Mozart's "Dissonance Quartet"
Jan 14 Mozart completes his String Quartet No. 19 in C ("Dissonance quartet"), the last of six quartet set dedicated to Joseph Haydn (Op. 10/6, K. 465)
Governor of Massachusetts Resigns
Jan 29 In a surprising announcement, John Hancock resigns as Governor of Massachusetts, allegedly due to his failing health
- Mar 1 Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Agriculture organized
Uniformitarianism
Mar 7 Geologist James Hutton presents his full theory of uniformitarianism at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- Mar 22 Dutch Republic leader Quint Ondaatje 26) demands democracy in speech at Utrecht city hall
British Poet Laureate
Apr 20 Thomas Warton appointed the eighth British Poet Laureate by King George III
Charter to the Nobility
Apr 21 Catherine II of Russia confers on the nobility the "Charter to the Nobility", increasing further the power of the landed oligarchs
- May 9 British inventor Joseph Bramah patents beer-pump handle
Franklin Invents Bifocals
May 23 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals
- Jun 15 Two French balloonists die in world's 1st fatal aviation accident
- Jul 4 Geologist James Hutton publicly reads an abstract of his theory of uniformitarianism for the first time at the meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
- Jul 6 US Congress unanimously resolves the name of US currency to the "dollar" and adopts decimal coinage
- Jul 12 1st manned flight by gas balloon in Netherlands
- Aug 1 Caroline Herschel becomes 1st woman to discover a comet
Graduation of Napoléon Bonaparte
Sep 28 Napoléon Bonaparte, aged 16, graduates from the elite École Militaire in Paris (42nd in a class of 51)
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