- Jan 1 Date of action in the opera "Madeleine"
- Jan 13 Pierre de Beaumarchais' "Les Deux Amis" premieres in Paris
- Jan 19 Battle of Golden Hill (Lower Manhattan)
Election of Interest
Jan 28 Frederick North becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain after Augustus FitzRoy resigns
Event of Interest
Mar 5 Boston Massacre (Incident on King Street): British soldiers kill 5 men in a crowd throwing snowballs, stones and sticks at them. African American Crispus Attucks 1st to die; later held up as early black martyr. Massacre galvanizes anti-British feelings.
Appointment of Interest
Mar 31 Immanuel Kant is appointed Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Königsberg
Historic Discovery
Apr 19 British explorer Captain James Cook first sights Australia. Writes in his log book that “what we have as yet seen of this land appears rather low, and not very hilly, the face of the Country green and Woody, but the Sea shore is all a white Sand.”
- Apr 20 Captain James Cook arrives in New South Wales
- Apr 28 British Captain James Cook, aboard the Endeavour, lands at Botany Bay in Australia
- May 26 The Orlov Revolt, a first attempt to revolt against the Turks before the Greek War of Independence ends in disaster for the Greeks.
- Jun 3 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo founded in California
- Jun 11 Captain James Cook discovers Great Barrier Reef off Australia
- Jun 19 Emanuel Swedenborg reports the completion of the Second Coming of Christ in his work True Christian Religion
- Jun 19 General Church of New Jerusalem established
- Jun 28 Quakers open a school for blacks in Philadelphia
- Jul 5 First day of three day naval Battle of Chesma between the Russian and Ottoman Empires off the coast of Anatolia won by the Russians
- Aug 1 Battle of Kagul: smaller Russian army defeats larger Ottoman and Cossack force in Moldavia, the major land battle of the Russo-Turkish War and one of the largest battles of the 18th century
- Aug 22 James Cook's expedition lands on the east coast of Australia
Music History
Dec 17 Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer (5th Symphony; Ode to Joy), baptized in Bonn, Electorate of Cologne (d. 1827) [birthdate undocumented, but assumed as 12/16 based on local custom at the time]
