John Harrison (1693-1776)
Mar 24 English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer to calculate longitude while at sea, dies at 82
- Mar 26 Samuel Ward, American politician (31st and 33rd Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations), dies at 50
- Apr 19 Jacob Israel Emden [Jacob ben Tswi], German rabbi, dies at 78
- Apr 22 Johann Adolph Scheibe, German music theorist and composer, dies at 67
- Apr 24 Carolus van de Abeele, Flemish Jesuit, dies at 84
- Apr 24 Giuseppe Paolucci, Italian composer, dies at 49
- Apr 29 Edward Wortley Montagu, English traveler and writer (b. 1713)
- May 4 Jacques Saly, French sculptor, dies at 58
- May 6 James Kent, English composer, dies at 76
- May 13 Anton de Haen, Austrian medical expert (Ratio Medendi), dies at 71
- Jun 10 Leopold Widhalm, Austrian luthier, dies at 53
- Jun 20 Benjamin Huntsman, English inventor and manufacturer, dies at 72
- Jun 27 Thomas Hickey, plan to hand George Washington to British, executed
- Jun 28 Thomas Hickey, American sergeant convicted of treason, hanged
- Jul 1 Francis Salvador, 1st Jew to die in American Revolutionary War
- Jul 7 Jeremiah Markland, English classical scholar (b. 1693)
- Jul 10 Richard Peters, English-born clergyman (b. 1704)
- Aug 2 Louis François I, Prince of Conti, French nobleman and military leader, dies at 58
David Hume (1711-1776)
Aug 25 Scottish philosopher and historian (A Treatise of Human Nature), dies of abdominal cancer at 65
Nathan Hale (1755-1776)
Sep 22 American Revolutionary War patriot, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country", hanged by the British for spying at 21
- Oct 17 Pierre François le Courayer, French theologian (b. 1681)
- Nov 17 James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer, dies at 66
- Nov 22 Johann Caspar Simon, German organist and composer, dies at 75
- Nov 26 Dov Baer of Mezhirech, hassidic rabbi, dies
- Dec 26 Johann Rall, German Hessian commander, dies in Battle of Trenton in American Revolutionary War at 50
Assassination
Drug Overdose
Gunshot Wound
Murder
Plane Crash
Suicide