- Jan 2 Louis Barbiano de Belgioioso, Austrian count/diplomat in Belgium
- Jan 6 Charles-Joseph-Balthazar Sohier, composer
- Jan 6 Domingos dos Reis Quita, Portuguese playwright & poet, born in Lisbon, Portugal (d. 1770)
- Jan 9 Thomas Warton, critic and poet (Pleasures of Melancholy) British Poet Laureate (1785-90), born in Basingstoke (d. 1790)
- Jan 16 Niccolo Piccinni, Italian composer (Buona Figliuola)
- Jan 17 Johann Gottfried Muthel, composer
- Feb 12 Étienne-Louis Boullée, French architect (d. 1799)
- Feb 13 John Hunter, Scottish surgeon and founder of pathological anatomy in England, born in Long Calderwood, Scotland (d. 1793)
- Feb 21 Peter III, Kiel Germany, Russian Tsar (1762) and husband of Catherine the Great
- Feb 29 Robert Bage, English writer (Criticism by Peter Faulkner)
- Mar 19 Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen, Flemish (court)painter
- Mar 20 Franciscus L Kersteman, Dutch lawyer/astrologist
- Mar 22 Anton Raphael Mengs, German Bohemian painter and one of the precursors to Neoclassical painting, born in Ústí nad Labem, Bohemia (d. 1779)
- Mar 22 Giacomo Insanguine, Italian organist and composer, born in Monopoli (d. 1795)
- Apr 2 Franz Asplmayr, Austrian composer, born in Linz (d. 1786)
- Apr 16 Joseph Black, Scottish chemist and physicist known for his discoveries of magnesium, latent heat and carbon dioxide, born in Bordeaux, France (d. 1799)
- Apr 19 Francisco Albergati Capacelli, Italian writer and playwright, born in Bologna (d. 1804)
- Apr 23 Samuel Wallis, English explorer (Wallis Island), born in Camelford, Cornwall (d. 1795)
- Jun 15 Pietro Alessandro Pavona, Italian composer (d. 1786)
- Jul 3 Robert Adam, Scottish architect and designer (Adelphi Terrace, London), born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland (d. 1792)
- Jul 16 Henri Moreau, Flemish composer, born in Liège (d. 1803)
- Aug 26 Johann Heinrich Lambert, German scientist (d. 1777)
- Aug 28 John Stark, American military officer (Battle of Bennington), born in Londonderry, New Hampshire (d. 1822)
- Aug 29 Maria Anna Sophia of Saxony, Electress of Bavaria, born in Dresden Castle, Dresden, Germany (d. 1797)
- Sep 21 Louis Emmanuel Jadin, French composer, born in Versailles, France (d. 1853)
- Oct 3 Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont, French spy and transvestite, born in Tonnerre, France (d. 1810)
- Oct 7 Caesar Rodney, Delaware, judge/signer (Declaration of Independence)
James Cook
Oct 27 James Cook, British explorer, navigator and cartographer who was the first European to explore much of Australia, the Pacific Islands and New Zealand, born in Marton, Yorkshire, England (d. 1779)
James Cook
- Dec 2 Ferdinando Galiani, Italian economist (Della Moneta), born in Chieti, Italy (d. 1787)
- Dec 8 Johann Georg von Zimmermann, Swiss philosophical author and physician, born in Brugg, Aargau, Switzerland (d. 1795)
- Dec 9 Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, Italian opera composer, born in Massa, Tuscany, Italy (d. 1804)
- Dec 21 Hermann Friedrich Raupach, German composer, born in Stralsund, Germany (d. 1778)
- Dec 22 Charles Frederick, Margrave, Elector and later Grand Duke of Baden, born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany (d. 1811)
- Dec 25 Johann Adam Hiller, German composer, born in Wendisch-Ossig, Saxony (d. 1804)