Timeline 1780-1789
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1780 Jan 2, A
blizzard hit Washington's army at the Morristown, NJ, winter encampment.
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1780 Jan 2, Johann Ludwig Krebs
(66), composer, died.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1780 Feb 9, Walenty Karol Kratzer,
composer, was born.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1780 Feb 14, William Blackstone
(56), English lawyer, died.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1780 Mar 1, Pennsylvania became
the first U.S. state to abolish slavery (for new-borns only). It was
followed by Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784, New York in 1785, and
New Jersey in 1786. Massachusetts abolished slavery through a judicial
decision in 1783. [see Jul 2, 1777]
(HN, 3/1/98)(SC, 3/1/02)(HNQ, 5/29/02)
1780 Mar 17, Thomas Chalmers, 1st
moderator (Free Church of Scotland 1843-47), was born.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1780 Mar 26, The 1st British
Sunday newspaper appeared as the British Gazette and Sunday Monitor.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1780 Mar 27, August L. Crelle,
German inventor, mathematician (1st Prussian Railway), was born.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1780 Apr 4, Edward Hicks (d.1849),
Quaker preacher and painter, was born. His work included over 60
paintings that were all titled "The Peaceable Kingdom.’
(WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A28)(SFC, 9/25/00, p.F1)(HN,
4/4/01)
1780 Apr, George Washington
censured Benedict Arnold for his misdeeds as governor of Philadelphia.
(ON, 11/01, p.2)
1780 May 4, American Academy of
Arts & Science was founded.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1780 May 12, Charleston, SC, fell
to the British in the US Revolutionary War.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)(HN, 5/12/98)
1780 May 19, A mysterious darkness
enveloped much of New England and part of Canada in the early
afternoon; the cause has never been determined.
(HFA, '96, p.30)(DTnet 5/19/97)
1780 May, The Virginia
continentals surrendered to Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton,
commander of the British Legion, following his victory at Waxhaws, SC.
Tarleton then led the British troops to a massacre of the surrendering
Virginia regulars and militiamen, eliminating the last organized
force in South Carolina. During the course of the Revolutionary War,
Tarleton became one of the most hated men in America.
(HNQ, 9/26/00)(AH, 10/07, p.29)
1780 Jun, The East India ship
Princess Royal landed at Bengkulu on Sumatra with American rebels. The
prisoners were sent to Fort Marlboro to be trained as British soldiers.
(ON, 1/00, p.5)
1780 Jun, The London riots led by
George Gordon in opposition to the Catholic Relief Act of 1778 took
place.
(HNQ, 2/24/99)
1780 Aug 5, Benedict Arnold took
over the command of West Point from American Major Gen. Robert Howe.
(ON, 11/01, p.2)
1780 Aug 16, American troops under
Gen. Horatio Gates were badly defeated by the British at the Battle of
Camden, South Carolina.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(HN, 8/16/98)(ON, 12/01, p.9)
1780 Aug 22, HMS Resolution
returned to England without Capt Cook.
(MC, 8/22/02)
1780 Aug 24, King Louis XVI
abolished torture as a means to get suspects to confess.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1780 Aug 29,
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (d.1867), French painter, was born. His
work included the "Portrait of Monsieur de Norvins" and "Valpincon
Bather."
(WUD, 1994, p.731)(WSJ, 7/1/96, p.A11)(MC, 8/29/01)
1780 Aug 30, General Benedict
Arnold betrayed the US when he promised secretly to surrender the fort
at West Point to the British army. Arnold whose name has become
synonymous with traitor fled to England after the botched conspiracy.
His co-conspirator, British spy Major John Andre, was hanged in an act
of spite by Washington ("it's good for the armies").
(MC, 8/30/01)
1780 Sep 21-22, General Benedict
Arnold, American commander of West Point, met with British spy Major
John André to hand over plans of the important Hudson River fort
to the enemy. Unhappy with how General George Washington treated him
and in need of money, Arnold planned to "sell" West Point for 20,000
pounds--a move that would enable the British to cut New England off
from the rest of the rebellious colonies. Arnold's treason was exposed
when André was captured by American militiamen who found the
incriminating plans in his stocking. Arnold received a timely warning
and was able to escape to a British ship, but André was hanged
as a spy on October 2, 1780. Condemned for his Revolutionary War
actions by both Americans and British, Arnold lived until 1801.
(HNPD, 9/21/98)
1780 Sep 23, British spy John
Andre was captured along with papers revealing Benedict Arnold's plot
to surrender West Point to the British. Arnold had switched sides
partly because he disapproved of the US French alliance.
(AP, 9/23/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)
1780 Sep 25, American General
Benedict Arnold joined the British.
(MC, 9/25/01)(ON, 11/01, p.5)
1780 Oct 2, British spy John Andre
was hanged in Tappan, N.Y., for conspiring with Benedict Arnold.
(AP, 10/2/97)
1780 Oct 6, Over 1500 Patriot
fighters assembled on the outskirts of Cowpens, South Carolina, to
confront Loyalist forces of British Major Patrick Ferguson.
(ON, 12/07, p.6)
1780 Oct 7, Colonial patriots
slaughtered a loyalist group at the Battle of King's Mountain in South
Carolina. Patrick Ferguson (36), English Major in South Carolina, died
in the battle along with some 200 Loyalists. Patriot losses numbered 30
with 62 wounded.
(HN, 10/7/99)(ON, 12/07, p.7)
1780 Oct 10, A Great Hurricane
killed 20,000 to 30,000 in Caribbean.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1780 Oct 20, M. Pauline Bonaparte,
Corsican duchess of Parma and Guastalla, was born.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1780 Oct 31, The HMS Ontario was
lost with barely a trace and as many as 130 people aboard during a gale
on Lake Ontario. In 2008 explorers found the 22-gun British warship.
Canadian author Arthur Britton Smith chronicled the history of the HMS
Ontario in a 1997 book, "The Legend of the Lake."
(AP, 6/14/08)
1780 Oct, Gen. Washington ordered
Major General Nathanael Greene to replace Gen. Horatio Gates and take
command of the southern Department of the Continental Army.
(ON, 12/01, p.9)
1780 Nov 29, Maria Theresa
Hapsburg (63), Queen of Austria, died.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1780 Dec 4, At the Battle of
Rugeley's Mill, South Carolina, Colonel William Washington attacked a
fortified log barn with 107 Loyalists inside. When the Patriot‘s small
arms proved ineffective, Washington cut a log to resemble a cannon and
demanded the surrender of the Loyalists. The "Quaker guns" used in the
American War of Independence were fashioned out of logs to resemble
cannon. Fooled by the fake cannon, the promptly gave up. Quaker
guns were also decisive at the May 1780 Battle of Hunt‘s Bluff, also in
South Carolina.
(HNQ, 4/24/00)
1780 George Stubbs, British
painter, created his portrait of a poodle.
(SFC, 6/25/99, p.A3)
1780 Goethe published a fragment
of Faust.
(V.D.-H.K.p.239)
1780 The Warren Tavern was built
in Charlestown and named after Gen’l. Joseph Warren, who was killed at
the battle of Bunker Hill.
(HT, 3/97, p.34)
c1780 It was Alexander Hamilton’s
idea to establish a central bank and consolidate the state debts left
over from the Revolutionary War.
(WSJ,2/13/97, p.A18)
1780 John Paul Jones’ "Continental
Ship of War," Ranger, was captured by the British at the fall of
Charleston, South Carolina, and was added to the Royal Navy under the
name of Halifax.
(NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.362)
1780 US Gen’l. Benedict Arnold,
newly married and strapped for cash to maintain an extravagant
lifestyle, began providing information to the British. He eventually
joined the British as a brigadier general.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A3)
1780 Guillaume Raynal, a French
historian, proclaimed Puerto Rico to be "in proportion to its size the
very best island in the New World."
(SFEC, 4/26/98, p.A3)
1780 The mission of San Lorenzo in
the Native American pueblo of Picuris was built. It has no bell towers,
is flanked by curved buttresses, and is one of the 6 adobe missions
scattered along the western shoulder of the Sangre de Cristo mountains
between Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.T-5)
1780 A Japanese whaling ship ran
aground near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. Rats from the
ship reached the nearest island giving it the name Rat Island. The
incident introduced the non-native Norway rat, also known as the brown
rat, to Alaska. The rats terrorized all but the largest birds on the
island. In the Fall of 2008 poison was dropped onto the island from
helicopter-hoisted buckets for a week and a half. By mid 2009 there
were no signs of living rats and some birds had returned.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.43)(Reuters, 6/12/09)
1780 The giant Mosasaurus dinosaur
head was found in the Netherlands near Maastricht. [see 1794]
(NYT, 6/7/96, p.A4)
1780 A deadly hurricane hit the
Windward and Leeward Islands and 20-22,000 people were killed.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A2)
1780 In England Richard Brinsley
Sheridan, playwright, entered Parliament as a supporter of the Whig
politician Charles James Fox, who supported the American colonies
against George III.
(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)
1780 In France a communal grave at
the Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris cracked and spilled into the
cellars of adjoining houses and prompted its closure.
(Hem., 3/97, p.129)
1780 Salomon Gessner, printer,
poet and friend of Goethe, founded the Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ). In
2005 the newspaper celebrated its 225th birthday.
(Econ, 4/2/05, p.45)
1780 The Ottomans build the
al-Ajyad Castle in Mecca to protect the city and its Muslim shrines
from invaders. The castle was torn down by the Saudis in 2001 to make
way for a trade center and hotel complex. Turkey called this a
"cultural massacre."
(SFC, 1/8/02, p.A6)
1780 Sheep were introduced to
Ireland from Scotland.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.25)
1780 In Peru Jose Gabriel
Condorcanqui led a failed Indian revolt against the Spanish.
(SFC, 12/20/96, p.B4)
1780s Steel pens were developed as
more durable than quills.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1780s Antoine Lavoisier and
Pierre-Simon Laplace, chemists, demonstrated that the byproducts of
fire weighed as much as the original wood and demolished the idea that
heat was caused by the release of phlogiston.
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W12)
1780s English plumber, William
Watts, built a tower to let fall drops of molten lead to a water well
in his cellar to create shot for guns. Just as raindrops turn spherical
on falling, so did his lead drops. His tower stood till 1968.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.E4)
1780-1783 A 4-year war between England and the Dutch
was fought.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
1780-1792 The intellectual development over this
period of American President James Madison is covered in a 1995 book by
Lance Banning titled: The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the
Founding of the Federal Republic.
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-12)
1780-1820 Some 5,000 cases came before the Spanish
Inquisition from which only 6 Spaniards were prosecuted for Judaism.
(WSJ, 4/16/98, p.A20)
1780-1830 Louis-Leopold Boilly devoted himself in
this period to painting aspects of the common man in France. His
paintings include A Game of Billiards (1807) and Moving Day (1822).
(WSJ, 11/7/95, p.A-1)
1780-1831 Karl von Clausewitz, German military
officer and author of books on military science. In his 1st book "On
War" he wrote: "War is an act of force to compel our enemy to do our
will."
(WUD, 1994, p.273)(WSJ, 4/1/99, p.A10)
1780-1839 The Maharajah Ranjit Singh lived in India.
He consolidated Sikh rule after splintering conflicts with Punjab's
Mughal court and Afghan and Persian invaders.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.E1)
1780-1842 William Ellery Channing, American
clergyman: "How the 'I' pervades all things!"
(AP, 12/14/98)
1781 Jan 5, A British naval
expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va. Arnold led some
1,600 British and Loyalist troops in the destructive raid on Richmond.
(AP, 1/5/98)(AH, 2/06, p.14)
1781 Jan 17, Daniel Morgan’s
Continental regiments routed British forces at Cowpens, South Carolina.
300 British soldiers were killed or wounded and 500 taken prisoner. The
cavalry skirmish at Cowpens was bloody but inconclusive.
(ON, 12/01, p.10)(AH, 2/06, p.15)
1781 Feb 25, American General
Nathanael Greene crossed the Dan River on his way to his March 15th
confrontation with Lord Charles Cornwallis at Guilford Court House,
N.C.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1781 Feb, Gen. Washington,
sensitive to the pleas of the Virginia Governor, ordered Lafayette
south with a picked force of some 1,200 New England and New Jersey
troops.
(http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/laf_va.htm)
1781 Mar 1, The Continental
Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, following ratification
by Maryland.
(AP, 3/1/08)
1781 Mar 13, Astronomer William
Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, which he named 'Georgium Sidus,'
in honor of George III. He initially though it was a comet. It is the
7th planet from the sun and revolves around the sun every 84.02 years.
It is 14.6 time the size of Earth and has five satellites.
(AHD, p.1408)(HFA, '96, p.26)(AP, 3/13/98)(HN,
3/13/99)(MC, 3/13/02)
1781 Mar 15, Gen. Nathanael Greene
engaged British forces under Cornwallis at Guilford Court-House, North
Carolina. Greene retreated after inflicting severe casualties on
Cornwallis’ army.
(ON, 12/01, p.10)
1781 Mar, The Continental cavalry
under Col. Henry Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, surprised and cut to
pieces the Loyalist cavalry near Hillsborough, NC. Ninety Loyalists
were killed with no losses to Lee.
(AH, 10/07, p.29)
1781 Apr 8, Premiere of Mozart's
violin sonata K379.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1781 Apr 25, Gen. Nathanael Greene
engaged British forces at Hobkirk’s Hill, South Carolina, and was
forced to retreat.
(ON, 12/01, p.10)
1781 Apr 29, French fleet stopped
Britain from seizing the Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1781 May 1, Emperor Josef II
decreed protection of population.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1781 May 2, In Charles Town, S.C.,
William Collings sold his wife to Thomas Schooler, with her bed and
clothing for $2 and a half dozen bowls of gross.
(SFEC, 2/8/98, Z1 p.8)
1781 May 13, British Gen. William
Phillips died of a fever Petersburg, Va., as his forces confronted the
American army under Lafayette. Phillips had commanded the artillery
battery whose fire had killed Lafayette’s father at the Battle of
Minden (1759).
(ON, 2/09, p.5)
1781 May 14, Abram Petrovich
Gannibal (b.1696), an African slave adopted by Peter the Great, died.
He served Peter in various important capacities including spy and privy
councilor. He is the great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin. In 2005
Hugh Barnes authored “Gannibal: The Moor of Petersburg.”
(Econ, 8/20/05,
p.66)(www.shaebia.org/wwwboard/contributedarticles/messages/58.html)
1781 May 25, Ferdinand, archduke
of Austria-Este, Governor-General (Sicily), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1781 Jun 9, George Stephenson,
English engineer, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in
Newcastle, England.
(HN, 6/9/01)(MC, 6/9/02)
1781 Jun 11, A Peace Commission
created by Congress was composed of John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin
Franklin, Henry Laurens and Thomas Jefferson. Congress decided to
appoint a commission to negotiate terms for peace rather than entrust
John Adams alone with the negotiations. On June 15 Congress modified
the 1779 peace instructions to include only as essential U.S.
independence and sovereignty.
(HNQ, 6/23/98)
1781 Summer, Emily Geiger was said
to have crossed British lines in North Carolina to deliver an urgent
message to American Gen. Nathaniel Greene as Greene’s army retreated
from British forces under Gen. Francis Rawdon.
(ON, 11/01, p.9)
1781 Jul 5, Stamford Raffles,
founder of Singapore, was born.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1781 Jul 6, In Virginia the Battle
of Green Spring took place on the Jamestown Peninsula. It was the last
major engagement of the Revolutionary War prior to the Colonial’s final
victory at Yorktown in October.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.60)
1781 Jul 27, Mauro Giuseppe Sergio
Pantaleo Giuliani, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/27/02)
1781 Aug 1, English army under
Lord Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, Virginia.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1781 Aug 12, Robert Mills,
architect and engineer, was born. His designs include the Washington
Monument, the National Portrait Gallery and the U.S. Treasury Building.
(HN, 8/12/00)
1781 Aug 20, George Washington
began to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1781 Aug 22, Col. William Campbell
(36), West Virginia Patriot militia leader, died of an apparent heart
attack during the siege of Yorktown. Campbell had led his militia in
the Patriot victory on October 7, 1780, at the Battle of King's
Mountain in South Carolina
(ON, 12/07, p.7)
1781 Aug 30, The French fleet of
24 ships under Comte de Grasse arrived in the Chesapeake Bay to aid the
American Revolution. The fleet defeated British under Admiral Graves at
battle of Chesapeake Capes.
(HN, 8/30/00)(MC, 8/30/01)
1781 Aug, Lt. Gen. Cornwallis
began the defensive earthworks around Yorktown with 8,300 regulars and
2,000 escaped slaves, who believed British victory would mean freedom.
The British army numbered 8,700.
(NG, 6/1988, p.808)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)
1781 Sep 4, Mexican Provincial
Governor, Felipe de Neve, founded Los Angeles. He founded El Pueblo de
Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles (Valley of Smokes), originally
named Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, by Gaspar
de Portola, a Spanish army captain and Juan Crespi, a Franciscan
priest, who had noticed the beautiful area as they traveled north from
San Diego in 1769. 44 Spanish settlers named a tiny village near San
Gabriel, Los Angeles. Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, was
founded by Spanish decree. 26 of the settlers were of African ancestry.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/4/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, Par
p.20)(HN, 9/4/98)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)(HN, 9/4/00)(MC, 9/4/01)
1781 Sep 5, The British fleet
arrived off the Virginia Capes and found 26 French warships in three
straggling lines. Rear Adm. Thomas Graves waited for the French to form
their battle lines and then fought for 5 days. Outgunned and unnerved
he withdrew to New York. The French had some 37 ships and 29,000
soldiers and sailors at Yorktown while Washington had some 11,000 men
engaged. French warships defeated British fleet, trapping Cornwallis in
Yorktown.
(NG, 6/1988, p.763)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(MC,
9/5/01)
1781 Sep 6, Anton Diabelli,
Austria publisher and composer, was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1781 Sep 6, Martha Jefferson
(b.1748), wife of Thomas Jefferson, died.
(www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/mj3.html)
1781 Sep 8, Gen. Nathanael Greene
engaged British forces at Eutaw Springs, South Carolina, and was forced
to retreat.
(ON, 12/01, p.10)
1781 Sep 16, Lt. Gen. Lord Charles
Cornwallis directed the sinking of a fleet of ships at Yorktown to
block a French landing and to keep them out of enemy hands.
(NG, 6/1988, p.806)
1781 Sep 28, American forces in
the Revolutionary War, backed by a French fleet, began their siege of
Yorktown Heights, Va. 9,000 American forces and 7,000 French troops
began the siege of Yorktown.
(AP, 9/28/97)(MC, 9/28/01)
1781 Oct 1, James Lawrence, naval
hero (War of 1812-"Don't give up the ship!"), was born.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1781 Oct 6, Americans and French
began the siege of Cornwallis at Yorktown, the last battle of
Revolutionary War.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1781 Oct 9, General George
Washington commenced a bombardment of the Lord Cornwallis's encircled
British forces at Yorktown, Virginia (Battle of Yorktown Revolutionary
War). For eight days Lord Cornwallis endured the Americans heavy
bombardment and had no choice but to surrender his 9,000 troops. It was
considered that Washington had achieved the inconceivable with victory
at Yorktown and that the British were defeated.
(HN, 10/9/99)(MC, 10/9/01)
1781 Oct 17, Cornwallis was
defeated at Yorktown. [see Oct 16,19]
(MC, 10/17/01)
1781 Oct 19, Major General Lord
Charles Cornwallis, surrounded at Yorktown, Va., by American and French
regiments numbering 17,600 men, surrendered to George Washington and
Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. Cornwallis surrendered 7,157
troops, including sick and wounded, and 840 sailors, along with 244
artillery pieces. Losses in this battle had been light on both sides.
Cornwallis sent Brig. Gen. Charles O'Hara to surrender his sword. At
Washington's behest, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln accepted it. Washington
himself is seen in the right background of “The Surrender of Lord
Cornwallis at Yorktown” by artist John Trumbull. After conducting an
indecisive foray into Virginia, Lt. Gen. Charles Lord Cornwallis
retired to Yorktown on August 2, 1781. On August 16, General Washington
and Maj. Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau,
began marching their Continental and French armies from New York to
Virginia. The arrival of a French fleet, and its victory over a British
fleet in Chesapeake Bay, sealed the trap.
(NG, 6/1988, p.808)(AP, 10/19/97)(HNPD,
10/19/98)(HN, 10/19/98)
1781 Oct (mid), French siege
engineers under American command destroyed the British fortifications
at Yorktown.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)
1781 Nov, British Capt. Luke
Collingwood, commander of the slave ship Zong, in the face of endemic
dysentery that had already killed 7 crewmen and 60 of 470 slaves,
ordered his crew to throw sick slaves overboard in order to claim
insurance money at the end of the voyage. Over 100 slaves were cast
overboard. In 2007 Marcus Rediker authored “The Slave Ship,” an account
of this and the slave trade from 1700-1808.
(WSJ, 10/11/07,
p.D8)(www.umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/slavery/the_zong.html)
1781 Dec 11, David Brewster,
physicist and inventor (kaleidoscope), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1781 Mozart broke with his patron,
the archbishop of Salzburg, and struck off on his own. Mozart’s opera
"Idomeneo" was composed.
(V.D.-H.K.p.236)(WSJ, 1/6/00, p.A20)
1781 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),
English lexicographer, essayist and poet, authored “Lives of the
English Poets.”
(ON, 11/06, p.9)(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)
1781 Immanuel Kant published his
"Critique of Pure Reason." The questions of whether the universe has a
beginning and whether it is limited in space are described as
antinomies (that is, contradictions). This is because he saw compelling
arguments for and against. [see 1790]
(BHT, Hawking, p.8)
1781 Asprey of London was founded.
They established themselves based on accouterments and paraphernalia
for tea parties.
(SFEM,10/26/97, p.4)
1781 John Quincy Adams (14) served
as secretary to the American ambassador to Russia.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, Z1 p.12)
1781 Benedict Arnold led raids on
the privateering towns of New London and Groton, Connecticut. At Fort
Griswold 83 patriots including Col. William Ledyard were killed upon
surrendering to the British forces.
(AH, 10/01, p.A10)
1781 Count Arco, a secretary of
Austria’s Archbishop of Salzburg, fired Mozart from the service of the
Archbishop. Mozart then began working on his comic opera “The Abduction
from the Seraglio,” which premiered the next year.
(WSJ, 4/25/08, p.W14)
1781 Tupak Katari, Aymara Indian
leader, laid siege to La Paz, Bolivia, for 109 days. A Spanish army
finally broke through and Katari was executed by being drawn and
quartered.
(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A12)(WSJ, 1/8/04, p.A1)
1781 In Colombia the Comunero
Revolt was the most serious revolt against Spanish authority before the
war for independence. The most important uprising began among artisans
and peasants in Socorro (in present day Santander Department). The
imposition of new taxes by the viceroy stimulated the revolt further.
(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+co0019))
1781 Soga Shohaku (b.1730),
Japanese artist, died.
(SFC, 1/14/06, p.E1)
1781-1782 Smallpox, reduced the Mandans, a Missouri
River tribe of 40,000 people, down to 2,000 survivors. They partially
recovered, increasing their numbers to some 12,000 by 1837.
(www.madoc1170.com/madoc.htm)
1781-1841 Karl Friedrich Schinkel, German architect
and artist.
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1781-1865 Andres Bello, diplomat, politician (a
Senator in Chile - his adopted country), educator, poet and author of a
Spanish grammar, was born in Venezuela. His selected writings were
published by the Oxford Library of Latin America in 1998.
(WSJ, 2/3/98, p.A20)
1782 Jan 7, The 1st US commercial
bank, Bank of North America, opened in Philadelphia.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1782 Jan 18, Daniel Webster
(d.1852, aka Black Dan) American political leader, Senator and orator,
lawyer, statesman, administrator and diplomat, was born in Salisbury,
N.H. In 1830 he proclaimed "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable!" He was Secretary of State before the Civil War.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AHD, p.1452)(WSJ, 9/30/97,
p.A20)(AP, 1/18/98)(HN, 1/18/99)
1782 Mar 4, Johann Wyss, Swiss
folklorist, writer (Swiss Family Robinson), was born.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1782 Mar 8, The Gnadenhutten
massacre took place as some 90 Christian Delaware Indians were slain by
militiamen in Ohio in retaliation for raids carried out by other
Indians.
(AP, 3/8/98)(AH, 4/07, p.14)
1782 Mar 18, John C. Calhoun
(d.1850), U.S. statesman, was born. He served as US
vice-president from 1825-1832 under Adams and Jackson.
(HN, 3/18/99)(WUD, 1994, p.210)
1782 Mar 25, Carolina [Maria A]
Bonaparte, (countess Lipona), sister of Napoleon), was born.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1782 Apr 12, The British navy won
its only naval engagement against the colonists in the American
Revolution at the Battle of Les Saintes in the West Indies off
Dominica. A British fleet beat the French.
(HN, 4/12/99)(MC, 4/12/02)
1782 Apr 19, Netherlands
recognized the United States.
(HN, 4/19/97)
1782 Apr 21, Friedrich Froebel,
German educator and founder of kindergarten, was born.
(HN, 4/21/98)(MC, 4/21/02)
1782 Jun 20, Congress approved the
Great Seal of the United States and the eagle as its symbol.
(AP, 6/20/97)(SFC, 6/2/04, G9)
1782 Jul 15, Farinelli (77),
Italian castrato, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1782 Jul 16, Mozart's opera "Das
Entfuehrung aus dem Serail" (The Abduction from the Seraglio) premiered
in Vienna.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1782 Jul 26, John Field, pianist,
composer (Nocturnes), was born in Dublin, Ireland.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1782 Jul, "Die Entfuehrung aus dem
Serail" (Abduction from the Seraglio) by Mozart was first performed.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.D6)(WSJ, 8/11/98, p.A16)
1782 Aug 2, George Washington
created the Honorary Badge of Distinction. [see Aug 7]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1782 Aug 7, General George
Washington created the Order of the Purple Heart, a decoration to
recognize merit in enlisted men and noncommissioned officers.
Washington authorized the award of the Purple Heart for soldiers
wounded in combat.
(AP, 8/7/97)(HN, 8/7/98)
1782 Aug 7, A statue of Peter the
Great was unveiled in St. Petersburg on the 100th anniversary of his
accession to the throne. It was made by French sculptor Etienne-Maurice
Falconet (1716-1791), who spent 12 years on the work. Empress Catherine
commissioned it in 1765.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.P12)
1782 Aug 18, Poet and artist
William Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher.
(HN, 8/18/00)
1782 Sep 13, The British fortress
at Gibraltar, under siege by French and Spanish forces since 1789, held
off a heavy attack of battering ships.
(HN, 9/13/98)(ON, 7/01, p.9)
1782 Oct 27, Niccolo Paganini
(d.1840), composer and violin virtuoso, was born in Genoa, Italy. He
was both syphilitic and consumptive since early manhood and died of TB
in Nice.
(WP, 1951, p.21)(MC, 10/27/01)
1782 Nov 5, The Continental
Congress elected John Hanson of Maryland its chairman, giving him the
title of "President of the United States in Congress Assembled."
(AP, 11/5/99)
1782 Nov 30, The United States and
Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, recognizing
American independence and ending the Revolutionary War.
(AP, 11/30/97)(HN, 11/30/98)
1782 Dec 5, Martin Van Buren, 8th
US President (1837-1841) was born in Kinderhook, N.Y. He was the first
chief executive to be born after American independence.
(AP, 12/5/08)
1782 Dec 14, Charleston, SC, was
evacuated by British.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1782 Dec 29, 1st nautical almanac
in US was published by Samuel Stearns in Boston.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1782 Zayn al-Din, the John James
Audubon of Indian art, painted "A Painted Stork."
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E1)
1782 J. Hector St. John de
Crevecoeur authored his "Letters From an American Farmer."
(SFEC, 9/17/00, BR p.8)
1782 French writer Pierre
Choderlos de Laclos wrote his novel "Les Liaison Dangereuses." It was
made into the opera "The Dangerous Liaisons" in 1994 by Conrad Susa and
Philip Littell.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.A20)
1782 The first English Bible in
America was published.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)
1782 The Unitarians were
established as a religious group. They encouraged their members to seek
spiritual truth based on human experience, not allegiance to creeds and
doctrines. In 1961 they merged with the Universalists.
(SFC, 4/20/04, p.B2)
1782 The Presidio at Santa
Barbara, Ca., was built by the Spanish military.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T6)
1782 Father Serra held Easter Day
services on the beach in Ventura, Ca., and founded the Mission San
Buenaventura.
(SSFC, 10/14/01, p.T8)(SFCM, 7/18/04, p.16)
1782 Elias Boudinot served as
president of the Continental Congress.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)
1782 The US declared the eagle was
as its national bird.
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.A3)
1782 Lexington, Kentucky, was
established and became the first commercial and cultural center west of
the Allegheny Mountains.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.47)
1782 John Goodricke, a deaf mute
astronomer, explained the varying brightness of the star Algol as being
the result of 2 stars orbiting a common center of gravity. He thus
explained the first "eclipsing binary."
(NH, 10/96, p.62)
1782 British Capt. George
Vancouver sailed by Lana’i, Hawaii, and noted its "naked appearance."
(SFEM, 10/13/96, p.24)
1782 The Comedie Francaise
installed benches in the pit to prevent a mob-like atmosphere.
(SFC, 3/9/07, p.E8)
1782 In Switzerland Anna Goeldi
was beheaded as a witch for an alleged case of poisoning. A museum on
Goeldi was opened in Mollis in 2007 on the 225th anniversary of her
death. In 2008 the canton of Glarus said she should be exonerated
because the execution was a miscarriage of justice. Goeldi was
exonerated on August 27, 2008.
(AP, 6/11/08)(AP, 8/27/08)
1782 The Wat Phra Kaew Temple was
built in Bangkok, Thailand. It houses the most sacred image of Thai
Buddhism, the Emerald Buddha.
(Hem, 3/95, p.58)(SFCM, 9/23/07, p.22)
1782 The Grand Palace was built by
King Rama I on the Chao Phraya River. The city of Bangkok grew up
around it.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.T14)
1782-1785 Mozart during this period wrote six string
quartets dedicated to Haydn.
(T&L, 10/80, p. 103)
1782-1849 William Miller, US religious leader. His
followers founded the Adventist Church in 1845. The Seventh-Day
Adventists broke from the Adventist Church in 1846, stressing legalism
and Sabbatarianism, with strong views on diet, health and medicine.
(HNQ, 9/29/99)
1782-1854 Susan Edmonstone Ferrier, Scottish
novelist: "There are plenty of fools in the world; but if they had not
been sent for some wise purpose, they wouldn't have been here; and
since they are here they have as good a right to have elbow-room in the
world as the wisest."
(AP, 10/3/97)
1782-1857 Anne Sophie Swetchine, Russian-French
author: "The chains which cramp us most are those which weigh on us
least."
(AP, 8/25/97)
1783 Jan 20, The fighting of the
Revolutionary War ended. Britain signed a peace agreement with France
and Spain, who allied against it in the American War of Independence.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(HN, 1/20/99)
1783 Jan 23, Stendahl (d.1842),
[Marie Henri Beyle], French critic and writer (Le Rouge et de Noir),
was born. In 1997 Jonathon Keates published his book "Stendhal,"
which covers the writer’s life story. "Beauty is the promise of
happiness." "One can acquire everything in solitude, except character."
(WSJ, 3/25/97, p.A16)(AP, 12/4/97)(AP, 6/6/98)(MC,
1/23/02)
1783 Feb 3, Spain recognized
United States' independence.
(AP, 2/3/97)(HN, 2/3/99)
1783 Feb 4, Britain declared a
formal cessation of hostilities with its former colonies, the United
States of America.
(AP, 2/4/97)
1783 Feb 5, Sweden recognized the
independence of the United States.
(AP, 2/5/97)(HN, 2/5/99)
1783 Feb 7, The Siege of
Gibraltar, pursued by the Spanish and the French since July 24, 1779,
was finally lifted. [see Sep 13, 1782]
(HN, 2/7/99)(ON, 7/01, p.10)
1783 Mar 5, King Stanislaus
Augustus Poniatowski granted rights to Jews of Kovno.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1783 Mar 8, Hannah Hoes Van Buren,
wife of Martin Van Buren, was born.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1783 Apr 3, Washington Irving (d.
Nov 28, 1859), essayist, author, historian, biographer,
attorney/lawyer, American writer (Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Rip Van
Winkle), was born in New York City. "No man is so methodical as a
complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he
whose time is worth nothing."
(DTnet 11/28/97)(HN, 4/3/98)(AP, 9/10/98)
1783 Apr 10, Hortense E. de
Beauharnais, French queen of Netherlands (1806-10), was born.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1783 Apr 11, After receiving a
copy of the provisional treaty on 13 March, Congress proclaimed a
formal end to hostilities with Great Britain.
(HN, 4/11/99)
1783 Apr 29, David Cox (d.1857),
English watercolorist, was born. He books included “Treatise on
Landscape Painting” (1813).
(SFC, 4/29/97,
p.B5)(www.chrisbeetles.com/pictures/artists/Cox_David/Cox_David.htm)
1783 May 4, In India Tipu Sultan
was enthroned as the ruler of Mysore after the death of Haider Ali in a
simple ceremony at Bednur.
(www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080048779)
1783 May 9, Alexander Ross,
pioneer, fur trader, was born in Canada.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1783 May 10, Niccola Benvenuti,
composer, was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1783 May 30, The first American
daily newspaper, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, began publishing in
Philadelphia.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1783 Jun 1, Last British troops
sailed from New York. (MC, 6/1/02)
1783 Jun 4, The Montgolfier
brothers launched their 1st hot-air balloon (unmanned) in a 10-minute
flight over Annonay, France.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_2.htm)
1783 Jun 8, In Iceland the
Lakagicar volcano began erupting. Over the next 6 months it built a
lava dam 40 miles long and 540 feet high in a month. The Laki volcano
wiped out 75% of the crops which led to a severe famine that killed
some 10,000 people, 20% of the population. This was described by
Haraldur Sigurdson in an article titled Volcanic Pollution and Climate:
Eos 63, Aug. 10, 1982.
(NH, 9/97, p.38)(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A18)(AM, 7/00,
p.40)(ON, 2/04, p.9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.132)
1783 Jun 8-1784 Feb, A series of
10 eruptions from the Laki Craters on Iceland changed atmospheric
conditions in most of the Northern Hemisphere. This also generated a
cascade of events that led to record low levels of water in the Nile
River and brought famine to the region. By 1785 a sixth of Egypt’s
population had either perished or fled.
(http://tinyurl.com/y9xemq)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.134)
1783 Jul 24, Simon Bolivar
(d.1830), was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He was a soldier and
statesmen who led armies of liberation throughout much of South
America, including Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Peru and
Bolivia, which took its name from Bolivar. Bolivar, called "the
Liberator," was a leader in Venezuela for struggles of national
independence in South America. He formed a Gran Colombia that lasted 8
years but broke apart into Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Bolivar
died of tuberculosis.
(AHD, p.148)(SFC, 6/14/97, p.E3)(AP, 7/24/97)(HNQ,
3/30/00)
1783 Jul 24, Georgia became a
protectorate of tsarist Russia.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1783 Aug 7, John Heathcoat
(d.1861), English inventor of lace-making machinery (1809), was born.
In 1816 Luddites burned down his Nottingham factory.
(MC, 8/7/02)(Internet)
1783 Aug 27, The 1st hydrogen
balloon flight (unmanned), made by Professor Jacques Charles,
successfully completed its inaugural flight in Paris.
(www.twinring.jp/english/balloon/what_balloon/)
1783 Sep 3, The Treaty of Paris
between the United States and Great Britain officially ended the
Revolutionary War. The Treaty of 1783, which formally ended the
American Revolution, is also known as the Definitive Treaty of Peace,
the Peace of Paris and the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty,
Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. The
treaty bears the signatures of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and John
Jay.
(AP, 9/3/97)(HNQ, 7/19/98)(HN, 9/3/98)(MC, 9/3/01)
1783 Sep 3, Mackinac Island,
Michigan, passed into US hands following the Paris Peace Treaty,
(SSFC, 7/27/03, p.C5)
1783 Sep 11, Benjamin Franklin
drafted the Treaty of Paris. [see Sep 3]
(MC, 9/11/01)
1783 Sep 19, Jacques Etienne
Montgolfier launched a duck, a sheep and a rooster aboard a hot-air
balloon at Versailles, France.
(AP, 9/19/06)
1783 Sep 26, Jane Taylor,
children's writer, was born. She was best known as the author of
"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."
(HN, 9/26/99)
1783 Oct 6, Benjamin Hanks
patented a self-winding clock.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1783 Oct 15, Francois Pilatre de
Rozier (Jean Piletre de Rozier) made the first manned flight in a hot
air balloon. The first flight was let out to 82 feet, but over the next
few days the altitude increased up to 6,500 feet. [see Jun 5]
(HN, 10/15/98)(MC, 10/15/01)
1783 Oct 23, Virginia emancipated
slaves who fought for independence during the Revolutionary War.
(HN, 10/23/98)
1783 Oct 29, Jean-Baptiste Le Rond
d'Alembert (66), philosopher, mathematician, died. He co-compiled the
Encyclopedia with Denis Diderot.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1783 Nov 1, Continental Army
dissolved and George Washington made his "Farewell Address." [See Nov 2]
(MC, 11/1/01)
1783 Nov 2, Gen. George Washington
issued his "Farewell Address to the Army" near Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 11/2/97)
1783 Nov 3, Washington ordered the
Continental Army disbanded from its cantonment at New Windsor, NY,
where it had remained since defeating Cornwallis in 1781.
(MC, 11/3/01)
1783 Nov 21, Jean-Francois Pilatre
de Rozier (1754-1785) and the Marquis d’Arlandes made the first
free-flight ascent in a balloon, to over 500 feet, in Paris.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Romain)(NPub,
2002, p.2)
1783 Nov 23, Annapolis, Md.,
became the US capital until June 1784. [see Nov 26, 1783]
(MC, 11/23/01)
1783 Nov 25, The British evacuated
New York, their last military position in the United States during the
Revolutionary War.
(AP, 11/25/97)
1783 Nov 26, The city of
Annapolis, Maryland, was the first peacetime U.S. capital. The U.S.
Congress met at Annapolis November 26, 1783-June 3, 1784, following the
signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, formally ending
hostilities between Great Britain and her former colony. New York was
the capital from 1785 until 1790, followed by Philadelphia until 1800
and then Washington, D.C.
(HNQ, 6/15/00)
1783 Dec 4, Gen. George
Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in NYC. In
2003 Stanley Weintraub authored "General Washington's Christmas
Farewell."
(AP, 12/4/97)(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)(WSJ, 12/10/03,
p.D8)
1783 Dec 9, The 1st execution at
English Newgate-jail took place.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1783 Dec 20, Antonio Francisco
Jawer Jose Soler (54), Spanish composer (Fandango), died.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1783 Dec 22, Washington resigned
his military commission. [see Dec 23]
(MC, 12/22/01)
1783 Dec 23, George Washington
resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to his home at
Mount Vernon, Va.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1783 Dec 31, Import of African
slaves was banned by all of the Northern American states.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1783 Augustin Pajou, French
sculptor, completed his "Psyche Abandoned."
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A20)
1783 John Mitchell wrote a paper
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal society of London in
which he pointed out that a star that was sufficiently massive and
compact would have such a strong gravitational field that light could
not escape.
(BHT, Hawking, p.82)
1783 Antonio Salieri (1750-1825),
Italian composer, wrote his opera "Les Danaides."
(WSJ, 1/14/04, p.D10)
1783 In the US Noah Webster's
Spelling Book was first published. As a Grammatical Institute of the
English Language, the Spelling Book was influential in standardizing
and differentiating, from the British forms, English spelling and
pronunciation in America.
(HNQ, 8/9/98)
1783 Oliver Evans (1755-1819),
American inventor, designed an automated gristmill.
(WSJ, 6/4/08,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Evans)
1783 Loyalist Tory homes in Maine
were taken apart and moved to New Brunswick, Canada, and reassembled.
Boatloads of newcomers from New York and New England moved. Some of the
new arrivals froze to death in makeshift shelters that winter.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T6,7)
1783 The so-called 1838 Aroostook
War stemmed from a boundary dispute that had loomed since 1783 between
Maine and New Brunswick and was not settled by the Peace of Ghent.
After Maine became a state in 1820, it disregarded British claims in
making land grants to settlers along the Aroostook River.
(HNQ, 9/30/99)
1783 The great Swiss mathematician
Leonhard Euler introduced latin squares as a new kind of magic squares.
It later formed the basis for the “sudoku” number game.
(www.cut-the-knot.org/arithmetic/latin.shtml)(Econ,
5/21/05, p.67)
1783 William Alexander (b.1726),
American Revolutionary War general, died. Before the revolution,
William Alexander petitioned Parliament for the right to the earldom of
Stirling, Scotland. The title was never formally conferred upon him,
but Alexander was generally known throughout the colonies as "Lord
Stirling."
(WUD, 1994 p.36)(HNQ, 8/14/02)
1783 English Architect Thomas
Leverton (1795-1885) designed the fanlight window above an entry in
London’s Bedford Square.
(WSJ, 11/18/06,
p.P11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Leverton_Donaldson)
1783 In Britain William Pitt (24)
became prime minister and the youngest leader of the Tories. He was one
of Great Britain‘s greatest peacetime leaders and served a prime
minister from 1783-1801 and from 1804 until his death in 1806. Pitt was
the son of William Pitt the Elder, who served as prime minister from
1766 to 1768.
(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A22)(WSJ, 3/26/99, p.W10)(HNQ,
1/29/00)
1783 In England executions were
moved from Tyburn Gallows in Hyde Park to Newgate Prison.
(SFEM, 3/21/99, p.24)
1783 Captain Samuel Turner, a
British army officer, traveled through Bhutan and Tibet.
(Econ, 1/31/09, p.91)
1783 Some 3,000 Blacks, who had
obtained British certificates of freedom for their loyalty in the
American Revolution, arrived in Nova Scotia and spent some miserable
years there. In 1785 a delegation sailed to Britain where they were
offered passage to Africa in return for establishing a British colony
in Sierra Leone.
(MT, summer 2003, p.8)
1783 John H. Molson (19) acquired
a share in a log cabin brewery on the banks of the St. Lawrence River
and began the Molson beer empire.
(WSJ, 6/29/04, p.A11)
1783 After this year German
officially replaced Latin as the language of instruction in Austria.
(StuAus, April '95, p.17)
1783 Mount Asama, one of Japan's
largest and most active volcanoes, had a major eruption.
(AP, 9/15/04)
1783 Yosa Buson (b.1716), Japanese
painter based in Kyoto, died. His work included “Landscapes on silver
Ground” (1782).
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.E1)(SFC, 1/14/06, p.E10)
1783 The Kirov Ballet was founded
in St. Petersburg.
(WSJ, 7/16/02, p.D6)
1783 Catherine the Great annexed
the Crimea to the Russian empire. 83% or the residents were Tatars.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A8)(Econ, 2/25/06, p.55)
1783-1786 Japan suffered one of its worst famines in
history when exceptional cold destroyed the rice harvest. As many as 1
million people died. Most of the impact for this was due to the
eruptions of the Laki volcano in Iceland beginning in June, 1783.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.134)
1783-1840 Constantine Samuel Rafinisque, naturalist
and author of the Walam Olum.
(NH, 10/96, p.14)
1784 Jan 14, The United States
ratified a peace treaty with England, the Treaty of Paris, ending the
Revolutionary War.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/14/98)
1784 Jan 26, In a letter to his
daughter, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the eagle as the
symbol of America. He wanted the turkey.
(AP, 1/26/98)
1784 Feb 7, In Iceland the
Lakagicar (Laki) volcano ceased its eruptions. Smoke from the 8 months
of eruptions caused one of the longest and coldest winters in Europe.
[see Jun 8, 1783]
(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1784 Feb 22, A U.S. merchant ship,
the "Empress of China," left New York City for the Far East.
(AP, 2/22/99)
1784 Feb 28, John Wesley
(1703-1791) chartered the Methodist Church. His teaching emphasized
field preaching along with piety, probity and respectability. In 2003
Roy Hattersley authored "A Brand from the Burning: The Life of John
Wesley."
(MC, 2/28/02)(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.W19)
1784 Feb 29, Marquis de Sade was
transferred from Vincennes fortress to the Bastille.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1784 Mar 1, E. Kidner opened the
1st cooking school in Great Britain.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1784 Apr 2, Pierre Leclair (74),
composer, died.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1784 Apr 5, Louis [Ludwig] Spohr,
German violin virtuoso, composer (Faust), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1784 Apr 15, The first balloon
flight occurred in Ireland. [see Jun 5, 1783 in France]
(HN, 4/15/98)
1784 Apr 29, Premiere of Mozart's
Sonata in B flat, K454 (Vienna).
(MC, 4/29/02)
1784 May 20, Peace of Versailles
ended the war between France, England, and Holland.
(HN, 5/20/98)
1784 May 25, Jews were expelled
from Warsaw by Marshall Mniszek.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1784 Jun 4, Elizabeth Thible
became the first woman to fly aboard a Montgolfier hot-air balloon,
over Lyon, France.
(AP, 6/4/07)
1784 Jun 9, John Carroll was
appointed supervisor of US Catholic Missions.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1784 Jun 16, Holland forbade
orange clothes.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1784 Jun 24, In a tethered flight
from Baltimore, Maryland, Edward Warren (13) became the 1st to fly in a
balloon on US soil.
(NPub, 2002, p.3)
1784 Jun
29, Caesar Rodney (b.1728), US judge, Delaware representative as a
signer of the Declaration of Independence, died. He was later depicted
on the Delaware state quarter
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_Rodney)
1784 Jul 1, Wilhelm Friedmann Bach
(73), composer (Sinfonias 64), died.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1784 Jul 30, Denis Diderot
(b.1713), French philosopher, critic, and encyclopedist, died. "Men
will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails
of the last priest."
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A16)(
www.giga-usa.com/quotes/authors/denis_diderot_a001.htm)
1784 Aug 14, The 1st Russian
settlement in Alaska was established on Kodiak Island. Grigori
Shelekhov, a Russian fur trader, founded Three Saints Bay.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1784 Aug 23, Eastern Tennessee
settlers declared their area an independent state and named it
Franklin; a year later the Continental Congress rejected it.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1784 Sep 20, Packet and Daily, the
first daily publication in America, appeared on the streets.
(HN, 9/20/98)
1784 Oct 13, Ferdinand VII, king
of Spain, was born.
(HN, 10/13/98)
1784 Oct 19, Leigh Hunt (d.1859),
English journalist, essayist, poet and political radical, was born. He
was a friend and advisor to Shelley and Lord Byron and wrote the poems
"Abou Ben Adhem" and "Jenny Kissed Me."
(HN,
10/19/99)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRleigh.htm)
1784 Oct 19, John McLoughlin,
Hudson's Bay Co. pioneer in Oregon Country, was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1784 Oct, Pierre Eugene Du
Simitiere (b.1736), artist and philosopher, died. He helped design the
1st Great Seal of the US.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.D8)(http://tinyurl.com/d23rr)
1784 Nov 1, Maryland granted
citizenship to Lafayette and his descendents.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1784 Nov 24, Zachary Taylor, the
12th president of the United States, was born in Orange County, Va.
(AP, 11/24/97)
1784 Nov 28, Ferdinand Reis,
composer, was born.
(MC, 11/28/01)
1784 Nov 29, American Dr. John
Jeffries paid Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard £100 pounds for a
balloon flight in England during which he made some atmospheric
measurements.
(ON, 10/03, p.6)
1784 Dec 13, Samuel Johnson
(b.1709), English lexicographer, essayist, poet and moralist best known
for "The Dictionary of the English Language," died. "Patriotism is the
last refuge of a scoundrel." -- (To which Ambrose Bierce replied, "I
beg to submit that it is the first.") Johnson, an antagonist of
slavery, left behind an annuity and much of his personal property to
his black valet, Francis Barber (b.1735-1801). In 1791 Boswell wrote
the celebrated "The Life of Samuel Johnson." In 1955 Walter Jackson
Bate (1918-1999) published "The Achievement of Samuel Johnson" and in
1977 the biography "Samuel Johnson." In 2000 Adam Potkay authored "The
Passion for Happiness," in which he argued that Samuel Johnson should
be included in the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment along with David Hume,
Adam Smith and Edward Gibbon. In 2000 Peter Martin authored "A Life of
James Boswell." In 2008 Peter Martin authored “Samuel Johnson: A
biography.”
(AP, 10/8/97)(WSJ, 11/29/00, p.A24)(ON, 11/06,
p.10)(SSFC, 10/28/07, p.M3)(WSJ, 9/18/08, p.A23)
1784 John Filson, schoolmaster,
published the stories of Daniel Boone as narrated to him by Boone.
(SFEC, 7/23/00, Z1 p.2)
1784 Pierre-Augustin Caron de
Beaumarchais wrote "The Marriage of Figaro," the sequel to "The Barber
of Seville." A 1997 film, "Beaumarchais," was a look at the artist, who
was also a womanizer, a spy and an arms runner.
(WSJ, 12/19/96, p.A16)(SFEC,11/23/97, DB p.14)
1784 William Blake coined the term
"transmography," to describe artistic processes of continual invention
and cumulative transformation.
(LSA, Spring 1995, p.17)
1784 Philosopher Emmanuel Kant
posed the question “What is enlightenment?”
(WSJ, 9/1/04, p.AD10)
1784 Mozart composed four piano
concertos. The G Major is K. 453 (K is for Kochel who catalogues all of
Mozart’s work in chronological order).
(T&L, 10/80, p. 103)
1784 Trenton, North Carolina, was
founded.
(SFC, 3/10/99, p.A3)
1784 Thomas Jefferson excavated an
Indian burial mound on his property in Virginia.
(TV Doc.)
1784 Ben Franklin, while serving
as US Minister to France, came up with the idea of manipulating the
hours of the business day so that shops would both open and close
earlier, when it was still light outside.
(WSJ, 10/26/95, p.A-22)
1784 George Washington met a
16-year-old slave named Venus, who later bore a mulatto son named West
Ford who lived in special favor at Mt. Vernon. In 1998 descendants of
Ford set out to prove that Washington was his father.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A6)
1784 NY state awarded Thomas Paine
227 acres in New Rochelle.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.A7)
1784 Phillis Wheatley, black poet,
died. Only a child of about eight when she was kidnapped and brought to
America as a slave, Phillis Wheatley was given the name of her Boston
master, tailor John Wheatley. With his wife Susanna, John Wheatley
treated the young girl kindly, providing an education that included the
classical languages and literature. Her work, lost and forgotten until
the publication of a new edition in 1834, was used by abolitionists to
prove that blacks were not intellectually inferior to white.
(HNPD, 2/21/00)
1784 The British gave their Indian
allies from New York a large parcel of land southwest of Toronto after
they fled to Canada following the American war of independence. In 2006
the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy claimed that part of this land had
been sold without their proper consent for a new housing development in
Caledonia.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.46)
1784 The Hotel de Salm, a palace,
was built in Paris. It became the headquarters of Napoleon's Legion of
Honor.
(WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)
1784 King Louis XVI appointed a
French commission to examine the theory of “animal magnetism,”
developed by German Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). The commission,
which included American ambassador Benjamin Franklin, branded Mesmer a
fraud.
(WSJ, 12/8/04, p.A1)
1784 The 1st Spanish military
officer who explored the Mayan ruins of Palenque thought it was
Atlantis risen.
(SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C10)
1784-1789 Thomas Jefferson’s years in Paris are
depicted in a film titled "Jefferson in Paris." He served as an
American minister and Sally Hemmings accompanied him as his daughter’s
servant.
(WSJ, 4/6/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W15)
1784-1849 Peter De Wint, watercolorist.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.B5)
1785 Jan 1, "Daily Universal
Register" (Times of London) published its 1st issue. [see Jan 1, 1788]
(MC, 1/1/02)
1785 Jan 4, Jacob Ludwig Carl
Grimm, German philosopher who wrote Grimm’s Fairy Tales, was born.
(HN, 1/4/99)(MC, 1/4/02)
1785 Jan 6, Haym Salomon (44) died
in Philadelphia. He helped finance the US revolution.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1785 Jan 7, The first balloon
flight across the English Channel was made. Frenchman Jean-Pierre
Blanchard and the American Dr. John Jeffries crossed the English
Channel for the first time in a hydrogen balloon.
(HN, 5/15/98)(HN, 1/7/99)
1785 Jan 11, Continental Congress
convened in NYC.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1785 Jan 21, Chippewa, Delaware,
Ottawa and Wyandot Indians signed a treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding
present-day Ohio to the United States.
(HN, 1/21/99)
1785 Feb 24, Carlo Bonaparte (39),
Corsican attorney, died.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1785 Mar 1, Philadelphia Society
for the Promotion of Agriculture was organized.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1785 Mar 7, Alessandro Manzoni,
poet, novelist (Betrothed), was born in Italy.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1785 Mar 10, Thomas Jefferson was
appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
(AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)
1785 Mar 19,
Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, composer, was born.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1785 Mar 27, Louis XVII, Pretender
to the throne (1793-1795) during the French Revolution, was born. His
father may have been Marie Antoinette’s Swedish lover, Count Axel von
Fersen.
(HN, 3/27/98)(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A18)(MC, 3/27/02)
1785 Apr 21, Russian Tsarina
Catharina II ended nobility privileges.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1785 Apr 26, John James Audubon
(d.1851), American naturalist, bird watcher (ornithologist) and artist,
was born in Haiti and educated in France. The engraving of America's
indigenous turkey, which Benjamin Franklin nominated as the national
bird, appeared in John James Audubon's classic work "Birds of America,"
a book of 435 hand-colored engravings prepared from his wildlife
paintings begun in 1820. An artist and naturalist, Audubon was one of
the first to study and paint American birds in their natural
surroundings. Audubon came to America at 18 and failed in several
business ventures.
(440 Int’l. internet,4/26/97, p.5)(AP, 4/26/98)(HN,
4/26/98)(HNPD, 7/15/98)
1785 Apr, Elizabeth Marsh
(b.1735), traveler and writer, died of breast cancer in Calcutta,
India. In 1769 she had published “The Female Captive,” an account of
her captivity in a Muslim court. In 2007 Linda Colley authored “The
Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History.”
(Econ, 7/14/07,
p.89)(www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n12/mant01_.html)
1785 May 9, James Pollard Espy,
meteorologist (Philosophy of Storms), was born in Pennsylvania.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1785 May 9, British inventor
Joseph Bramah patented a beer-pump handle.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1785 May 23, Benjamin Franklin in
Paris spoke of his invention of bifocals in a letter to friend and
philanthropist George Whatley.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1785 Jun 15, Two French
balloonists died in the world's 1st fatal aviation accident.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1785 Jul 4, The first Fourth of
July parade was held in Bristol, Rhode Island. It served as a prayerful
walk to celebrate independence from England.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A3)
1785 Jul 17, France limited the
importation of goods from Britain.
(HN, 7/17/98)
1785 Jul 20, Mahmud II, sultan of
Turkey (1808-39), Westernizer, reformer, was born.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1785 Jul 23, Prussia's Frederick
the Great formed Die Furstenbund (League of German Princes).
(AP, 7/23/97)
1785 Aug 15, Thomas De Quincey,
English writer (Confessions of English Opium Eater), was born.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1785 Aug 15, French cardinal De
Rohan (51), Bishop of Strasbourg, was arrested in the affair of the
diamond necklace.
(PC, 1992, p.335)
1785 Aug 20, Oliver Hazard Perry,
US Naval hero ("We have met the enemy"), was born in Rhode Island.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1785 Sep 1, Mozart published his
6th string quartet opus 10 in Vienna.
(MC, 9/1/02)
1785 Sep 28, Napoleon Bonaparte
(16) graduated from the military academy in Paris. He was 42nd in a
class of 51.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1785 Oct 18, Benjamin Franklin was
elected president of Pennsylvania. Special balloting unanimously
elected Franklin the sixth President of the Supreme Executive Council
of Pennsylvania, replacing John Dickinson.
(AH, 2/06,
p.47)(http://help.com/post/275760-why-is-benjamin-franklin-important)
1785 Nov 17, Church of England was
organized in New England.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1785 Nov 21, William Beaumont,
surgeon, was born. He later studied digestion by peering through a
natural opening of the stomach wall in a young Indian in Prairie du
Chien, Wisconsin.
(MC, 11/21/01)
1785 Nov 23, John Hancock was
elected President of the Continental Congress for the second time.
(HN, 11/23/98)
1785 Dec 8, Antonio Maria Mazzoni
(68), composer, died.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1785 Dec 26, Laurent Clerc,
teacher, was born: 1st deaf teacher in U.S., helped establish American
School for the Deaf in Connecticut.
(440.com)
1785 Dec 29, Johann Heinrich Rolle
(69), composer, died.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1785 Jean-Antoine Houdon sculpted
a white marble bust of the Marquis de Condorcet.
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A14)
1785 Romney painted Emma, Lady
Hamilton, the passion of sea-hero Nelson.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T8)
1785 James Madison wrote the
petition "Memorial and Remonstrance" for circulation in Virginia to
oppose the use of public funds for Christian education.
(WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A24)
1785 William Paley (1743-1805), an
orthodox Anglican and conservative moral and political thinker,
published “The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy.”
(www.wmcarey.edu/carey/paley/paley.htm)
1785 US Congress decided that the
country‘s monetary system would be based on a silver coin called a
dollar, similar to that of the Spanish dollar. The first American
silver dollar was minted in 1794.
(HNQ, 1/5/00)
1785 John Adams, the new US
ambassador to Britain, presented himself to King George.
(Econ, 1/28/06, p.80)
1785 Thomas Jefferson succeeded
Benjamin Franklin as US ambassador to France.
(http://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/BFranklin)
1785 The American Continental
Congress’ Land Grant Act of 1785 set aside land for schools. In
anticipation of the country expanding with new states, the Continental
Congress took possession of all land won during the Revolution,
dividing it into 640-acre sections and selling it for $1 an acre.
Thirty-six sections comprised a township, and within each township, one
section was set aside to support public schools.
(HNQ, 4/3/99)
1785 The University of Georgia was
the first state university chartered, in 1785, but was not established
until 1801. The University of North Carolina was chartered in 1789 and
was the first state university in the U.S. to begin instruction, in
1795.
(HNQ,
12/3/01)
1785 Barbary pirates seized
American ships and imprisoned their crew in Algiers for 11 years.
Military and ransom operations raised issues of Congressional approval
and appropriations that bedeviled Thomas Jefferson as both Sec. of
State and as president. The issue is covered in the 1997 book:
Separating Power: Essays on the Founding Period" by Gerhard Casper.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, BR p.9)
1785 James Hutton presented his
Theory of the Earth. Here he formulated the principle of
"uniformitarianism," which stated that geological features were
understandable as having resulted from processes still occurring (i.e.
volcanism, erosion, and deposition). Hutton had studied physiology at
Leyden and wrote his thesis on the circulation of the blood. He wrote
of Earth as a kind of super-organism, whose proper study is planetary
physiology.
(RFH-MDHP, p.70)(DD-EVTT, p.16)(NOHY, 3/90, p.192)
1785 Manual Gonzalez, the 3rd
mayor of Pueblo San Jose de Guadelupe (California), conscripted local
residents to build the town’s 1st City Hall.
(SFC, 8/10/05, p.B4)
1785 Prince George of England
after mentioning to his wife that he liked her right eye, was presented
with a Christmas painting of the eye. It started a London fad and eye
paintings flourished for a brief time.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, Z1 p.6)
1785 In Canada Loyalist graduates
of Harvard and King’s College founded the Univ. of New Brunswick.
(SFEC, 5/25/97, p.T7)
1785 Chechen people launched an
armed struggle for freedom and independence under the leadership of
Sheikh Mansur.
(www.chechnyafree.ru)
1785 Marie-Joseph de Condorcet
(1743-1794), French philosopher and mathematician, wrote the “Essay on
the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Majority Decisions,”
one of his most important works. This work described several now famous
results, including Condorcet's jury theorem, which states that if each
member of a voting group is more likely than not to make a correct
decision, the probability that the highest vote of the group is the
correct decision increases as the number of members of the group
increases.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_de_Condorcet)
1785 In Sweden the first Illis
Quorum Meruere Labores (For Those Whose Labors Have Deserved It), a
gold medal, was awarded.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1785-1812 This period in the life of Martha Ballard,
Maine herbalist and mid-wife, was covered by Ballard in her diaries and
later uncovered by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and portrayed in a
1998 TV documentary for "The American Experience."
(WSJ, 1/8/98, p.A7)
1786 Jan 4, Mozes Mendelssohn
(56), Jewish-German philosopher (Haksalah), died.
(MC, 1/4/02)
1786 Jan 8, Nicholas Biddle, head
of the first United States bank, was born.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1786 Jan 16, The Council of
Virginia passed the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom.
(HN, 1/16/99)(WSJ, 12/14/02, p.W17)
1786 Jan 26, Benjamin Robert
Haydon, painter (Waiting for The Times, Wordsworth Ascending), was born
in Plymouth.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1786 Feb 24, Wilhelm Carl Grimm
(d.1859), compiler of "Grimm's Fairytales," was born in Germany.
(HN, 2/24/98)(WUD, 1994, p.623)
1786 Feb 24, Charles Cornwallis,
whose armies had surrendered to US at Yorktown, was appointed
governor-general of India. [see Sep 12]
(MC, 2/24/02)
1786 Mar 22, Joachim Lelevelis was
born in Warsaw. He became a renowned historian and Prof. at Vilnius
Univ. He died May 29, 1861 in Paris.
(LHC, 3/22/03)
c1786 Apr 6,
Sacagawea (also Sacajawea), American explorer, was born.
(HN, 4/6/01)
1786 Apr 16, Sir John Franklin,
arctic explorer, was born. He discovered the North-West Passage.
(HN, 4/16/99)
1786 Apr 20, John Goodricke (21),
English deaf and dumb astronomer, died.
(MC, 4/20/02)
1786 Apr, The process of moving
the bones from the Cemetery of the Innocents to the new site in the
limestone quarries began. The process took 2 years. The Revolutionary
Government of Paris had decided to relieve congestion and improve
sanitary conditions by emptying the city cemeteries into an official
ossuary. The Cemetery of the Innocents and other church cemeteries were
moved to the limestone quarries south of the city.
(Hem., 3/97, p.129)(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G3)
1786 May 1, The opera "The
Marriage of Figaro," by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered in Vienna.
(AP, 5/1/97)
1786 May 19, John Stanley (74),
composer, died.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1786 May 21, Carl W. Scheele (43),
Swedish pharmacist, chemist, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1786 Jun 13, Winfield Scott, U.S.
Army general famous for his victories in the War of 1812 and the War
with Mexico, was born.
(HN, 6/13/98)
1786 Jun 19, Gen. Nathanael Greene
died of sunstroke at his Georgia plantation. In 1960 Theodore Thayer
authored "Nathanael Greene, Strategist of the American Revolution." In
1973 William Johnson authored "Life and Correspondence of Nathanael
Greene."
(ON, 12/01, p.12)
1786 Jul 11, Morocco agreed to
stop attacking American ships in the Mediterranean for a payment of
$10,000.
(HN, 7/11/98)
1786 Jul 24, Jean-Louis Nicollet,
French explorer, was born.
(HN, 7/24/02)
1786 Aug 8, The US Congress
adopted the silver dollar and decimal system of money.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1786 Aug 8, Jacques Balmat and Dr.
Michel-Gabriel Paccard became the first men to climb Mont Blanc in
France.
(HN, 8/8/98)(ON, 4/04, p.1)
1786 Aug 17, Davy Crockett,
American frontiersman and politician who died in the defense of the
Alamo, was born.
(HN, 8/17/98)
1786 Aug 25, Ludwig I (d.1868),
King of Bavaria, was born. He later had an affair with international
courtesan, Lola Montez.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1786 Aug 29, Shay’s Rebellion
began in Springfield, Mass. Daniel Shay led a rebellion in
Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the non-payment of
debt. Shay was a Revolutionary War veteran who led a short-lived
insurrection in western Massachusetts to protest a tax increase that
had to be paid in cash, a hardship for veteran farmers who relied on
barter and didn‘t own enough land to vote. The taxes were to pay off
the debts from the Revolutionary War, and those who couldn‘t pay were
evicted or sent to prison.. [see Jan 25, 1787]
(HNQ, 7/6/00)(www.shaysnet.com/dshays.html)
1786 Sep 9, George Washington
called for the abolition of slavery.
(HN, 9/9/98)
1786 Sep 11, The US Convention of
Annapolis opened with the aim of revising the articles of confederation.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1786 Sep 12, Despite his failed
efforts to suppress the American Revolution, Lord Cornwallis was
appointed governor general of India. [see Feb 24]
(HN, 9/12/98)
1786 Sep 14, Two French ships
appeared off the coast of Monterey, the first foreign vessels to visit
Spain's California colonies. Aboard was a party of eminent scientists,
navigators, cartographers, illustrators, and physicians. For the next
ten days Jean Francois de La Pérouse, the commander of this
expedition, took detailed notes on the life and character of the area.
Perouse’s notes were later published under the title “Life in a
California Mission: Monterey in 1786: The Journals of Jean Francois De
LA Perouse.”
(http://tinyurl.com/fbuud)
1786 Sep 26, France and Britain
signed a trade agreement in London.
(HN, 9/26/99)
1786 Oct 20, Harvard University
organized the 1st astronomical expedition in US.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1786 Nov 18, Karl Maria Friedrich
Ernst von Weber, German composer (Der Freischutz), was born.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1786 Dec 18, Carl Maria von Weber,
German romantic composer (Der Freischutz), was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1786 Dec 20, Pietro Raimondi,
composer, was born.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1786 Dec 26, Daniel Shay led a
rebellion in Massachusetts to protest the seizure of property for the
non-payment of debt. Shay was a Revolutionary War veteran who led a
short-lived insurrection in western Massachusetts to protest a tax
increase that had to be paid in cash, a hardship for veteran farmers
who relied on barter and didn‘t own enough land to vote. The taxes were
to pay off the debts from the Revolutionary War, and those who couldn‘t
pay were evicted or sent to prison. [see Jan 25, 1787]
(HN, 12/26/98)(HNQ, 7/6/00)
1786 Scotsman Gregor MacGregor
(d.1845), later known as His Serene Highness Gregor I, Prince of
Poyais, was born in Scotland. [see 1811]
(SSFC, 1/18/04, p.M2)(WSJ, 1/30/04, p.W9)
1786 Andres Lopez of Mexico
painted "Sacred Heart of Jesus."
(WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A16)
1786 George Morland painted "The
Wreck of the Haswell."
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A20)
1786 Tiepolo painted "The Third
Temptation of Jesus."
(SSFC, 12/17/06, p.M6)
1786 Robert Burns published his
first book of poetry in Kilmarnock, Scotland.
(SFC, 9/30/98, Z1 p.3)
1786 Nicolas-Edme Restif de la
Bretonne began writing in a new genre, the nighttime prowl. His "Les
Nuits de Paris ou Le Spectateur nocturne" was a rambling account of
1,001 nights wandering the streets of Paris.
(SFCM, 10/14/01, p.35)
1786 Rev. Henry Channing gave a
sermon on the occasion of the hanging of a 12-year old mulatto girl,
Hannah Ocuish, in New London, Connecticut.
(LSA., Fall 1995, p.20)
1786 Mission Santa Barbara in
California was founded as a place for the Franciscan friars to assemble
and convert the native Chumash Indians.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T6)
1786 Encke, the most frequent
visiting comet was first observed. Its period is only 3.3 years. NASA
planned a rendezvous for 1984.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.223)
1786 Meg Nicholson (d.1828)
attempted to stab King George III. She was sent to Bedlam and died
there at age 77.
(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.D10)
1786 French explorer Jean-Francois
de Galaup de la Perouse set foot near Makena Beach on the Hawaiian
island of Maui.
(SFEC, 9/7/97, p.T5)
1786 Capt. Francis Light landed in
Penang and built Fort Cornwallis. Light, acting on behalf of the East
India Company, swindled the island from the ruling sultan with a
promise of protection. The British usurped the land to break the Dutch
monopoly on the spice trade.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T8)(SFEM, 12/19/99, p.8)(SFC,
12/8/05, p.E7)
1786 Graaff-Reinet, the major town
of the Easter Karoo in South Africa, was founded.
(Nat. Hist., 3/96, p.60)
1786 Frederick II (b.1712), King
of Prussia, died. In 2000 Giles MacDonogh authored "Frederick the
Great."
(WSJ, 4/27/00, p.A24)
1786-1859 Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, French actress
and poet: "Who will give me back those days when life had wings and
flew just like a skylark in the sky."
(AP, 2/28/99)
1787 Jan 11, Titania and Oberon,
moons of Uranus, were discovered by William Herschel.
(www.skyhound.com/george.html)
1787 Jan 25, Shays' Rebellion
suffered a setback when debt-ridden farmers led by Capt. Daniel Shays
failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass. Small farmers in
Springfield, Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays continued their revolt
against tax laws. Federal troops broke up the protesters of what later
became known as Shay’s Rebellion. [see Aug 29, 1786]
(AP, 1/25/98)(HN,
1/25/99)(www.sjchs-history.org/Shays.html)
1787 Feb 4, Shay’s Rebellion, an
uprising of debt-ridden Massachusetts farmers, failed.
(HN, 2/4/99)
1787 Feb 18, Austrian emperor
Josef II banned children under 8 from labor.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1787 Feb 23, Emma Hart Willard,
pioneer in higher education for women, was born.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1787 Mar 8, Karl Ferdinand von
Grafe was born. He helped create modern plastic surgery.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1787 Mar 16, George S. Ohm, German
scientist, was born. He gave his name to the ohm unit of electrical
resistance. [HN later said Mar 16, 1789]
(HN, 3/16/99)(WUD, 1994 p.1001)
1787 Apr 12, Philadelphia's Free
African Society formed.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1787 May 10, The British
Parliament impeached Warren Hastings. There was an effort to impeach
the governor-general of India. Edmund Burke indicted Warren Hastings,
governor-general of India (1773-1785), on 21 charges for high crimes
and misdemeanors. The trial lasted 7 years and Hastings was acquitted
on all charges.
(SFEC, 11/1/98, BR p.11)(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)(MC,
5/10/02)
1787 May 13, Arthur Phillip set
sail from Portsmouth, Great Britain, with 11 ships of criminals to
Australia. By year’s end some 50,000 British convict servants were
transported to the American colonies in commutation of death sentences.
After the American Revolution, Britain continued dumping convicts in
the US illegally into 1787. Australia eventually replaced America for
this purpose. Penal transports continued until 1853, which left a
remarkable legacy: an almost totally unexplored continent settled
largely by convicted felons.
(HNQ,
1/24/99)(www.foundingdocs.gov.au/item.asp?dID=35)
1787 May 14, Delegates began
gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S.
Constitution.
(AP, 5/14/97)
1787 May 25, The Constitutional
Convention convened in Philadelphia after enough delegates showed up
for a quorum. The Founding Fathers turned to the Rushworth's
Collections of England for revolutionary precedents. George Washington
presided. [see May 25, 1777] Rhode Island refused to send delegates.
(AP, 5/25/97)(WSJ, 3/10/99, p.A22)(HN,
5/25/99)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.44)
1787 May 28, Johann Georg Leopold
Mozart (67), Austrian composer, died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1787 May 29, The "Virginia Plan"
was proposed.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1787 May, Eight ships left Great
Britain carrying the first of what would be the largest transportation
of convicts in history to Botany Bay in New South Wales, Australia.
Penal transports continued until 1853, which left a remarkable legacy:
an almost totally unexplored continent settled largely by convicted
felons.
(http://www.csmi.med.ed.ac.uk/session1/group65/index.htm)
1787 Jun 28, Sir Henry G. W.
Smith, leader of British-Indian forces, was born.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1787 Jul 2, The Marquis de Sade
shouted from Bastille that prisoners were being slaughtered.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1787 Jul 13, Congress, under the
Articles of Confederation, enacted the Northwest Ordinance,
establishing rules for governing the Northwest Territory, for admitting
new states to the Union and limiting the expansion of slavery.
(AP, 7/13/97)(HN, 7/13/98)
1787 Jul 30, The French parliament
refused to approve a more equitable land tax.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1787 Aug 2, Horace de Saussure,
Swiss scientist, reached the top of Mont Blanc.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1787 Aug 6, The Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia began to debate the articles contained in a
draft of the United States Constitution.
(AP, 8/6/97)
1787 Aug 10, Mozart completed his
"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."
(MC, 8/10/02)
1787 Aug 13, The Ottoman Empire
declared war on Russia.
(HN, 8/13/98)
1787 Aug 17, Jews were granted
permission in Budapest, Hungary, to pray in groups.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1787 Aug 22, Inventor John Fitch
demonstrated his steamboat, the Perseverance, on the Delaware River to
delegates of the Continental Congress. In 2004 Andrea Sutcliffe
authored “Steam: The Untold Story of America’s First Great Invention.”
(AP, 8/22/99)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1787 Aug 24, Wolfgang A. Mozart
completed his viola sonata in A, K526.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1787 Sep 4, Louis XVI of France
recalled parliament.
(HN, 9/4/98)
1787 Sep 17, The Constitution of
the United States was completed and signed by a majority of delegates
(12) attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia. The US
Constitution went into effect on Mar 4, 1789. Clause 3 of Article I,
Section 8 empowered Congress to "regulate Commerce with foreign
nations, among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes." Two of
the signers went on to become presidents of the United States. George
Washington, the president of the Constitutional Convention, and James
Madison both signed the Constitution. The US Constitution is the
world's oldest working Constitution. James Mason of Virginia refused to
sign the document because he thought it made the federal government too
powerful believed that it should contain a Bill of Rights.
(HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/17/97)(HN, 9/17/98)(WUD,
1994, p.314)(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W17)(HNQ, 5/19/99)(WSJ, 3/31/06, p.A1)
1787 Sep 17, The US Constitution
included the Connecticut, or "Great," Compromise in which every state
was conceded an equal vote in the Senate irrespective of its size, but
representation in the House was to be on the basis of the "federal
ratio," an enumeration of the free population plus three fifths of the
slaves.
(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.M6)
1787 Sep 17, The "College of
Electors" (electoral college) was established at the Constitutional
Convention with representatives to be chosen by the states. Pierce
Butler of South Carolina first proposed the electoral college system.
[see Sep 13, 1788]
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.A14)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A26)
1787 Sep 17, The Electoral
College, proposed by James Wilson, was the compromise that the
Constitutional Convention reached. In 2004 George C. Edwards III
authored “Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America.”
(www.usconstitution.net/consttop_elec.html)(SSFC,
10/17/04, p.M3)
1787 Sep 27, The US Constitution
was submitted to states for ratification. [see Sep 28]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1787 Sep 28, Congress voted to
send the just-completed Constitution of the United States to state
legislatures for their approval. [see Sep 27]
(AP, 9/28/97)
1787 Oct 27, The first of the
Federalist Papers, a series of 77 essays calling for ratification of
the U.S. Constitution, was published in a New York newspaper. The
essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay were written
under the pseudonym “Publius” and later published as "The Federalist
Papers."
(AP, 10/27/97)(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/29/07,
p.A8)
1787 Oct 29, Mozart's opera Don
Giovanni opened in Prague. Don Giovanni was first performed at the
Prague’s Estates Theater with Mozart at the piano and conducting the
orchestra. It was a sensational success.
(V.D.-H.K.p.236)(SFC, 4/14/96, T-12)(HN,
10/29/00)
1787 Nov 15, Christoph W. Ritter
von Gluck (73), composer (Iphigenie Tauride), died.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1787 Nov 18, Louis-Jacques
Daguerre, French painter (daguerreotype), was born.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1787 Nov 18, Sojourner Truth,
abolitionist and feminist, was born. [see Nov 19]
(MC, 11/18/01)
1787 Nov 18, The 1st Unitarian
minister in US was ordained in Boston.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1797 Nov 19, Sojourner Truth
(d.1883), abolitionist and women's rights advocate, was born. "Religion
without humanity is a poor human stuff." [see Nov 18]
(HN, 11/19/98)(AP, 10/29/00)
1787 Nov 21, Samuel Cunard
(d.1865), founder of the 1st regular Atlantic steamship line, was born
in Canada.
(MC, 11/21/01)(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)
1787 Nov 23, Anton Schweitzer
(52), composer, died.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1787 Nov 25, Franz Xavier Gruber,
Austria, organist and composer (Silent Night), was born.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1787 Nov 29, In France Louis XVI
promulgated an edict of tolerance, granting civil status to
Protestants.
(HN, 11/29/98)(WSJ, 11/1/01, p.A19)
1787 Dec 7, Delaware became the
first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 12/7/97)
1787 Dec 10, Thomas H. Gallaudet,
a pioneer of educating the deaf, was born in Philadelphia.
(AP, 12/10/07)
1787 Dec 12, Pennsylvania became
the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 12/12/97)
1787 Dec 18, New Jersey became the
third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 12/18/97)
1787 Dec, William Wilberforce, on
the suggestion of PM William Pitt, introduced a motion in British
Parliament for the abolition of the slave trade.
(ON, 4/05, p.2)
1787 Robert Barker, an Irish
painter, is credited with inventing the panorama and patented the idea
in this year.
(WSJ, 9/3/98, p.A20)
1787 Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
authored “Panopticon,” a plan for prison construction and management.
(SSFC, 9/12/04,
p.M1)(http://cartome.org/panopticon2.htm)
1787 Peter Markoe (1752?-1792)
authored “An Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania.” His satirical provocation
helped to push the US Congress authorized a Navy and to dispatch
Marines to subdue the pirates of Tripoli.
(WSJ, 6/2/07, p.P8)
1787 The Mission La Purisima
Concepcion in Lompoc, Ca., was founded. It is now a 900 acre state
park. (AWAM, Dec. 94, p.67)
1787 Rev. Richard Allen and
Absalom Jones decided to form the Free African Society, a
non-denominational religious mutual aid society for the black
community. Eventually this society grew into the African Church of
Philadelphia.
(www.pbs.org)
1787 Quatremiere de Quincy coined
the term "Baroque" and defined it as absurdity carried to excess.
(WSJ, 8/18/99, p.A17)
1787 Alexander Hamilton (32)
became the first US Treasury secretary.
(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A1)
1787 Alexander Hamilton sponsored
a New York law that recognized adultery as the only ground for divorce.
It remained in force until 1967.
(WSJ, 8/6/07, p.B1)
1787 Thomas Jefferson toured
Bordeaux while serving as US ambassador to France. He purchased cases
Haut-Brion, d’Yquiem, and Margaux for himself and George Washington.
(WSJ, 9/1/06, p.A9)
1787 In the US the Northwest
Ordinance abolished slavery and marked the establishment of segregation
and separate churches for blacks. It included the sentence: "Religion,
morality and knowledge are necessary to good government..."
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)
1787 A private mint struck the
first penny. It was 100% copper and known as the Fugio cent.
(USAT, 7/19/01, p.3A)
1787 The first left and right
shoes were made.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, Z1 p.2)
1787 The younger brother of
William Blake, Robert, died. His death deeply affected William and
marked the genesis of Blake’s Illuminated Works.
(LSA, Spring 1995, p.17)
1887 In Argentina the last census
to include blacks as a separate category indicated that about 2% of the
population in Buenos Aires was African.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1787 Granville Sharp, English
abolitionist, formed the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the
Slave Trade.
(ON, 12/08, p.9)
1787 Thomas Clarkson, deacon in
the Church of England, led the formation of the original abolitionist
committee, the interdenominational “Committee to Effect the Abolition
of the Slave Trade.” His anti-slavery committee distributed 1,000
copies of “A Letter to our Friends in the Country, to inform them of
the state of the Business.” This was later considered as possibly the
1st direct-mail fund-raising letter. In 2004 Adam Hochschild authored
“Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s
Slaves.”
(SSFC, 1/23/05, p.F1)(ON, 4/05, p.1)
1787 Henry Hobhouse, a Bristol
slave trader, bought the Hadspen country house in Somerset, England,
and rebuilt it.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.23)
1787 English ships transported
some 38,000 slaves this year.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.93)
1787 British settlers bought land
from African tribal leaders in Sierra Leone and used it as a haven for
freed African slaves. The indigenous community, dominated by the Mende,
wiped out the first settlers. A 2nd group followed in 1792. The
settlers intermarried but held themselves aloof, monopolized power and
discriminated against the original population. In 2005 Simon Schama
authored “Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American
Revolution.”
(SFC, 3/11/98, p.A10)(SFC, 2/14/98, p.A8)(WSJ,
5/31/00, p.A26)(Econ, 8/27/05, p.66)(MT, summer 2003, p.8)
1787 Gen. Thomas Gage, former
commander of British forces in North America, died at age 66. In 1948
John Richard Alden authored "General Gage in America."
(ON, 3/01, p.4)
1787 Morocco became the first
country to recognize the US as a sovereign nation. Pres. Washington
acknowledged Morocco’s recognition in 1789.
(SFC, 8/15/98, p.E4)(SFCM, 3/27/05, p.19)
1787-1788 In Milan the Teatro alla Scala was built by
Giuseppe Piermarini in neo-Classical style.
(WSJ, 12/26/01, p.A26)(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C9)
1787-1826 Joseph von Fraunhofer, German physicist,
using advanced optical techniques, found that the spectrum of Newton’s
rainbow ribbon is marred by a large number of thin dark crosslines. The
lines are called Fraunhofer lines but were not explained until the work
of Kirchoff 50 years later.
(SCTS, p.6)
1787-1863 Richard Whately, British theologian:
"Honesty is the best policy, but he who acts on that principle is not
an honest man."
(AP, 1/24/01)
1787-1948 William Herschel and other astronomers
spotted 5 moons circling Uranus during this period.
(SFC, 12/23/05, p.A4)
1788 Jan 1, The Times, London's
oldest running newspaper, was first published. [see Jan 1, 1785]
(HN, 1/1/99)
1788 Jan 1, Quakers in
Pennsylvania emancipated their slaves.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1788 Jan 2, Georgia became the
fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 1/2/98)
1788 Jan 9, Connecticut became the
fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 1/9/99)
1788 Jan 18, The first English
settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay to establish a penal colony.
They found the location unsuitable and Capt. Arthur Philip moved on to
Sydney Cove. England sent the first sheep along with convicts to
Australia.
(NG, 5.1988, pp. 575)(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T4)(AP,
1/18/98)(Econ, 5/7/05, Survey p.14)
1788 Jan 20, The pioneer African
Baptist church was organized in Savannah, Ga.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1788 Jan 22, George Gordon
(d.1824), (6th Baron Byron) aka Lord Byron, English poet, was born with
a deformed foot. His work included "Lara," "Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage"
and "Don Juan." He died in Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras
preparing to fight for Greek independence. In 1997 the biography:
"Byron: The flawed Angel" by Phyllis Grosskurth was published.
(WUD, 1994, p.204,917)(SFC, 6/9/97, p.D3)(SFEC,
11/15/98, Z1 p.10)(HN, 1/22/99)
1788 Jan 26, The 1st fleet of
ships carrying 736 convicts from England landed at Sydney Cove, New
South Wales, Australia. The first European settlers in Australia, led
by Capt. Arthur Phillip, landed in present-day Sydney. The day is since
known as Australia’s national day. In 2006 Thomas Keneally authored
“The Commonwealth of Thieves: The Story of the Founding of Australia.”
(AP, 1/26/98)(HN, 1/26/99)(WSJ, 9/19/00, p.A1)(Econ,
7/15/06, p.83)
1788 Jan 31, Charles Edward
Stuart (67), The Young Pretender, died.
(HN, 1/31/99)(MC, 1/31/02)
1788 Feb 1, Isaac Briggs and
William Longstreet patented the steamboat on this day.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1788 Feb 5, Sir Robert Peel
(d.1850), British prime minister through the early 1800s, was born. He
founded the Conservative Party and the London Police Force whose
officers were called "bobbies."
(HN, 2/5/99)(Econ, 6/30/07, p.93)
1788 Feb 6, Massachusetts became
the sixth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 2/6/97)(HN, 2/6/99)
1788 Feb 22, Arthur Schopenhauer
(d.1860), German philosopher (Great Pessimist), was born: "Hatred comes
from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite
within our control."
(AP, 12/9/99)(MC, 2/22/02)
1788 Mar 7, Alexander Hamilton
published his Federalist Paper 65 in the New York Packet. It discussed
the subject of impeachment.
(USAT, 9/14/98, p.4A)
1788 Mar 21, Almost the entire
city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was destroyed by fire. 856 buildings
were burned.
(HN, 3/21/99)(MC, 3/21/02)
1788 Mar 29, Charles Wesley, hymn
writer and brother of John Wesley, died.
(MC, 3/29/02)(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.W19)
1788 Apr 4, Last of the Federalist
essays was published. The series of 85 letters were written by
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay urging ratification of
the US Constitution. Defects in the Articles of Confederation became
apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and
domestic commerce and the inability of Congress to levy taxes, leading
Congress to endorse a plan to draft a new constitution.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1788 Apr 5, Franz Pforr, German
painter, cartoonist (Lukasbund), was born.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1788 Apr 12, Carlo Antonio
Campioni (67), composer, died.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1788 Apr 28, Maryland became the
seventh state to ratify the US constitution, but on condition that a
Bill of Rights be added.
(AP, 4/28/07)(WSJ, 9/20/08, p.A21)
1788 May 10, Augustin-Jean
Fresnel, optics pioneer, physicist, was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1788 May 18, Hugh Clapperton,
African explorer, was born in Annan, Scotland.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1788 May 23, South Carolina became
the eighth state to ratify the U. S. Constitution.
(AP, 5/23/97)(HN, 5/23/98)
1788 May 29, Jacques Aliamet (61),
French etcher, engraver, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1788 Jun 11, The 1st British ship
to be built on Pacific coast was begun at Nootka Sound, BC.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1788 Jun 21, The U.S. Constitution
went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it.
(AP, 6/21/97)
1788 Jun 25, Virginia ratified the
U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 6/25/97)
1788 Jul 6, Ten thousand troops
were called out in Paris as unrest mounted in the poorer districts over
poverty and lack of food.
(HN, 7/6/98)
1788 Jul 15, Louis XVI jailed 12
deputies who protest new judicial reforms.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1788 Jul 19, Prices plunged on the
Paris stock market.
(HN, 7/19/98)
1788 Jul 20, The governor of the
French colony of Pondicherry, Vietnam, abandoned plans to place King
Nhuyen Anh back on the throne.
(HN, 7/20/98)
1788 Jul 26, New York became the
11th state to ratify the Constitution.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1788 Aug 2, Thomas Gainsborough
(61), English painter, died. His work included the 1771 portraits of
the Viscount and Viscountess Ligonier and "Blue Boy."
(HN, 5/14/01)(AAP, 1964)(MC, 5/14/02)(WSJ, 12/19/02,
p.D10)(MC, 8/2/02)
1788 Aug 8, King Louis XVI called
the French States and Generals together.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1788 Aug 8, Louis FAD Duke de
Richelieu (92), French marshal, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1788 Aug 27, Jacques Neeker was
named French minister of Finance.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1788 Sep 13, The Congress of
the Confederation authorized the first national election, and declared
New York City the temporary national capital. The Constitutional
Convention authorized the first federal election resolving that
electors (electoral college) in all the states will be appointed on
January 7, 1789. The Convention decreed that the first federal election
would be held on the first Wednesday in February of the following year.
(AP, 9/13/97)(HN, 9/13/00)
1788 Sep 15, An alliance between
Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands was ratified at the Hague.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1788 Sep 19, Charles de Barentin
became lord chancellor of France.
(HN, 9/19/98)
1788 Sep 22, Theodore Hook,
English novelist best known for "Impromptu at Fulham," was born.
(HN, 9/22/98)
1788 Sep 23, Louis XVI of France
declared the Parliament restored.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1788 Sep 24, After having been
dissolved, the French Parliament of Paris reassembled in triumph.
(HN, 9/24/98)
1788 Oct 6, The Polish Diet
decided to hold a four year session.
(HN, 10/6/98)
1788 Oct 24, Sarah Josepha Hale,
magazine editor and poet whose book Poems for Our Children included
"Mary Had a Little Lamb" (the first words to be recorded in sound), was
born.
(HN, 10/24/98)
1788 Dec 18, Camille Pleyel,
Austrian piano builder and composer, was born.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1788 Dec 23, Maryland voted to
cede a 100-square-mile area for the seat of the national government;
about two-thirds of the area became the District of Columbia.
(AP, 12/23/97)
1788 Dec 30, Francesco Zuccarelli
(86), Italian rococo painter and etcher, died.
(MC, 12/30/01)
1788 Pierre-Paul Prud’hon
(1758-1823), French artist, painted "Love Seduces Innocence, Pleasure
Entraps, and Remorse Follows."
(WSJ, 4/8/98, p.A20)
1788 John Adams published "A
Defense of the Constitutions."
(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
1788 "The Narrative of John
Blanchford" was published. Blanchford (15), a Massachusetts cabin-boy,
had been captured by the British and sent to prison in Halifax and
later to Sumatra from where he escaped after a 6 year ordeal.
(ON, 1/00, p.5)
1788 “The Art of Cookery, Made
Plain and Easy” by Hannah Glasse was published in London.
(SFC, 5/4/05, p.G10)
1788 Mozart’s Don Giovanni was
performed in conservative Vienna but was not a success.
(V.D.-H.K.p.236)
1788 Mozart composed his 41st
symphony titled by his publisher as the Jupiter.
(T&L, 10/80, p. 103)
1788 Rules were set for the game
of cricket.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.81)
1788 "Buffalo clover... nearly
knee-high... afforded a rich pasture." An image of the fertile frontier
penned by historian S.P. Hildreth. After 1907 the clover was unseen
until 1989 when it emerged in some topsoil delivered to a botanist’s
backyard.
(NG, Jan. 94, p.144)
1788 As British settlers arrived
in Australia the native Aborigines are believed to have numbered about
750,000, and to have inhabited Australia for up to 70,000 years.
(AP, 1/30/08)
1788 A botanical garden opened in
Puerto de la Cruz on Tenerife Island (Canary Islands).
(SSFC, 4/16/06, p.F7)
1788 A great fire destroyed much
of the wooden city of Kyoto, Japan.
(WSJ, 1/25/06,
p.D10)(www.city.kyoto.jp/koho/eng/historical/chronology.html)
1788 A salon from Paris of this
time was later transferred [c1993] to the Legion of Honor Museum in San
Francisco, Ca.
(WSJ, 11/16/95, p.A-18)
1788-1789 King George III suffered a mental breakdown.
(WSJ, 1/29/03, p.A1)
1780-1800 In 2007 Jay Winik authored “The Great
Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800.”
(WSJ, 9/14/07, p.W5)
1788-1865 C.J. Thomson, Danish museum curator,
contributed to the Three Age System classification of early man from
stone to bronze to iron.
(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.25)
1789 Jan 7, The first U.S.
presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a
month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first
president.
(AP, 1/7/98)
1789 Jan 23, Georgetown University
was established by Jesuits in present-day Washington, D.C., as the 1st
US Catholic college.
(AP, 1/23/98)(MC, 1/23/02)
1789 Feb 2, Armand-Louis Couperin
(63), French composer, organist at Notre Dame, died.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1789 Feb 4, Electors
unanimously chose George Washington to be the first president of
the United States and John Adams as vice-president. The results of the
balloting were not counted in the US Senate until two months later.
Washington accepted office at the Federal Building of New York. His
first cabinet included Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton as first
secretary of the Treasury, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph.
(A & IP, ESM, p.10)(WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A18)(AP,
2/4/07)
1789 Feb 8, Ludwig Wilhelm Maurer,
composer, was born.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1789 Mar 2, Pennsylvania ended the
prohibition of theatrical performances.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1789 Mar 4, The Constitution of
the United States, framed in 1787, went into effect as the first
Federal Congress met in New York City. Lawmakers then adjourned for the
lack of a quorum (9 senators, 13 representatives). In 2006 Robert V.
Remini, historian of the US House of Representatives, authored “The
House.”
(WUD, 1994, p.314)(AP, 3/4/98)(HN, 3/4/98)(SC,
3/4/02)
1789 Mar 4, Pavel P. Gagarin,
Russian monarch, was born.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1789 Mar 16, George S. Ohm
(d.1854), German scientist, was born. He gave his name to the ohm
unit of electrical resistance. [WUD says Mar 16, 1787]
(HN, 3/16/02)(WUD, 1994 p.1001)
1789 Apr 1, The U.S. House of
Representatives held its first full meeting, in New York City.
Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania was elected the first House
Speaker.
(AP, 4/1/98)
1789 Apr 6, The first US Congress
began regular sessions at Federal Hall on Wall Street, NYC.
(HN, 4/6/98)(MC, 4/6/02)
1789 Apr 8, The U.S. House of
Representatives held its first meeting.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1789 Apr 16, George Washington
left Mount Vernon, Va., for the first presidential inauguration in New
York.
(AP, 4/16/97)(HN, 4/16/98)
1789 Apr 21, John Adams was sworn
in as the first vice president of the United States.
(AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 4/21/98)
1789 Apr 23, President-elect
Washington and his wife moved into the first executive mansion, the
Franklin House, in New York. George Washington was inaugurated at
Federal Hall and lived at 3 Cherry Street in New York City. In 1790,
with construction on the new federal capital underway, the government
was moved temporarily to Philadelphia, where Washington served out his
two terms. He is the only president who never resided in the White
House.
(AP, 4/23/97)(HNPD, 12/22/98)
1789 Apr 28, Fletcher Christian
lead a mutiny on the Bounty as the crew of the British ship set Captain
William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in a launch in the South Pacific.
Richard Hough later authored: "Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian."
http://www.visi.com/~pjlareau//bounty1.html
(AP, 4/28/97)(HN, 4/28/98)(SFC, 10/9/99, p.A20)(MC,
4/28/02)
1789 Apr 30, George Washington was
inaugurated and took office in New York as the first president of the
United States. He took his oath of office on the balcony of Federal
Hall on Wall Street and spoke the words “So help me God,” which all
future US presidents have repeated.
(AP, 4/30/97)(HN, 4/30/98)(SSFC, 1/18/09, p.W4)
1789 May 5, French States-General
met together for the first time since 1614.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1789 May 7, The first inaugural
ball was held in New York in honor of President and Mrs. George
Washington.
(AP, 5/7/97)
1789 May 10, Joaquim Jose da Silva
Xavier, Tiradentes, rebel for Independence, was arrested. He was
betrayed by Joaquim Silverio dos Reis, a participant of the movement,
in exchange of waiving of his due taxes; Silverio’s name is carved in
Brazilian History as The Betrayer.
(SFC, 2/26/99,
p.E2)(www.v-brazil.com/culture/historic-characters/tiradentes.html)
1789 May 12, The Society of St.
Tammany was formed by Revolutionary War soldiers. It later became an
infamous group of NYC political bosses.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1789 May 12, In England William
Wilberforce laid out his case for the abolition of slavery to the House
of Commons. This speech directly led to Britain’s abolition of slavery
in 1807.
(WSJ, 5/12/07, p.P14)
1789 Jun 1, Congress passed its
first act which mandated the procedure for administering oaths of
public office.
(DTnet 6/1/97)(HN, 6/1/98)
1789 Jun 4, The US constitution,
enacted as sovereign law, went into effect.
(V.D.-H.K.p.300)(MC, 6/4/02)
1789 Jun 10, Bernard-Jordan de
Launay, military governor of the Bastille, suspended the prisoners’
daily supervised walks outside the Bastille walls.
(ON, 4/01, p.1)
1789 Jun 14, Captain William Bligh
of the HMS Bounty arrived in Timor in a small boat.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1789 Jun 17, the Third Estate in
France declared itself a national assembly, and undertook to frame a
constitution.
(AP, 6/17/97)
1789 Jun 20, Oath on the Tennis
Court in Versailles, France, bonded members of the Third Estate to
resist eviction until they have a new constitution.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1789 Jul 4, The US passed its
first tariff which included a 15% duty on imported nails among other
things.
(Maggio)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1789 Jul 9, In Versailles, the
French National Assembly declared itself the Constituent Assembly and
began to prepare a French constitution.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1789 cJul 11, In France just days
before the Bastille was taken the tavern keepers and wine merchants of
Belleville, angered by levies on food and drink, sacked the local tax
collector’s office.
(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T8)
1789 Jul 13, Parisians rioted over
an increase in price of grain. The mob plundered the armories and
opened the prison gates of St. Lazare. The King at Versailles refused
to withdraw his troops from Paris.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1789 July 14 ,
Bastille Day. Tens of thousands of the citizens of Paris stormed the
Bastille, the Paris fortress used as a prison to hold political
prisoners, and released the seven prisoners inside at the onset of the
French Revolution. Over 100 rioters were killed or wounded. The average
Frenchman was 5 foot 2 and weighed 105 pounds. France’s Louis XIV made
a diary entry that read “Rien” (nothing). Historian Francois Furet
(1927-1997), a leading writer on the French Revolution, was best known
for his work: "Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution." He
refuted Marxist interpretations of the events that preceded and
followed the fall of the monarchy. In 1939 W. Higgins edited "The
French Revolution Told by Contemporaries."
(AP, 7/14/97)(HN, 7/14/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R12)(ON,
4/01, p.1)(Econ, 6/25/05, p.52)(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A18)
1789 Jul 14, The French
Revolution. "It was not the literate and cultured minority of Frenchmen
who brought down the government, as had been the case in England and
America. Instead it was the common people, who marched upon the king
and queen in their palace at Versailles. The Jacobins promulgated a
Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen that went beyond the
American Bill of Rights in affirming, "Nothing that is not forbidden by
Law may be hindered, and no one may be compelled to do what the Law
does not ordain," for "Liberty consists in being able to do anything
that does not harm others." The French dwarf Richeborg stood 23 inches
and was costumed as a baby in diapers during the French Revolution. In
the arms of innocent girls he could eavesdrop on sensitive
conversations and carried secret dispatches in and out of Paris.
(V.D.-H.K.p.230-231)(SFC, 6/23/96, Z1 p.2)
1789 Jul 15, The electors of Paris
set up a "Commune" to live without the authority of the government.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1789 Jul 18, Robespierre, a deputy
from Arras, France, decided to back the French Revolution.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1789 Jul 22, Thomas Jefferson
became the first head of the U.S. Department of Foreign Affairs.
(HN, 7/22/98)
1789 Jul 23, The Great Fear swept
through France as the Revolution continued.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1789 Jul 27, President Washington
signed a measure establishing the Department of Foreign Affairs,
forerunner of the Department of State.
(AP, 7/27/08)
1789 Aug 4, The Constituent
Assembly in France dissolved feudal system by abolishing the privileges
of nobility.
(HN, 8/4/98)(MC, 8/4/02)
1789 Aug 7, The U.S. War
Department was established by Congress.
(AP, 8/7/97)
1789 Aug 21, Augustin-Louis Baron
Cauchy, French mathematician, was born.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1789 Aug 25, Mary Ball Washington,
mother of George, died.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1789 Aug 26, The Constituent
Assembly in Versailles, France, approved the final version of the
Declaration of Human Rights.
(HN, 8/26/99)
1789 Aug 27, French National
Assembly issued "Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen."
(MC, 8/27/01)
1789 Sep 1, Lady Marguerite
Blessington, beautiful English socialite and author, was born. She
wrote a biography of Lord Byron.
(HN, 9/1/99)
1789 Sep 2, The Treasury
Department, headed by Alexander Hamilton, was created in New York City
and housed in Fraunces Tavern at 54 Pearl St.
(AP, 9/2/97)(HN, 9/2/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R43)
1789 Sep 11, Alexander Hamilton
was appointed the first U.S. secretary of the treasury. During his
tenure, Hamilton established the National Bank, introduced an excise
tax, suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion and spearheaded the effort for
the federal government to assume the debts of the states. In the
presidential election of 1800, Hamilton broke the deadlock between
Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr by supporting Jefferson. The enmity
between Hamilton and his longtime political enemy Burr grew worse
during the 1804 campaign for governor of New York.
(AP, 9/11/97)(HNPD, 1/11/99)
1789 Sep 12, Franz Xaver Richter,
composer, died at 79.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1789 Sep 13, Start of the US
National Debt as the government took out its first loan, borrowed from
the Bank of North America (NYC) at 6 percent interest. The US debt had
reached $77 million when Washington became president.
(MC, 9/13/01)(WSJ, 10/1/03, p.B1)
1789 Sep 13, Guardsmen in Orleans,
France, opened fire on rioters trying to loot bakeries, killing 90.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1789 Sep 15, James Fenimore Cooper
(d.1851), American novelist, was born in Burlington, NJ. He is best
known for "The Pioneers" and "Last of the Mohicans." "The press, like
fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master."
(AP, 6/25/97)(HN, 9/15/99)
1789 Sep 15, The U.S. Department
of Foreign Affairs was renamed the Department of State.
(AP, 9/15/97)
1789 Sep 16, Jean-Paul Marat set
up a new newspaper in France, L'Ami du Peuple (The Friend of the
People).
(HN, 9/16/98)(ON, SC, p.7)
1789 Sep 18, The 1st loan was made
to pay salaries of the US president & Congress. [see Sep 13]
(MC, 9/18/01)
1789 Sep 22, The US Act 1 Stat. 70
temporarily established a post office and created the Office of the
Postmaster General.
(AP, 9/22/97)(www.usps.com/history/his1_5.htm)
1789 Sep 22, Russian forces under
Aleksandr Suvorov drove the Turkish army under Yusuf Pasha from the
Rymnik River, upsetting the Turkish invasion of Russia.
(HN, 9/22/99)
1789 Sep 24, President George
Washington appointed John Jay as the 1st Chief Justice.
(MC, 9/24/01)
1789 Sep 24, The US Federal
Judiciary Act was passed. It created a six-person Supreme Court and
provided for an Attorney General.
(AP, 9/24/97)(AH, 10/04, p.14)
1789 Sep 25, The first United
States Congress [proposed] adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution
and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of the amendments
became the Bill of Rights. 14 copies were hand written and 13 were sent
to the individual states.
(WUD, 1994, p.1703)(AP, 9/25/97)(HN, 9/25/98)(SFC,
1/20/02, p.A11)
1789 Sep 26, Thomas Jefferson was
appointed America's first Secretary of State; John Jay the first chief
justice of the United States; Samuel Osgood the first
Postmaster-General; and Edmund Jennings Randolph the first Attorney
General.
(AP, 9/26/97)(SFC, 8/16/99, p.A21)
1789 Sep 28, Richard Bright,
physician (Bright's Disease, nephritis), was born in England.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1789 Sep 29, The U.S. War
Department established a regular U.S. army with a strength of several
hundred men.
(AP, 9/29/97)(HN, 9/29/98)
1789 Sep, Fletcher Henderson left
Tahiti with the Bounty with a light crew. 16 men were left abandoned.
(ON, 3/04, p.9)
1789 Oct 3, George Washington
proclaimed the 1st national Thanksgiving Day to be Nov 26.
(MC, 10/3/01)
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge
the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for
His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and
Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee,
requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of
public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with
grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially
by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of
government for their safety and happiness:"
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday,
the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these
States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the
beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be;
that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble
thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country
previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold
mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the
course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of
tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the
peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish
constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and
particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and
religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of
acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the
great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and
supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to
pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether
in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative
duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a
blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise,
just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and
obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially
such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good
governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice
of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and
us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal
prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
(Ihub, 11/27/03)
1789 Oct 10, In Versailles France,
Joseph Guillotin said the most humane way of carrying out a death
sentence is decapitation by a single blow of a blade.
(HN, 10/10/98)
1789 Oct 10, Pierre-Louis
Couperin, composer, died at 34.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1789 Oct 15, George Washington
went to New England on the 1st presidential tour.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1789 Nov 2, The property of the
Church in France was taken away by the state.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1789 Nov 5, French National
Assembly declared all citizens equal under law.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1789 Nov 8, Bourbon Whiskey, 1st
distilled from corn, was made by Elijah Craig in Bourbon, Ky.
(MC, 11/8/01)
1789 Nov 13, Benjamin Franklin
wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In this world nothing can
be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
(AP, 11/13/97)
1789 Nov 18, Louis Jacques
Daguerre (d.1851), French painter, physicist and photography pioneer,
was born. He invented the process of setting the impression on a
light-sensitive, silver-coated metallic plate and developed by mercury
vapor. See contrasting info 1765-1833, Nicephore Niepce, French
lithographer.
(AHD, 1971, p.332)(HN, 11/18/00)
1789 Nov 20, New Jersey became the
first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.
(HFA, '96, p.18)(AP, 11/20/97)
1789 Nov 21, North Carolina became
the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
(AP, 11/21/97)
1789 Nov 26, George Washington
proclaimed on Oct 3 that Nov 26 be a National Thanksgiving Day in honor
of the new Constitution. He made it clear that the day should be one of
prayer and giving thanks to God, to be celebrated by all the religious
denominations. In 1863 Pres. Lincoln designated the last Thursday of
November as Thanksgiving Day.
(HFA, '96, p.42)(AP, 11/26/97)(HN, 11/26/98)
1789 Dec 3, Claude-Joseph Vernet,
French seascape painter, died.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1789 Dec 13, The National Guard
was created in France.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1789 Dec 28, Lydia Darrragh
(b.1729), American spy, died in Philadelphia. Her exploits in 1777 did
not become public until the publication of an anonymous article in 1827.
(ON, 8/07, p.8)(www.lexidigital.com/bcdarwomen4.htm)
1789 Dec, In India’s city of
Coringa 3 tidal waves caused by a cyclone destroyed the harbor city at
the mouth of the Ganges river. Most ships were sunk and some 20,000
people drowned.
(www.emergency-management.net/cyclone.htm)
1789 Johann Friedrich Overbeck
(d.1869), German Nazarene artist, was born.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)
1789 The ballet "La fille mal
gardee" had its premiere. It included dialogue and singing as well as
dancing.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, DB p.37)
1789 William Blake published his
"Songs of Innocence."
(WSJ, 4/23/97, p.A16)
1789 Rev. Gilbert White
(1720-1793) authored “The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,
in the County of Southampton.” One chapter was about a local tortoise
named Timothy. In 2006 Verlyn Klinkenborg authored “Timothy; Or, Notes
Of an Abject Reptile,” a look at the parson from the point of view of
the tortoise.
(WSJ, 2/11/06, p.P11)
1789 In 1999 Rachel Wright
authored "Paris: 1789," an informative children's book of Parisian life
on the eve of the Revolution.
(SFEC, 5/9/99, Par p.8)
1789 Tammany Hall was a powerful
Democratic political organization in NYC, founded as a fraternal
benevolent society. The name was based after a Delaware Indian Chief,
Tamanen or Temmenund, later facetiously canonized as patron saint of
the US. The Tammany Hall officials lost on Nov. 6, 1894.
(HFA, '96, p.42)
1789 In the US the Church of
England Episcopal Church fomally separated from the Church of England
became the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_%28United_States%29))
1789 Congress introduced paid
chaplains. In 1983 the Supreme Court ruled in Marsh vs. Chambers that
it is not a violation of the Establishment Clause to have paid
legislative chaplains. In 2002 Michael Newdow filed suit contending
that taxpayer-funded chaplains was unconstitutional.
(SFC, 8/31/02, p.A2)
1789 The US Alien Tort Claims Act
(ATCA) was meant to combat piracy. The Alien Tort Stature (ATS) was
intended to be used to prosecute pirates for crimes committed outside
the US.
(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A13)(SFC, 3/13/02, p.A8)(WSJ,
10/6/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/12/04, p.A16)
1789 The first tobacco
advertisement came out in the US. It depicted an Indian smoking a long
clay pipe.
(SFEC, 5/24/98, Z1 p.10)
1789 Georgetown College was
founded in Washington DC.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-15)
1789 Massachusetts commenced work
on the Middlesex Canal. It was completed in 1808.
(Panic, p.12)
1789 The University of North
Carolina was chartered. It was the first state university in the U.S.
to begin instruction, in 1795. The University of Georgia was the first
state university chartered, in 1785, but was not established until 1801.
(HNQ, 12/3/01)
1789 Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier
presented a paper on the geology of the Earth that proposed that sea
level had oscillated over time, as opposed to a stationary sea with
linear sedimentation.
(NH, 12/98, p.14)
1789 Martin Klaproth, German
chemist, discovered Uranium. It named after the planet Uranus
discovered 8 years earlier.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)(WSJ, 3/18/05, p.C1)
1789 The HMS Bounty made a brief
stop at the Cook Island of Rarotonga before moving on to Pitcairn
Island.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T6)
1789 The flower China Rose was
introduced to Europe.
(TGR, 1995, p.4)
1789 Ethan Allen (b.1738), leader
of Vermont’s Green Mountain Boys, died. In 1949 Stewart H. Holbrook
authored "Ethan Allen." In 1969 Charles A. Jellison authored "Ethan
Allen: Frontier Rebel."
(WUD, 1994 p.39)(ON, 3/00, p.6)
1789 The prison ship Lady Julian
delivered over 200 women to the penal colony at Sydney harbor. In 2002
Sian Rees authored "The Floating Brothel: The Extraordinary True Story
of an Eighteenth-Century Ship and Its Cargo of Female Convicts."
(SSFC, 3/3/02, p.M3)
1789 Smallpox was introduced to
Australia and caused devastation among the aborigines.
(SFC, 10/19/01, p.A17)
1789 In Brazil poet and dentist
Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier helped launch the first Brazilian
rebellion against the country's Portuguese rulers.
(AP, 4/19/03)
1789 English Thomas Clarkson and
his fellow abolitionists published 700 posters with the image of the
slave ship Brookes loaded with 482 slaves. The ship, owned by the
Brookes family of Liverpool, operated between the Gold Coast of Africa
and Jamaica.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.72)
1789 Thomas Stokes built clocks in
London.
(SFC, 11/13/96, z-1 p.6)
1789 In England part of the art
collection, 181 paintings, of Sir Robert Walpole was sold by his heirs
to Catherine the Great for 40,000 Pounds.
(WSJ, 3/3/97, p.A16)
1786 William Playfair, Scottish
draughtsman for James Watt, produced an “atlas” of Britain using 44
charts and no maps.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.75)
c1789 The Marquis de Lafayette
wrote the original version of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He
was appalled by the excesses of the revolution and fled to Austria
where he was imprisoned for 5 years.
(WSJ, 1/15/97, p.A12)
1789 The bankruptcy of the French
government brought banks across Europe to their knees.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R48)
1789 Tobias Schmidt, a German
piano maker, built the first guillotine.
(SFC, 5/2/98, p.E4)
1789 In Germany the Brandenburg
Gate of Berlin was built.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, p.T5)
1789-1793 Alexander Mackenzie, Scottish-born fur
trader, became the 1st European to cross the North American continent.
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.D12)
1789-1795 John Jay served as the first chief justice
of the US Supreme Court.
(WUD, 1994, p.764)(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W13)
1789-1807 Selim III succeeded Abdul Hamid I in the
Ottoman House of Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1789-1837 Ben Wilson covered this period in his 2007
book “The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain,
1789-1837.”
(WSJ, 3/24/07, p.P12)(Econ, 4/7/07, p.81)
1789-1854 John Martin, British artist. He was known
as "Mad Martin" for his paintings of monumental disasters. His work
included "Assuaging of the Waters" (1840), "The Eve of the Deluge," and
"The Deluge."
(SFEC, 5/4/97, DB p.9)(SFEM, 5/11/97, p.6)
1789-1914 In 2006 Michael Burleigh authored “Earthly
Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe from the French
Revolution to the Great War.”
(Econ, 2/25/06, p.87)
Go to 1790-1799