Historical Events in 1799

Jan 9 British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces income tax to raise funds for the war against Napoleon

Jan 14 Eli Whitney receives government contract for 10,000 muskets

Jan 14 King of Naples flees before advancing French armies
Jan 17 Maltese patriot Dun Mikiel Xerri, along with a number of other patriots, is executed
Jan 25 1st US patent for a seeding machine, Eliakim Spooner, Vermont
Feb 9 USS Constellation captures French frigate Insurgents off Nevis, W I
Feb 13 1st US law regulating insurance passed by Massachusetts legislature
Feb 15 1st US printed ballots authorized, Pennsylvania
Feb 25 1st federal forestry legislation authorizes purchase of timber land
Feb 25 US Congress passes 1st federal quarantine legislation
Mar 2 Congress standardizes US weights & measures

Mar 6 Napoleon Bonaparte captures city of Jaffa, Palestine, after a 5 day siege, defeating the Ottoman Empire

Mar 7 The Royal Institution of Great Britain founded; dedicated to scientific research and education.
Mar 12 Austria declares war on France
Mar 19 Joseph Haydn's "Die Schopfung" premieres in Vienna
Mar 26 Napoleon captures Jaffa, Palestine
Mar 28 New York State abolishes slavery
Mar 29 New York passes a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state
Apr 16 Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Mount Tabor - Napoleon drives Ottoman Turks across the River Jordan near Acre.
Apr 20 Friedrich von Schiller's "Wallensteins Tod" premieres in Weimar
May 4 Fourth Anglo-Mysore War: The Battle of Seringapatam: The siege of Seringapatam ends when the city is assaulted and the Tipu Sultan killed by the besieging British army, under the command of General George Harris.
May 22 Napoleon makes statement in support of re-establishing Jerusalem for Jews

Jun 5 Naturalists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland set sail in the Pizarro from A Coruña and begin their 5 year Latin American expedition

Jun 22 Britain and Russia decide to invade Batavian Republic
Jul 7 Ranjit Singh's men take up their positions outside Lahore
Jul 15 The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign

Jul 24 William Clark (of Lewis & Clark) is willed the slave York

Jul 25 French-Egyptian forces under Napoleon I beat Turks at Battle of Abukir
Aug 13 British fleet under Lord Seymour overthrows Suriname
Aug 23 Napoleon leaves Egypt for France en route to seize power.
Aug 27 British invasion army lands in North Holland
Aug 30 Batavian fleet surrenders to British
Sep 1 Bank of Manhattan Company opens in NYC (forerunner to Chase Manhattan)
Oct 2 Duke of York & Russians capture Alkmaar in Netherlands
Oct 6 Battle of Castricum: Franco-Dutch army beats British-Russian army
Oct 9 Sinking of British frigate HMS Lutine, with the loss of 240 men and cargo worth £1,200,000 off Dutch coast
Oct 10 Convention of Alkmaar: British-Russian invasion army departs Holland
Oct 22 Russia leaves second anti-French Coalition
Nov 9 Napoleon Bonaparte pulls off a coup and becomes the dictator of France under the title of First Consul
Nov 12 Andrew Ellicott makes the first known record of a meteor shower observation in the U.S, from a ship off the coast of Florida Keys
Dec 10 Metric system adopted in France, first country to do so

Dec 18 George Washington's body interred at Mount Vernon

Dec 24 Jacobin plot against Napoleon uncovered
Dec 26 George Washington is eulogized by Colonel Henry Lee as "1st in war, 1st in peace & 1st in hearts of his countrymen"