist (d. 1868)


date: January 12

text: January 12 – Richard Challoner, English Catholic prelate (b. 1691)


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Mariana Victoria of Spain, Queen consort of Portugal (b. 1718)


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German author, philosopher (b. 1729)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – George Taylor, Founding Father of the United States and signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. c. 1716)


text: March 17 – Johannes Ewald, Danish national dramatist and poet (b. 1743)


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Anne Robert Turgot, French statesman (b. 1727)


date: May 18

text: May 18 – Túpac Amaru II, Peruvian indigenous rebel leader (b. 1742)


text: May 18 – Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua, Peruvian indigenous rebel leader (b. 1745)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Padre Francisco Garcés, Spanish missionary (killed) (b. 1738)


date: July 23

text: July 23 – John Joachim Zubly, Swiss-born Continental Congressman (b. 1724)


date: September 28

text: September 28 – William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, British diplomat, statesman (b. 1717)


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, British naval officer (b. 1705)


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, French statesman (b. 1701)


date: December 2

text: December 2 – Zenón de Somodevilla, 1st Marqués de la Ensenada, Spanish noble (b. 1702)


date: February 27

text: February 27 – The British House of Commons votes against further war in America, paving the way for the Second Rockingham ministry and the Peace of Paris.


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – John Adams secures recognition of the United States as an independent government by the Dutch Republic. During this visit, he also negotiates a loan of five million guilders, financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink.


date: May 17

text: May 17 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act, a major component of the reforms collectively known as the Constitution of 1782, which restore legislative independence to the Parliament of Ireland.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – The bald eagle is chosen as the emblem of the United States of America. On the same day, the Confederation Congress adopts the design for the Great Seal of the United States.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – John Adams returns to Paris as the first United States Minister to France.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Elias Boudinot of New Jersey is elected the new President of the Congress of the Confederation.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized in the Treaty of Paris).


text: The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Washington, North Carolina.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – The Spanish defeat British forces and capture Menorca.


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Gnadenhutten massacre: In Ohio, 29 Native American men, 27 women, and 34 children are killed by colonial militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by another Native American group.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – Rama I overthrows King Taksin of Siam (now Thailand) in a coup d'état, and moves the political capital from Thonburi, across the Chao Phraya River to Rattanakosin Island, the historic center of Bangkok.


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Battle of the Saintes: A British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse, in the West Indies.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Raid on Lunenburg: American privateers attack the British settlement at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit (or the Order of the Purple Heart) to honor soldiers' merit in battle (reinstated later by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and renamed to the more poetic "Purple Heart", to honor soldiers wounded in action).


date: August 19

text: August 19 – A combined British and Native American force defeat Kentucky militiamen in the Battle of Blue Licks in the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – American Revolutionary War: Action of 12 December 1782: A naval engagement off Ferrol, Spain, in which the British ship commanded by James Luttrell successfully attacks a convoy of French and American ships attempting to supply the United States.


date: December 16

text: December 16 – East India Company: Hada and Mada Miah lead a rebellion in the Indian subcontinent against East India Company officer Robert Lindsay and his troops in Sylhet Shahi Eidgah.


text: Chief Kamehameha I of Hawaii gains control of the northern part of the island of Hawaii, after defeating his cousin Kīwalaʻō.


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Shirley's Gold Coast expedition lands at Elmina on the Dutch Gold Coast. The British expedition fails to take the fort here but over the next several weeks seizes, with minimal resistance, four small Dutch forts.


date: March 31

text: March 31 (Easter Sunday) – Mission San Buenaventura is founded in Las Californias, part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.


date: July

text: July – Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, receives a visit from Pope Pius VI.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – The first American commercial bank (Bank of North America) opens.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the United States Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.


date: April 21

text: April 21 – A Lak Mueang (city pillar) is erected on Rattanakosin Island, located on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River, by order of King Rama I, an act considered the founding of the capital city of Bangkok.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – The first franking privilege is granted for official correspondence to be sent at no charge to and from members of the Confederation Congress, at government expense, during periods when the Congress is in session.


text: The British Parliament extends James Watt's patent for the steam engine to the year 1800.


date: December 14

text: December 14 – The Montgolfier brothers first test fly a hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly 2 km mi.


text: Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova is the first woman in the world to direct a scientific academy, the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences.


text: Saint Petersburg, Russia has 300,000 inhabitants.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – The Laird of Johnstone (George Ludovic Houston) invites people to buy marked plots of land which, when built upon, form the planned town of Johnstone, Scotland, to provide employment for his thread and cotton mills.


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Singu Min is overthrown as king of Myanmar by his cousin Phaungka Min and would be executed eight days later by his uncle Bodawpayar.


date: June 18

text: June 18 – In Switzerland, Anna Göldi is sentenced to death for witchcraft (the last legal witchcraft sentence).


text: London creates the Foot Patrol for public security.


date: July 16

text: July 16–August 29 – The Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad, Germany, one of the most important secret society congresses in history, takes place. High-degree Freemasons from the whole of Europe spend the time deliberating the fate of the rite of Strict Observance, and hierarchy of the governing bodies of world Freemasonry, at the Hanau-Wilhelmsbad spa.


text: July 16 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail premieres at the Burgtheater in Vienna.


text: August 7 – Étienne Maurice Falconet's Bronze Horseman statue of Tsar Peter the Great is unveiled in Saint Petersburg.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Welsh actress Sarah Siddons, the pre-eminent star of the English stage, makes a triumphant return to the theatre in the title role of David Garrick's new play, Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage.


text: The first theater in the Baltic, the Riga City Theater, is founded.


text: In China, the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries is completed, the largest literary compilation in China's history (surpassing the Yongle Encyclopedia of the 15th century). The books are bound in 36,381 volumes (册) with more than 79,000 chapters (卷), comprising about 2.3 million pages, and approximately 800 million Chinese characters.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Stephen Lushington, British judge and Member of Parliament (d. 1873)

source_section: Births › January


date: January 22

text: January 22 – Philip Hamilton, son of American Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton (d. 1801)


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Billy Caldwell, British-Potawatomi and American fur trader (d. 1841)

source_section: Births › March


date: March 18

text: March 18 – John C. Calhoun, vice president of the United States (d. 1850)


date: March 20

text: March 20 – James Tod, English officer of the British East India Company, oriental scholar (d. 1835)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, Queen of France (d. 1866)

source_section: Births › April


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Charles James Napier, Governor of Sindh, Commander-in-Chief in British India (d. 1853)

source_section: Births › August


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Benedict Joseph Fenwick, American Catholic bishop (d. 1846)

source_section: Births › September


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Daoguang Emperor, Qing-dynasty Chinese emperor (d. 1850)


date: October 9

text: October 9 – Lewis Cass, American military officer, politician, statesman (d. 1866)

source_section: Births › October


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1840)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1859)

source_section: Births › November


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Eustoquio Díaz Vélez, Spanish-Argentine general (d. 1856)


date: December 23

text: December 23 – William Armstrong, American lawyer, civil servant, politician, businessperson (d. 1865)

source_section: Births › December


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, German theologian (b. 1702)

source_section: Deaths


text: March 17 – Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematical physicist (b. 1700)


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Taksin the Great, King of Siam (Thonburi Kingdom) (b. 1734)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician (b. 1710)


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, Portuguese statesman (b. 1699)


date: June 11

text: June 11 – William Crawford, American soldier and surveyor (burned at the stake by Native Americans) (b. 1732)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, British statesman, 2-time Prime Minister of Great Britain (b. 1730)


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Farinelli, Italian castrato (b. 1705)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – George Croghan, American colonist (b. c. 1718)


date: September 5

text: September 5 – Bartolina Sisa, Bolivian indigenous Aymara heroine, rebel leader (b. c. 1750)


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, wife of Thomas Jefferson (b. 1748)


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Nicholas Cooke, first Governor of Rhode Island (b. 1717)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Charles Lee, Continental Army general during the American War of Independence (b. 1732)


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Hyder Ali, Indian general, Sultan of Mysore (b. 1720)


date: January 20

text: January 20 – At the palace of Versailles, Great Britain signs preliminary peace treaties with the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – The Confederation Congress ratifies two October 8, 1782, treaties signed by the United States with the United Netherlands.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – American Revolutionary War: Great Britain acknowledges the independence of the United States of America. At this time, the Spanish government does not grant diplomatic recognition.


date: February 4

text: February 4 – American Revolutionary War: Great Britain formally declares that it will cease hostilities with the United States.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – A Peace and Commercial Treaty is signed between the newly-formed United States and Sweden in Paris, among the first acts of state concluded between the U.S. and a foreign power.


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War are ratified by the Congress of the Confederation in the United States.


date: April

text: April – General George Washington sends a letter to the 13 governors of the Confederation of the United States, regarding the needs of the nation.


date: May 18

text: May 18 – The first United Empire Loyalists, fleeing the new United States, reach Parrtown in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.


date: July 16

text: July 16 – Grants of land in Canada to American Loyalists are announced.


date: July 24

text: July 24 – The Treaty of Georgievsk is signed between Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, making Georgia a protectorate of Russia.


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Peace of Paris: A treaty between the United States and Great Britain is signed in Paris, formally ending the American Revolutionary War, in which Britain recognizes the independence of the United States; and treaties are signed between Britain, France, and Spain at Versailles, ending hostilities with the Franco-Spanish Alliance.


date: November 3

text: November 3 – The American Continental Army is disbanded as the first act of business by the Confederation Congress, after Thomas Mifflin is elected the new President to succeed Elias Boudinot.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City and George Washington triumphantly returns, three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.


date: December 19

text: December 19 – William Pitt the Younger becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.


date: December 23

text: December 23 – General George Washington resigns his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army to the Congress of the Confederation in the Maryland State House in Annapolis, Maryland, and retires to his home at Mount Vernon. Washington's resignation, described by historian Thomas Fleming as "the most important moment in American history," affirms the United States' commitment to the principle of civilian control of the military, and prompts King George III to call Washington "the greatest character of the age."


text: Ahmed ibn Muhammad ibn Khalifa, the Emir of Zubarah conquers and rules Bahrain. Shaikh Ahmed restores Arab independence and sovereignty over Bahrain and makes the islands his summer residence.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – The Great Siege of Gibraltar is abandoned.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – The United States Continental Army's Corps of Engineers is disbanded.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – The last celebration of Massacre Day is held in Boston, Massachusetts.


date: March 15

text: March 15 – Newburgh Conspiracy: A potential uprising in the Continental Army stationed at Newburgh, New York, is defused, when George Washington asks the officers to support the supremacy of the United States Congress.


date: April 8

text: April 8 – The Crimean Khanate, which has existed since 1441 and is a late remnant of the Mongol Golden Horde, is annexed by the Russian Empire of Catherine the Great.


date: April 9

text: April 9–28 – Second Anglo-Mysore War: Siege of Bednore – Tipu Sultan of Mysore with 100,000 troops besieges 1600 British East India Company troops who are obliged to surrender with honours of war.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – American Revolutionary War: Colbert's Raid: A Spanish garrison under Captain Jacobo du Breuil defeats British irregulars at Arkansas Post.


date: November 2

text: November 2 – In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, United States General George Washington gives his Farewell Address to the Army.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – The British East India Company packet ship Antelope (1781) is wrecked off Ulong Island in the Palau (Pelew) group, resulting in the first sustained European contact with those islands.


text: Loyalists from New York settle Great Abaco in the Bahamas.


text: The city of Sevastopol is founded on the Crimean Peninsula of the Russian Empire, by Rear Admiral Thomas MacKenzie.


date: August

text: August – Robert Burns writes his poem "Now Westlin' Winds" or "Composed in August".


date: November 24

text: November 24 – In Spain, the Cedula of Population is signed, stating that anyone who will swear fealty to Spain and is of the Roman Catholic faith is welcome to populate Trinidad and Tobago.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – Three-Fifths Compromise: The first instance of black slaves in the United States of America being counted as three-fifths of persons (for the purpose of taxation), is included in a resolution of the Congress of the Confederation (this is later adopted in the 1787 Constitution).


date: October 3

text: October 3 – The first Waterford Crystal glassmaking business begins production in Waterford, Ireland.


text: The Evan Williams (bourbon) distillery is founded in Bardstown, Kentucky.


date: August 18

text: August 18 – The 1783 Great Meteor passes on a 1,000-mile track across the North Sea, Great Britain and France, prompting scientific discussion.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert launch the world's first hydrogen-filled balloon, Le Globe, in Paris.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight (flight time: 25 minutes, Maximum height: 900 m).


date: November 27

text: November 27 – English rector John Michell concludes that some stars might have enough gravity force to prevent light escaping from them, so he calls them "dark stars".


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert make the first manned flight in a hydrogen-filled gas balloon in Paris.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Louis-Sébastien Lenormand makes the first ever recorded public demonstration of a parachute descent, by jumping from the tower of the Montpellier Observatory in France, using his rigid-framed model, which he intends as a form of fire escape.


text: Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova is elected an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the first female foreign member and its second female member, after Eva Ekeblad.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – 1783 Calabrian earthquakes: The first of a sequence of five earthquakes strikes Calabria, Italy (February 5–7, March 1 & 28), leaving 50,000 dead.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – The volcano Laki in Iceland begins an 8-month eruption, starting the chain of natural disasters known as the Móðuharðindin, killing tens of thousands throughout Europe, including up to 33% of Iceland's population, and causing widespread famine. It has been described as one of "the greatest environmental catastrophes in European history".


date: August 4

text: August 4 – Mount Asama, the most active volcano in Japan, begins a climactic eruption, killing roughly 1,400 people directly and exacerbating a famine, resulting in another 20,000 deaths (Tenmei eruption).


date: November 29

text: November 29 – 1783 New Jersey earthquake: An earthquake of 5.3 magnitude strikes New Jersey.


date: May 13

text: May 13 – The Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal organization for American veterans of the American Revolution, is formed in Newburgh, New York.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – A Great Jubilee Day, celebrating the end of the American Revolution, is held in Trumbull, Connecticut.


date: June 4

text: June 4 or June 5 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their hot air balloon at Annonay, France.


date: September 9

text: September 9 – Dickinson College is chartered in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Mozart's Great Mass is first performed, in Salzburg, Austria.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, U.S. General George Washington formally bids his officers farewell.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Stendhal, French writer (d. 1842)


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Charles-Marie Denys de Damrémont, French general, governor-general of French Algeria (d. 1837)


date: April 3

text: April 3 – Washington Irving, American author (d. 1859)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Reginald Heber, English priest (d. 1821)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – José de la Riva Agüero, Peruvian soldier and politician, 1st President of Peru and 2nd President of North Peru (d. 1858)


date: May 25

text: May 25 – Philip P. Barbour, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1841)


date: May 27

text: May 27 – John Crawfurd, Scottish physician, colonial administrator, diplomat and author. Last British Resident of Singapore (d. 1868)


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Benedetto Pistrucci, Italian engraver and medalist (d. 1855)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Friedrich Sertürner, German pharmacist who discovered morphine in 1804 (d. 1841)


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Theodosia Burr Alston, First Lady of South Carolina during War of 1812, daughter of Aaron Burr (d. 1813)


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Friedrich Wilhelm von Bismarck, German army officer and writer (d. 1860)


date: August 7

text: August 7 – Princess Amelia of the United Kingdom, member of the British Royal Family (d. 1810)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – Federigo Zuccari, astronomer, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Naples (d. 1817)


date: September 17

text: September 17 – Nadezhda Durova, first female Russian army officer (d. 1866)


date: January 15

text: January 15 – William Alexander, Lord Stirling, American major-general in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (b. 1726)


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Capability Brown, English landscape gardener (b. 1716)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – James Nares, English composer of mostly sacred vocal works (b. 1715)


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Charles Carroll, American lawyer, delegate to the Continental Congress (b. 1723)


date: March 30

text: March 30 – William Hunter, Scottish anatomist (b. 1718)


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Juliane Reichardt, German-born Bohemian pianist, singer and composer (b. 1752)


date: May 23

text: May 23 – James Otis, American lawyer, patriot (b. 1725)


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Charles Spalding, Scottish inventor and underwater diver, killed in diving bell accident (b. 1738)


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Benjamin Kennicott, English churchman, Hebrew scholar (b. 1718)


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Jean le Rond d'Alembert, French mathematician (b. 1717)


date: November 15

text: November 15 – John Hanson, American President of the Continental Congress (b. 1721)


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Ahmad bin Said al-Busaidi, first ruler of Oman of the Al Said dynasty (b. 1710)


date: December 16

text: December 16 – Sir William James, 1st Baronet, British naval commander (b. 1720)


text: December 16 – Johann Adolph Hasse, German composer (b. 1699)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Treaty of Constantinople: The Ottoman Empire agrees to Russia's annexation of the Crimea.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – The Congress of the United States ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain to end the American Revolution, with the signature of President of Congress Thomas Mifflin.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The Confederation Congress accepts Virginia's cession of all rights to the Northwest Territory and to Kentucky (Illinois County).


date: April 23

text: April 23 – The Congress of the Confederation passes the Ordinance of Governance to set guidelines for adding to the original 13 states in the United States of America.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – The Treaty of Paris (signed on September 3 the previous year, officially ending the War of American Independence) comes into effect.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – A treaty is signed in Paris between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic, formally ending the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.


date: July 29

text: July 29 – The United States and the Kingdom of France sign a convention for establishing diplomatic relations and "determining the functions and prerogatives of their respective consuls, vice consuls, agents, and commissaries".


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Parliament of Great Britain passes Pitt's India Act (An Act for the better Regulation and Management of the Affairs of the East India Company and of the British Possessions in India). It requires the governor-general to be chosen from outside the Company and makes company directors subject to parliamentary supervision.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Britain creates the colony of New Brunswick.


date: September 22

text: September 22 – Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.


date: October 22

text: October 22 – North Carolina rescinds its resolution ceding its western territory (Washington District, modern-day Tennessee) to the United States, after earlier giving Congress two years to accept the terms.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – The Roman Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States is established.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Richard Henry Lee of Virginia is selected as the new President of the Confederation Congress.


text: King Charles III of Spain authorizes land grants in Alta California.


text: The North Carolina General Assembly changes the name of Kingston, North Carolina, originally named for King George III of Great Britain, to Kinston.


text: Britain receives its first bales of imported American cotton.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – The Captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam begins.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – "Kettle War", a 1-day action on the Scheldt in which a ship of the Dutch Republic repels forces of the Holy Roman Empire.


date: October 31

text: October 31–December 14 – The Revolt of Horea, Cloșca and Crișan in Transylvania causes Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor to suspend the Hungarian Constitution.


text: Benjamin Franklin tries in vain to persuade the French to alter their clocks in winter to take advantage of the daylight.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – John Wesley ordains ministers for the Methodist Church in the United States.


date: March 22

text: March 22 – The Emerald Buddha is installed at the Wat Phra Kaew, on the grounds of the Grand Palace in Bangkok (or in 1785).


date: December 25

text: December 25 – The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States is officially formed at the "Christmas Conference", led by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – The Bank of New York opens as the first in New York state and continues to operate under that name for almost 223 years until being acquired by Mellon Financial and becoming BNY Mellon.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Henry Cavendish's paper to the Royal Society of London, Experiments on Air, reveals the molecular composition of water.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – In France, the Robert brothers (Anne-Jean Robert and Nicolas-Louis Robert) and a Mr. Collin-Hullin (whose first name is lost to history) become the first people to fly more than 100 km or 100 miles in the air, lifting off from Paris and landing 6 hours and 40 minutes later near Bethune after a journey of 186 km.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – The phenomenon of black holes is first posited in a paper by John Michell, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.


text: Antoine Lavoisier pioneers quantitative chemistry.


text: Carl Friedrich Gauss pioneers the field of summation with the formula summing at the age of 7.


text: Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal spectacles.


text: Madame du Coudray, pioneer of modern midwifery, retires.


text: A huge locust swarm hits South Africa.


text: Great Tenmei famine in Edo period Japan continues, as 300,000 die of starvation.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – The Marriage of Figaro, written by playwright Pierre Beaumarchais as a sequel to The Barber of Seville, premieres at the Comédie-Française in Paris.


date: June 4

text: June 4 – Élisabeth Thible is the first woman to ascend in a hot-air balloon, at Lyon, France.


date: December

text: December – Immanuel Kant's essay "Answering the Question: What Is Enlightenment?" is published.


text: The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the town of Morgansborough, named for Daniel Morgan. The town is designated as the county seat for Burke County, North Carolina and is subsequently renamed Morgan, later shortened to Morganton.


text: Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova is named first president of the newly created Russian Academy.


text: Foundation of the first theater in Estonia, the Tallinna saksa teater.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1860)


date: February 5

text: February 5 – Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln (d. 1818)


date: February 20

text: February 20 – John E. Wool, general officer in the United States Army, who served during the War of 1812, Mexican–American War, and the American Civil War (d. 1869)


date: March 12

text: March 12 – William Buckland, English geologist, paleontologist (d. 1856)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Jonathan Jennings, American politician and the first governor of Indiana (d. 1834)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Friedrich Graf von Wrangel, Prussian field marshal (d. 1877)


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Peter Vivian Daniel, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1860)


date: July 22

text: July 22 – Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician, astronomer (d. 1846)


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Robert Taylor, British Radical writer, freethought advocate (d. 1844)


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Marshal of France and duke of Isly (d. 1849)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Leigh Hunt, British critic, essayist (d. 1859)


text: October 19 – John McLoughlin, Canadian fur trader (d. 1857)


date: October 20

text: October 20 – Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1865)


date: November 24

text: November 24 – Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (d. 1850)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Princess Friederike Luise of Prussia, Prussian princess (b. 1714)


date: February 27

text: February 27 – Count of St. Germain, French philosopher, adventurer (b. 1710)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – Anthony Benezet, French-born American abolitionist and educator (b. 1713)


date: June 11

text: June 11 – Lê Quý Đôn, Vietnamese philosopher, poet, encyclopedist, and government official (b. 1726)


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Henry Middleton, American president of the Continental Congress (b. 1717)


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Caesar Rodney, American lawyer, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (b. 1728)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, German composer (b. 1710)


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Denis Diderot, French philosopher, encyclopedist (b. 1713)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Allan Ramsay, Scottish portrait-painter (b. 1713)


date: September 4

text: September 4 – César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer (b. 1714)


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Ann Lee, American religious leader (b. 1736)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan, French polymath, author and poet (b. 1709)


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Phillis Wheatley, first published African-American author (b. 1753)


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Seth Warner, American revolutionary leader (b. 1743)


date: January 11

text: January 11 – Richard Henry Lee is elected as President of the U.S. Congress of the Confederation.


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Sir Warren Hastings, who has been governing India on behalf of King George III as the Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William (later British India), resigns. Sir John Macpherson administers British India until General Charles Cornwallis arrives 19 months later.


text: February 27 – The Confederation Congress votes an $80,000 expense to establish diplomatic relations with Morocco.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Thomas Jefferson is appointed the new U.S. Minister to France, and Benjamin Franklin's request for permission to return home is accepted.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cedes all of its claims to territory west of New York State to the United States Confederation Congress. The area will become the southern portions of Michigan and Wisconsin.


date: April 21

text: April 21 – The Empress Catherine the Great of the Russian Empire issues the Charter to the Towns, providing for "a coherent, unified system of administration" for new governments organized in Russia.


date: April 26

text: April 26 – John Adams is appointed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, and Thomas Jefferson as ambassador to France.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – The Land Ordinance of 1785, setting the rules for dividing the U.S. Northwest Territory (later Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan) into townships of 36 square miles apiece, is passed by the Confederation Congress. The survey system will later be applied to the continent west of the Mississippi River.


date: July 2

text: July 2 – Don Diego de Gardoqui arrives in New York City as Spain's first minister to the United States.


date: September 10

text: September 10 – The United States and the Kingdom of Prussia sign a Treaty of Amity and Commerce.


date: September 13

text: September 13 – Benjamin Franklin returns to Philadelphia after seven years as the U.S. Ambassador to France and prepares to take office as the new Governor of Pennsylvania.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – The Commonwealth of Virginia stops the importation of new African slaves by declaring that "No persons shall henceforth be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the seventeenth day of October, 1785, and the descendants of the females of them."


date: November 23

text: November 23 – John Hancock of Massachusetts, the former President of the Continental Congress, is selected as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation, but is unable to take office because of illness.


date: November 28

text: November 28 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation.


text: The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.


text: General Henry Knox is appointed as the Confederation Congress's Secretary of War, with added duties as the Secretary of Navy, both functions later of the U.S. Department of Defense.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The Burmese Konbaung Dynasty annexes the Mrauk U Kingdom of Arakan.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút: Invading Siamese forces, attempting to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong River by the Tây Sơn.


text: Napoleon Bonaparte becomes a lieutenant in the French artillery.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – The fleet of French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse leaves Paris for the circumnavigation of the globe.


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Benjamin Franklin takes office as the new President of the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania, at the time the equivalent of a republic as one of the 13 independent governments of the United States of America under the Articles of Confederation.


date: December 11

text: December 11 – An edict is issued limiting Masonic lodges throughout the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Joseph II. With the exception of Vienna, Budapest and Prague, no Empire province may have more than one lodge.


text: Mozart's "Haydn" String Quartets are published, as is his collaboration with Salieri and a third, unknown composer, Cornetti, Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia.


date: July 6

text: July 6 – The dollar (and a decimal currency system) is unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States by the Congress of the Confederation.


text: September 13 – The Bank of North America, central bank for the Confederation Congress government, loses its charter.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – American engineer James Rumsey sends a letter to George Washington informing of his plans to create a steamboat.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Benjamin Franklin receives a patent for bifocals.


text: Coal gas is first used for illumination.


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Scottish geologist James Hutton first presents his landmark work, Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Astronomer William Herschel begins his second series of surveys of the stars, published in 1789.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – Vincenzo Lunardi of Italy becomes the first person to pilot a balloon over Scotland.


text: Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi publishes Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza, and starts the Pantheism controversy of the 1780s.


text: Louis XVI signs a law that a handkerchief must be square.


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Cardinal de Rohan is arrested in Paris; the Affair of the Diamond Necklace comes into the open.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – France mints new Louis d'or coins, with the image of King Louis XVI on the obverse, and one-sixth less gold than the coins with King Louis XV's image.


text: Charles Adams, John Adams’ son and John Quincy Adams's brother, enters Harvard in August at age 15. A few months later, he starts to drink often and to get into trouble, and is almost expelled when he is caught running naked through the Campus while drunk with other boys.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – An unmanned hot air balloon released as part of a bet crashes in Tullamore, Ireland, causing a fire that burns down about 100 houses, making it the world's first aviation disaster (by 36 days). The town’s coat of arms now represents a phoenix emerging from the ashes.


date: June 15

text: June 15 – After several attempts, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and his companion, Pierre Romain, set off in a balloon from Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the balloon suddenly deflates (without the envelope catching fire) and crashes near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais, killing both men, making it the first fatal aviation disaster.


date: June 3

text: June 3 – The United States' Continental Navy is disbanded.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – The University of Georgia in the United States is chartered by the Georgia General Assembly meeting in Savannah. The first students are admitted in Athens, Georgia in 1801.


date: July 16

text: July 16 – The Piper-Heidsieck Champagne house is founded by Florens-Louis Heidsieck in Reims, France.


text: October 13 – The first newspaper in British India, the English-language Madras Courier, is published. It continues publication as a weekly until 1794.


text: Belfast Academy (later Belfast Royal Academy) is founded by Rev. James Crombie in Belfast, Northern Ireland.


text: Cabinet des Modes, the first fashion magazine, is published in France.


text: The University of New Brunswick is founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831)


text: January 4 – Jacob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist, and writer (d. 1863)


date: March 11

text: March 11 – John McLean, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1861)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – John James Audubon, French-American naturalist, illustrator (d. 1851)


date: May 22

text: May 22 – John Hindmarsh, English naval officer, first Governor of South Australia (d. 1860)


date: July 6

text: July 6 – William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (d. 1865)


text: August 15 – Thomas de Quincey, English writer (d. 1859)


date: August 23

text: August 23 – Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (d. 1819)


date: September 27

text: September 27 – David Walker, African-American abolitionist (d. 1830)


date: October 15

text: October 15 – José Miguel Carrera, Chilean general, founding father (d. 1821)


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Gunatitanand Swami, born Mulji Sharma, Indian paramahamsa of the Hindu Swaminarayan Sampraday sect (d. 1867)


date: November 21

text: November 21 – William Beaumont, American physician and surgeon (d. 1853)


date: December 17

text: December 17 – Dorothea Lieven, Latvian diplomat, politically active princess (d. 1857)


date: January 3

text: January 3 – Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (b. 1706)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Haym Salomon, Polish-Jewish American financier of the American Revolution (b. 1740)


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, French statesman (b. 1719)


text: May 8 – Pietro Longhi, Venetian painter (b. 1701)


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Gottfried August Homilius, German composer, cantor and organist (b. 1714)


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Stephen Hopkins, Founding Father of the United States (b. 1707)


date: July 17

text: July 17 – Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland, British duchess (b. 1715)


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)


date: August 26

text: August 26 – George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier, politician (b. 1716)


date: September 19

text: September 19 – Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain, Queen consort of Sardinia (b. 1729)


date: October 4

text: October 4 – David Brearley, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1703)


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, French soldier, writer (b. 1725)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – James Wright, Governor of Georgia (b. 1716)


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Kitty Clive, English actress, playwright (b. 1711)


text: January 3 – The third Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States and the Choctaw.


date: April 25

text: April 25 – The United States and the Kingdom of Portugal sign their first commercial treaty, but it is never ratified.


date: June 6

text: June 6 – Nathaniel Gorham is chosen as the new President of the U.S. Confederation Congress to substitute for John Hancock, who cannot take office because of illness.


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Convention of London between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Spain: British settlements on the Mosquito Coast of Central America are to be evacuated; Spain expands the territory available to the British in Belize on the Yucatán Peninsula, for cutting mahogany.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Captain Francis Light acquires the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah on behalf of the British East India Company, renaming it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne, and establishing the settlement of George Town. This is the first colony of the British Empire in Southeast Asia.


date: September 11

text: September 11–14 - The Annapolis Convention is held by delegates from six of the 13 states (Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York) resulting in the scheduling of the Philadelphia Convention to draft a national constitution.


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Connecticut cedes to the United States all of its claims to lands between the 41st and 42nd parallels north and west of the Connecticut Western Reserve.


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Eden Agreement: A commercial treaty is signed between the Kingdoms of Great Britain and France.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – The Confederation Congress of the United States directs backpay for seven months for Virginia officers who have been waiting since 1782.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – King George III of the United Kingdom appoints Captain Arthur Phillip as the first Governor of New Holland, which comprises the area of modern Australia from the 135th meridian east to the east coast and all adjacent islands in the Pacific Ocean.


text: The Cabinet of Great Britain approves the establishment of a penal colony, at Botany Bay in Australia.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – The Creek Nation declares war on the U.S. State of Georgia over the matter of white settlers on land not ceded by the Nation. A truce is negotiated on April 17 between Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray (Hoboi-Hili-Miko) and U.S. Army General Lachlan McIntosh but is soon repudiated. Lucian Lamar Knight, Georgia's Landmarks, Memorials, and Legends (Byrd Printing, 1913) p476


date: August 29

text: August 29 – Shays' Rebellion begins in Massachusetts.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The 13th century AH begins on the Islamic calendar on the 1st of Muharram 1201 AH


date: October 24

text: October 24 – General David Cobb of the Massachusetts militia defeats a body of rebel insurgents at Taunton, Massachusetts in one of the battles of Shays' Rebellion.


text: The town of Martinsborough, North Carolina, named for Royal Governor Josiah Martin in 1771, is renamed "Greenesville" in honor of United States General Nathanael Greene by the North Carolina General Assembly (the name "Greenesville" is later shortened, to become Greenville).


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Gavriil Pribylov discovers St. George Island of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Mont Blanc is climbed for the first time, by Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat.


date: September

text: September–December – Goethe undertakes his Italian Journey (published in 1817).


text: October 23 – The settlement of Östersund is established in Sweden.


text: Winter 1786/87 – English captain George Dixon becomes the first European to visit the Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.


date: December 4

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


date: December 20

text: December 20 – Robert Burns's Address to a Haggis is first published, in Edinburgh.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The Ohio Company of Associates is organized by five businessmen at a meeting at the Bunch-of-Grapes Tavern in Boston to purchase land from the United States government to form settlements in the modern-day U.S. state of Ohio.


date: August 18

text: August 18 – The Kingdom of Denmark-Norway charters six settlements in Iceland to trade with it, thus ending the Danish–Icelandic Trade Monopoly, and founding Reykjavík.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – The Confederation Congress establishes the United States Mint to make common coinage and currency for the U.S., to replace individual state coins.


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Construction begins in Dublin on the Four Courts Building, with the first stone laid down by the United Kingdom's Viceroy for Ireland, the Duke of Rutland.


date: October 6

text: October 6 – HMS Bellerophon begins service with the Royal Navy.


text: James Rumsey tests his first steamboat on the Potomac River, at Shepherdstown, Virginia.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – British astronomer William Herschel publishes his first list of his discoveries, Catalogue of One Thousand New Nebulae and Clusters of Stars; two additional books are published in 1789 and 1802.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Caroline Herschel discovers a comet (the first discovered by a woman) from England.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – The Tignon law is enacted by Spanish Governor of Louisiana Esteban Rodríguez Miró, to force black women to wear a tignon headscarf.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – The trial in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace ends in Paris.


text: The last reliably recorded wolf in Ireland is hunted down and killed near Mount Leinster, County Carlow, for killing sheep.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – The outward bound East Indiaman Halsewell is wrecked on the south coast of England in a storm, with only 74 of more than 240 on board surviving.


date: September 25

text: September 25 – The mine of Huancavelica in the Peruvian Andes collapses killing more than a hundred people. The event is a major setback for quicksilver production in the Spanish Empire.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – An earthquake-caused landslide dam on the Dadu River gives way, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – A hurricane strikes Barbados.


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Columbia College (modern-day Columbia University) holds its first graduation, with eight students, including DeWitt Clinton.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna.


date: July 31

text: July 31 – The 'Kilmarnock volume' of Robert Burns' Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is published in Scotland.


date: August 17

text: August 17 – Frederick William II, the paternal nephew of Frederick the Great, becomes King of Prussia.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The oldest musical organization in the United States, the Stoughton Musical Society, is founded.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgates a penal reform, making his country the first state to abolish the death penalty. This day is therefore commemorated by 300 cities around the world as Cities for Life Day.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – John Catron, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1865)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States (d. 1844)


date: January 11

text: January 11 – Joseph Jackson Lister, English opticist, physician (d. 1869)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Maria Pavlovna of Russia, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach (d. 1859)


date: February 26

text: February 26 – François Arago, French astronomer, physicist and politician (d. 1853)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – John Franklin, British naval officer and explorer (d. 1847)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Elizabeth Andrew Warren, Cornish botanist, marine algologist (d. 1864)


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Winfield Scott, American general, presidential candidate (d. 1866)


text: August 17 – Davy Crockett, American frontiersman (d. 1836)


text: August 17 – Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, mother of Queen Victoria (d. 1861)


date: September 10

text: September 10 - Nicolás Bravo, 3-time President of Mexico (d. 1854)


date: September 18

text: September 18 – King Christian VIII of Denmark (d. 1848)


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Guadalupe Victoria, 1st President of Mexico (d. 1843)


date: November 18

text: November 18 – Carl Maria von Weber, German composer (d. 1826)


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Moses Mendelssohn, Jewish philosopher (b. 1729)


text: January 7 – Jean-Étienne Guettard, French physician, scientist (b. 1715)


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Hans Joachim von Zieten, Prussian field marshal (b. 1699)


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Thomas Wright, British astronomer (b. 1711)


date: April 10

text: April 10 – John Byron, British naval officer (b. 1723)


date: April 20

text: April 20 – John Goodricke, English astronomer (b. 1764)


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Petronella Johanna de Timmerman, Dutch poet, scientist (b. 1723)


date: May 25

text: May 25 – Peter III of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria I of Portugal (b. 1717)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Nathanael Greene, major general in the Continental Army, 3rd Quartermaster General (b. 1742)


date: September 5

text: September 5 – Jonas Hanway, English merchant, traveler, and philanthropist (b. 1712)


text: September 18 – Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Italian luthier (b. 1711)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Augustus Keppel, 1st Viscount Keppel, British admiral (b. 1725)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Princess Amelia of Great Britain, Second daughter of George II of Great Britain (b. 1711)


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Bernardo de Gálvez, Spanish military leader who aided the United States in its quest for independence, in the American Revolutionary War (b. 1746)


date: January 9

text: January 9 – The North Carolina General Assembly authorizes nine commissioners to purchase 100 acre km2 of land for the seat of Chatham County. The town is named Pittsborough (later shortened to Pittsboro), for William Pitt the Younger.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Arthur St. Clair of Pennsylvania is chosen as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation.


date: February 21

text: February 21 – The Confederation Congress sends word to the 13 states that a convention will be held in Philadelphia on May 14 to revise the Articles of Confederation.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – By a vote of 33 to 29, Harrisburg is approved as the new capital of Pennsylvania.


date: April 2

text: April 2 – A Charter of Justice is signed, providing the authority for the establishment of the first New South Wales (i.e. Australian) Courts of Criminal and Civil Jurisdiction.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – In Philadelphia, delegates begin arriving for a Constitutional Convention.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – In Britain, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.


text: May 25 – In Philadelphia, delegates begin to convene the Constitutional Convention, intended to amend the Articles of Confederation (however, a new United States Constitution is eventually produced). George Washington presides over the Convention.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention that the government be called the United States.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – The Congress of the Confederation enacts the Northwest Ordinance, establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory (the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin). It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states, and limits the expansion of slavery.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – The United States ratifies its first treaty with the Sultanate of Morocco.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – South Carolina cedes to the United States its claims to a 12-mile wide strip of land that runs across northern Alabama and Mississippi.


date: September 17

text: September 17 – The United States Constitution is signed by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Treaty of Versailles (1787) signed, forming an alliance between the Kingdom of France and the Lord Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, future Emperor of Vietnam.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – Delaware ratifies the Constitution, and becomes the first U.S. state.


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Pennsylvania becomes the second U.S. state.


date: December 18

text: December 18 – New Jersey becomes the third U.S. state.


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts fails.


date: May

text: May – Orangist troops attack Vreeswijk, Harmelen and Maarssen; civil war starts in the Dutch Republic.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Princess Wilhelmina of Orange, sister of King Frederick William II of Prussia, is captured by Dutch Republican patriots, taken to Goejanverwellesluis and not allowed to travel to The Hague.


date: September 13

text: September 13 – Prussian troops invade the Dutch Republic; two days later the Rhinegrave Salm gives up Utrecht. Within a few weeks 40,000 Patriots (out of a population of 2,000,000) go into exile in Northern France.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792): Battle of Kinburn – Alexander Suvorov, though sustaining a wound, routs the Turks.


date: May 13

text: May 13 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with the 11 ships of the First Fleet, carrying around 700 convicts and at least 300 crew and guards to establish a penal colony in Australia.


date: December 23

text: December 23 – Captain William Bligh sets sail from England for Tahiti, on .


date: March 28

text: March 28 – In the British House of Commons, Henry Beaufoy files the first motion to repeal the Test Act 1673, which restricts the rights of non-members of the Church of England; Beaufoy's motion is rejected, and the Act is not repealed until 1829.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Biblical theology becomes a separate discipline from biblical studies, as Johann Philipp Gabler delivers his speech "On the proper distinction between biblical and dogmatic theology and the specific objectives of each" upon his inauguration as the professor of theology at the University of Altdorf in Germany. Craig Bartholomew, Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation (Zondervan, 2011) p2


date: May 7

text: May 7 – The New Church (Swedenborgian) is founded in England.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – La Purisima Mission is founded by Padre Fermín Lasuén as the eleventh of the Spanish missions in California.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – The Bank of North America, the central bank of the United States government under the Articles of Confederation, is re-incorporated after its charter had expired in 1786.


date: April 25

text: April 25 – The Customs and Excise Act 1787 receives Royal assent. It replaced all customs duties, which included poundage, by a system where individual tariffs would be applied to importations.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – Launching a 45 ft m steam powered craft on the Delaware River, John Fitch demonstrates the first U.S. patent for his design.


date: December 3

text: December 3 – James Rumsey demonstrates his water-jet propelled boat on the Potomac River.


date: January 11

text: January 11 – William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.


date: April 19

text: April 19 – British astronomer Sir William Herschel notices three red glowing spots on the dark part of the Moon.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composes his famous Eine kleine Nachtmusik.


text: Antoine Lavoisier is the first to suggest that silica is an oxide of a hitherto unknown metallic chemical element, later isolated and named silicon.


text: Caroline Herschel is granted an annual salary of £50, by King George III of Great Britain, for acting as assistant to her brother William in astronomy.


text: A fossil bone recovered from Cretaceous strata at Woodbury, New Jersey is discussed by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.


text: The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Waynesborough, and designates it the seat for Wayne County, North Carolina. The town becomes extinct after 1865.


date: January 19

text: January 19 – Mozart's Symphony No. 38 is premièred in Prague.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – A charter is granted, establishing the institution which will become the University of Pittsburgh.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – The original Lord's Cricket Ground in London holds its first cricket match; Marylebone Cricket Club founded.


date: September 4

text: September 4 – The first secondary school open to girls in Denmark, J. Cl. Todes Døtreskole, is founded in Copenhagen.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Washington Academy (later Washington & Jefferson College) is chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – The first of The Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, is published in The Independent Journal, a New York newspaper.


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte) premieres in the Estates Theatre in Prague.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – The first secondary school open to girls in Sweden, Societetsskolan, is founded in Gothenburg.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Manuel José Arce, Revolutionary General and first President of The Federal Republic of Central America (d. 1847)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – William Bradley, Britain's tallest man ever at 7 ft 9 in. (d. 1820)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Emma Willard, American educator (d. 1870)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Joseph von Fraunhofer, German optician (d. 1826)


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Francisco de Paula Martínez de la Rosa y Berdejo, Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1862)


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Pieter Merkus, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1844)


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Sir Harry Smith, English soldier, military commander (d. 1860)


date: August 24

text: August 24 – James Weddell, British sailor known for discovering the Weddell Sea (d. 1834)


date: October 4

text: October 4, – François Guizot, Prime Minister of France (d. 1874)


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Edmund Kean, English actor (d. 1833)


date: November 7

text: November 7 – Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Serbian linguist, major reformer of the Serbian language (d. 1864)


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Samuel Cunard, Canadian businessman, prominent Nova Scotian, founder of the Cunard Line (d. 1865)


date: December 16

text: December 16 – Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist and dramatist (d. 1855)


date: December 17

text: December 17 – Jan Evangelista Purkyne, Czech anatomist, botanist (d. 1869)


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, German prince (b. 1702)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Pompeo Batoni, Italian painter (b. 1708)


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Rudjer Boscovich, Croatian scientist, diplomat (b. 1711)


text: February 13 – Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman, diplomat (b. 1717)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – Samuel Graves, British Royal Navy admiral (b. 1713)


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Thomas Gage, British general (b. 1719)


date: June 14

text: June 14 – Johann Georg Dominicus von Linprun, German scientist (b. 1714)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – José de Gálvez, Spanish politician (b. 1720)


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Arthur Devis, British artist (b. 1712)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptorist Order (b. 1696)


date: August 7

text: August 7 – Francis Blackburne, English Anglican churchman, activist (b. 1705)


date: October 7

text: October 7 – Henry Muhlenberg, German-born founder of the U.S. Lutheran Church (b. 1711)


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Johann Karl August Musäus, German author and collector of folk tales (b. 1735)


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (b. 1714)


date: January 2

text: January 2 – Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fourth U.S. state under the new government.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fifth U.S. state.


date: January 22

text: January 22 – The Congress of the Confederation, effectively a caretaker government until the United States Constitution can be ratified by at least nine of the 13 states, elects Cyrus Griffin as its last president.


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the sixth U.S. state.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – Sydney is named and founded, in the British colony of New South Wales.


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Maryland ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the seventh U.S. state.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the eighth U.S. state.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – New Hampshire ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the ninth U.S. state, enabling the Constitution to go into effect. (The latter happens on March 4, 1789, when the first Congress elected under the new Constitution assembles.)


date: June 25

text: June 25 – The Virginia Ratifying Convention ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the tenth U.S. state under the new government.


date: July 24

text: July 24 – Governor General Lord Dorchester, by proclamation issued from the Chateau St. Louis in Quebec City, divides the British Province of Quebec into five Districts, namely: Gaspé, Nassau, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, and Hesse.


date: July 26

text: July 26 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the eleventh U.S. state.


date: August 12

text: August 12 – The Anjala conspiracy is signed.


date: September 13

text: September 13 – The United States Congress of the Confederation passes an act providing a timeline for the voting for the first President under the new U.S. Constitution. William Waller Hening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (George Cochran Publishing, 1823) p653


date: October 21

text: October 21 – The 14th and last session of the Continental Congress and (the 6th as Congress under the Articles of Confederation) is adjourned.


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Voting takes place in the 11 states that have ratified the United States Constitution for the first U.S. Senators; in Virginia, Richard Henry Lee and William Grayson, both anti-federalists, receive the highest number of votes in the Virginia Senate.


text: November 15 – Cyrus Griffin of Virginia completes his service as the last President of the Congress of the Confederation, under the Articles of Confederation.


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Austria enters the Russo-Turkish War (1787–92), and attacks Moldavia.


date: April 13

text: April 13 – America's first recorded riot, the 'Doctors' Mob', begins. Residents of Manhattan are angry about grave robbers stealing bodies for doctors to dissect. The rioting is suppressed on April 15.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – The Australian frontier wars begins. With the placement of a cournerstone.


date: June 27

text: June 27 – The Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790) breaks out following a staged attack on Swedish troops in Puumala, present-day Finland.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Emperor Shah Alam II was blinded by a maddened Indo-Afghan commander Ghulam Qadir Rohilla who sought revenge against the Mughal Empire.


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Austro-Turkish War - Battle of Karánsebes: The Austrian army engages in a friendly-fire incident, which results in mass casualties.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – The Theater War begins, when the army of Denmark–Norway invades Sweden.


date: January 18

text: January 18 – The leading ship (armed tender HMS Supply) in Captain Arthur Phillip's First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay, to colonise Australia.


date: January 24

text: January 24 – The La Perouse expedition in the Astrolabe and Boussole arrives off Botany Bay, just as Captain Arthur Phillip is attempting to move his colony from there to Sydney Cove in Port Jackson.


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Eleven ships of the First Fleet from Botany Bay, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, land at Sydney Cove (which will become Sydney), Australia, where he determines to establish the British prison colony of New South Wales, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.


date: February 17

text: February 17 – The uninhabited Lord Howe Island is discovered by the brig HMS Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Ball, who is on his way from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with convicts to start a penal settlement there. They arrive at Norfolk Island on March 6.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – The La Perouse expedition leaves Sydney Cove for New Caledonia, never to be seen again.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – American pioneers establish the town of Marietta (in modern-day Ohio), the first permanent American settlement outside the original Thirteen Colonies.


date: June 17

text: June 17 – English captains Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall, returning from Botany Bay, become the first Europeans to encounter the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific Ocean. They also chart islands in "Lord Mulgrove's range", later known as the Marshall Islands.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain, as King Henry IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – The Royal Dramatic Theatre (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern), Sweden's national drama company, is founded.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent a steamboat.


text: Annual British iron production reaches 68,000 tons.

source_section: Events › Undated


date: October

text: October – King George III of the United Kingdom becomes deranged; the Regency Crisis of 1788 starts.


date: November 20

text: November 20 – In the United Kingdom, the Houses of Parliament are given the first formal report by Prime Minister Pitt of the mental illness of King George III. Parliament adjourns for two weeks, to await the results of examinations by royal physicians.


date: December

text: December – Robert Burns writes his version of the Scots poem Auld Lang Syne.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – The Edinburgh Evening Courant carries a notice of £200 reward for the capture of William Brodie, a town councilor doubling as a burglar.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – The trial of Deacon William Brodie for burglary begins in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is sentenced to death by hanging.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – William Brodie is hanged at the Tolbooth in Edinburgh.


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Russo-Turkish War (1787–92): The Ottoman fortress of Ochakiv falls to the Russians after a prolonged siege, and a murderous storm with a temperature of -23 C F.


date: March 21

text: March 21 – The Great New Orleans Fire destroys 856 buildings, including St. Louis Cathedral and The Cabildo, leaving most of the town in ruins.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – A hailstorm sweeps across France and the Dutch Republic, with hailstones 'as big as quart bottles' that take 'three days to melt'; immense damage is done.


date: November 25

text: November 25 – Fifty consecutive days of temperatures below freezing strike France, a record that will be unbroken more than 200 years later.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The first edition of The Times, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published in London.


date: June 7

text: June 7 – France: Day of the Tiles, which some consider the beginning of the French Revolution.


date: June 9

text: June 9 – The African Association, an exploration group dedicated to plotting the Niger River and finding Timbuktu, is founded in England.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, completes his antepenultimate symphony, the Symphony No. 39 in E-flat.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, completes his penultimate symphony, the Symphony No. 40 in G Minor.


date: August 8

text: August 8 – King Louis XVI agrees to convene the Estates-General meeting in May 1789, the first time since 1614.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, completes his final symphony, the Symphony No. 41 in C Major, and nicknamed (after his death) The Jupiter.


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (d. 1860)


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Joseph von Eichendorff, German poet (d. 1857)


date: April 14

text: April 14 – David G. Burnet, President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1870)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Augustin-Jean Fresnel, French engineer, physicist and inventor (d. 1827)


date: May 16

text: May 16 – Friedrich Rückert, German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages (d. 1866)


date: May 22

text: May 22 – William Grant Broughton, first Anglican bishop in Australia (d. 1853)


date: June 8

text: June 8 – Charles A. Wickliffe, American politician, 14th Governor of Kentucky (d. 1869)


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Princess Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (d. 1851)


date: September 12

text: September 12 – Alexander Campbell, Irish-born founder of the Disciples of Christ (d. 1866)


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Margaret Taylor, First Lady of the United States (d. 1852)


date: September 28

text: September 28 – Jakob Walter, German stonemason, soldier (d. 1864)


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Sarah Josepha Hale, American author (d. 1879)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – David R. Porter, American politician (d. 1867)


date: November 8

text: November 8 – Mihály Bertalanits, Hungarian Slovene (Prekmurje Slovene) poet, teacher (d. 1853)


date: January 14

text: January 14 – François Joseph Paul, marquis de Grasetilly, comte de Grasse, French admiral (b. 1722)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – Maurice Quentin de La Tour, French portrait painter (b. 1704)


date: February 18

text: February 18 – John Whitehurst, English clockmaker, scientist (b. 1713)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Thomas Cushing, American Continental Congressman (b. 1725)


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Charles Wesley, English co-founder (with his brother, John Wesley) of the religious movement known as Methodism (b. 1707)


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Carlo Antonio Campioni, French-born composer (b. 1719)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, French naturalist (b. 1707)


date: May 8

text: May 8 – Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian-born physician, naturalist (b. 1723)


date: August 2

text: August 2 – Thomas Gainsborough, British painter (b. 1727)


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, French soldier, diplomat and statesman (b. 1696)


date: August 28

text: August 28 – Elizabeth Pierrepont, Duchess of Kingston-upon-Hull, English noble (b. 1721)


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German composer (b. 1714)


date: December 19

text: December 19 – Juan Bautista de Anza, Governor of the Spanish Province of New Mexico (b. 1736)


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Francesco Zuccarelli, Italian painter, elected to the Venetian Academy (b. 1702)


date: January 7

text: January 7 – The 1788-89 United States presidential election and House of Representatives elections are held.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Treaty of Fort Harmar: The terms of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) and the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, between the United States Government and certain native American tribes, are reaffirmed, with some minor changes.


date: February 4

text: February 4 – George Washington is unanimously elected the first president of the United States, by the United States Electoral College.


date: February 21

text: February 21 – King Gustav III enforces the Union and Security Act, delivering the coup de grace to Sweden's 70-year-old parliamentarian system, in favor of absolute monarchy.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – At Federal Hall in New York City, the 1st United States Congress meets, and declares the new United States Constitution to be in effect. The bicameral United States Congress replaces the unicameral Congress of the Confederation, as the legislature of the federal government of the United States.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – At Federal Hall, the United States House of Representatives attains its first quorum, and elects congressman Frederick Muhlenberg as the first Speaker of the House.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – At Federal Hall, the United States Senate attains its first quorum, and elects John Langdon of Pennsylvania as its first president pro tempore. Later that day, the Senate and the House of Representatives meet in joint session for the first time, and the electoral votes of the first U.S. presidential election are counted. General George Washington is certified as president-elect, and John Adams is certified as vice-president elect.


date: April 21

text: April 21 – John Adams takes office as the first vice president of the United States, and begins presiding over the United States Senate.


date: April 30

text: April 30 – George Washington is inaugurated at Federal Hall in New York City, beginning his term as the first president of the United States.


date: June 17

text: June 17 – In France, representatives of the Third Estate at the Estates-General declare themselves the National Assembly.


date: June

text: June – The Inconfidência Mineira is the first attempt at Brazilian independence from Portugal.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – At Versailles, the National Assembly reconstitutes itself as the National Constituent Assembly, and begins preparations for what will become the French Constitution of 1791.