Events in History
Election of Interest
Feb 4 1st US electoral college chooses George Washington as President and John Adams as Vice-President
George Washington
John Adams
Constitution of the United States
Mar 4 1st US Congress meets and declares constitution in effect (9 senators, 13 reps)
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- Mar 4 US House of Representatives 1st full meeting, NYC, F Muhlenberg 1st speaker
Event of Interest
Mar 11 Benjamin Banneker and Pierre Charles L'Enfant begin to lay out Washington, D.C.
Benjamin Banneker
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
- Apr 4 1st US Congress begins regular sessions during George Washington's presidency at Federal Hall, NYC (ending 1791)
- Apr 16 George Washington heads for 1st presidential inauguration
Event of Interest
Apr 21 John Adams sworn in as 1st US Vice President (9 days before Washington)
John Adams
- Apr 23 President-elect George Washington moves into Franklin House, New York
Event of Interest
Apr 28 Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against its captain William Bligh in the South Pacific
William Bligh
- Apr 30 George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States of America
- May 5 French Estates-General meets for the first time since 1614 at Versailles, summoned King Louis XVI
- May 7 First US Presidential inaugural ball (for George Washington in NYC)
- May 12 Society of St Tammany is formed by Revolutionary War soldiers. It later becomes an infamous group of NYC political bosses
Event of Interest
May 12 William Wilberforce makes his first major speech on abolition in the UK House of Commons, reasoning the slave trade morally reprehensible and an issue of natural justice
William Wilberforce
Event of Interest
Jun 8 James Madison introduces a proposed Bill of Rights in the US House of Representatives
James Madison
- Jun 9 Spanish capture British schooner Northwest America near Vancouver Island
- Jun 13 Mrs Alexander Hamilton serves ice cream for dessert to Washington
- Jun 14 Captain William Bligh and his loyal men cast off from HMS Bounty reach Timor, after sailing 5,800 km in a 6-metre launch
- Jun 17 French Revolution: During the meeting of the Estates-General, the Third Estate proclaims itself the 'National Assembly'
- Jun 23 French King Louis XVI rejects the demands of the Third Estate, calling itself the National Assembly, during the opening stages of the French Revolution
- Jun 27 French Revolution: King Louis XVI orders the nobility and clergy of the Estates-General to meet with the Third Estate, by then called the National Assembly
- Jul 4 1st US tariff act signed by President Washington
- Jul 6 French Revolution: the National Assembly forms a committee of thirty members to write a new constitution
- Jul 9 French Revolution: the National Assembly renames itself the National Constituent Assembly
- Jul 11 French King Louis XVI dismisses finance minister Jacques Necker, sparking riots in Paris
Bastille Day
Jul 14 Bastille Day - the French Revolution begins with the fall of the Bastille Prison
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- Jul 15 Gilbert du Motier, marquis de La Fayette, is named by acclamation colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris
Event of Interest
Jul 16 French King Louis XVI reinstates Jacques Necker as finance minister following riots at his dismissal
Jacques Necker
Louis XVI
- Jul 27 US Congress establishes Department of Foreign Affairs now referred to as the State Department
- Aug 1 US Customs begins enforcing Tariff Act
- Aug 4 French Revolution: The National Constituent Assembly meets and issues the first decrees that abolish centuries of feudalism in France
- Aug 7 US Congress creates Department of War and Lighthouse Service
- Aug 23 French Revolution: The National Assembly proclaims freedom of religious opinions
- Aug 24 French Revolution: The National Assembly proclaims freedom of speech
- Aug 26 The National Constituent Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen at the beginning of the French Revolution
- Aug 27 French National Assembly issues "Declaration of Rights of Man & Citizen"
Historic Discovery
Aug 28 William Herschel discovers Saturn's moon Enceladus
William Herschel
- Sep 2 US Treasury Department established by Congress
Event of Interest
Sep 11 Alexander Hamilton appointed 1st Secretary of Treasury
Alexander Hamilton
- Sep 13 1st loan to US government (from NYC banks)
- Sep 15 US Department of Foreign Affairs, renamed Department of State
- Sep 17 William Herschel discovers Mimas, satellite of Saturn
- Sep 18 1st loan is made to pay salaries of the presidents & Congress
- Sep 22 US Congress passes act requiring the first Postmaster General to report to the President through the Secretary of the Treasury
- Sep 24 US Congress establishes Post Office Department following the new constitution
- Sep 24 US Federal Judiciary Act is passed & creates a six-person Supreme Court
Event of Interest
Sep 24 President George Washington nominates John Jay for 1st Chief Justice
John Jay
Event of Interest
Sep 26 Thomas Jefferson appointed 1st US Secretary of State; John Jay becomes 1st US Chief Justice
Thomas Jefferson
John Jay
- Sep 26 Edmund J Randolph becomes 1st US Attorney General
- Sep 29 US War Department established a regular army
- Oct 2 George Washington transmits the proposed Constitutional amendments (The United States Bill of Rights) to the States for ratification
- Oct 3 Washington proclaims 1st national Thanksgiving Day on Nov 26
- Oct 5 French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles in the March on Versailles to confront Louis XVI about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand bread, and have the King and his court moved to Paris
- Oct 6 French Revolution: Louis XVI returns to Paris from Versailles after being confronted by the Parisian women on 5 October
- Oct 12 French Revolution: King Louis XVI writes secretly to the King of Spain about complaining of harsh treatment; the Count of Artois writes to the Austrian king requesting military intervention in France
- Oct 15 1st presidental tour-George Washington in New England
- Oct 21 French Revolution: The National Assembly declares martial law in France to prevent uprisings
- Nov 5 Fleeing slaves under Bonni attack military post on Suriname
- Nov 5 French National Meeting declares all citizens equal under law
- Nov 6 Pope Pius VI appoints Father John Carroll as the first Catholic bishop in the United States.
- Nov 8 Bourbon Whiskey 1st distilled from corn by Elijah Craig in Bourbon, Kentucky
- Nov 13 Ben Franklin writes "Nothing . . . certain but death & taxes"
- Nov 20 New Jersey is 1st state to ratify Bill of Rights
- Nov 21 North Carolina ratifies constitution, becomes 12th US state
- Nov 26 1st national Thanksgiving in America
Birthdays in History
- Jan 3 Carl G Carus, German physician/psychologist/philosopher
- Jan 4 Benjamin Lundy, philanthropist/abolitionist
- Jan 17 August Neander, German theologian (d. 1850)
- Feb 9 Franz Xaver Gabelsberger, German inventor of the stenography (d. 1849)
- Mar 4 Pavel P Gagarin, Russ monarch
- Mar 16 Georg Ohm, German physicist and mathematician (Ohm's law), born in Erlangen, Bavaria (d. 1854)
- May 28 Bernard Severin Ingemann, Danish author (Tomorrow- og Aftensange)
- Jun 15 Josiah Henson, American slave and settlement founder (d. 1883)
- Jun 30 E J Horace Vernet, French painter
- Jul 6 Maria Isabella of Spain, queen of the Two Sicilies (d. 1846)
- Jul 19 John Martin, English painter and engraver, born in Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, England (d. 1854)
- Aug 21 Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician and physicist, born in Paris (d. 1857)
- Aug 26 Abbas Mirza, Prince of Persia (d. 1833)
- Aug 28 Stéphanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden, born in Versailles, France (d. 1860)
- Sep 9 William Cranch Bond, American astronomer (codiscovered Hyperion)
James Fenimore Cooper
Sep 15 James Fenimore Cooper, 1st major American novelist (Last of Mohicans), born in Burlington, New Jersey
James Fenimore Cooper
- Sep 28 Richard Bright, England, physician (Bright's Disease/nephritis)
- Oct 3 Francis Hoyt Gregory, Rear Admiral (Union Navy), (d. 1866)
- Oct 8 John Ruggles, American politician, born in Westborough, Massachusetts (d. 1874)
- Oct 8 William John Swainson, English naturalist and artist, born in Newington, London (d. 1855)
- Oct 14 Constant van Crombrugghe, Flemish monastery founder
- Oct 16 William Burton, Governor of Delaware (1859-63) (d. 1866)
- Oct 24 Jean Chrétien Baud, Dutch gov-gen of Dutch-Indies (1834-36), born in The Hague, Netherlands (d. 1859)
Weddings in History
Wedding of Interest
Oct 26 Lexicographer Noah Webster (31) weds Rebecca Greenleaf
Noah Webster
Deaths in History
Ethan Allen
Feb 12 Ethan Allen, American Revolutionary War patriot (lead the Green Mountain Boys), dies of an apoplectic fit at 51
Ethan Allen
- Feb 19 Nicholas Van Dyke, American lawyer and President of Delaware, dies at 50
- Apr 7 Peter Camper, anatomist/animal scholar, dies at 66
- Apr 7 Abd-ul-Hamid I, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1725)
- Apr 26 Peter I Panin, Russian general (Pugatshov-uprising), dies at about 67
- May 25 Anders Dahl, Swedish botanist (b. 1751)
- Jun 12 Jean E Liotard, [Turk], Swiss painter (Maria-Theresia), dies
- Jul 13 Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, French economist (b. 1715)
- Jul 14 Jacques de Flesselles, French provost (assassinated) (b. 1721)
- Jul 14 Bernard-René de Launay, governor of the Bastille, murdered during the Storming of the Bastille (b.1740)
- Jul 22 Joseph-François Foulon, French politician, dies at 74
- Aug 25 Mary Ball Washington, mother of George, dies
- Sep 23 John Rogers, American Continental Congressman (b. 1723)
- Sep 28 Thomas Day, author, killed by fall from a horse at Wargrave Berkshire
- Oct 24 Lucretia W van Winter-van Merken, Dutch poet, dies at 68
- Oct 27 John Cook, American farmer and Governor of Delaware (b. 1730)
- Dec 3 Claude-Joseph Vernet, French seascape painter, dies
- Dec 12 John Ponsonby, Irish politician, dies at 76
- Dec 23 Charles-Michel de l'Épée, French philanthropist (b. 1712)