- Jan 2 Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.
Mirabeau National Assembly President
Jan 30 Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau elected President of the French National Assembly
- Feb 25 1st Bank of US chartered
- Mar 2 Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris
- Mar 3 1st US internal revenue act (taxing distilled spirits & carriages)
- Mar 3 Congress establishes US Mint
- Mar 4 First Jewish member of US Congress, Israel Jacobs (PA), takes office
- Mar 4 President Washington calls the US Senate into its first special session
- Mar 4 Vermont admitted as 14th state (1st addition to the 13 colonies)
- Mar 10 John Stone of Concord, Massachusetts, patents a pile driver
- Mar 10 Pope condemns France's Civil Constitution of the clergy
- Mar 11 Samuel Mulliken is 1st to obtain more than one US patent
Tam o’ Shanter
Mar 18 Robert Burns poem “Tam o’ Shanter,” is published in the "Edinburgh Herald"
- Mar 21 Captain Hopley Yeaton becomes 1st commissioned officer in the Revenue Marine, later the Revenue Cutter Service, the forerunner of the modern US Coast Guard
- May 3 Constitution of May 3 is proclaimed by the Great Sejm (Parliament) of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, becoming the 1st modern constitution in Europe
Self-denying Ordinance
May 15 Maximilien Robespierre proposes the self-denying ordinance, making it so that no deputy who sat in the Constituent Assembly could sit in the succeeding Assembly
- Jun 15 Spaniard Jose Maria Narvaez is the first European to explore the Strait of Georgia (British Columbia)
The Priestley Riots
Jul 14 The Priestley Riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England
Champ de Mars Massacre
Jul 17 Members of the French National Guard under command of General Lafayette open fire on crowd of radical Jacobins at Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing up to 50 people
Banneker Criticizes Jefferson on Slavery
Aug 19 Benjamin Banneker sends a copy of his Almanac and writes a letter to Thomas Jefferson criticizing his pro-slavery stance and requesting justice for African Americans using language from the Declaration of Independence
Jefferson Writes to Banneker
Aug 30 Thomas Jefferson responds to Benjamin Banneker's letter on the issue of slavery writing that "no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition" of blacks "to what it ought to be" [1]
- Sep 3 French Revolution: The new French Constitution, declaring France a constitutional monarchy, is passed by the National Assembly
- Sep 13 France's King Louis XVI accepts constitution
- Sep 30 Mozart's opera "Magic Flute", with German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, premieres at Schikaneder's Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria
- Sep 30 The National Constituent Assembly in Paris is dissolved; Parisians hail Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as incorruptible patriots
- Oct 1 1st session of new French legislative assembly
- Nov 3 Battle at Wabash: Indians assault general St Clair, 637 soldiers killed
- Nov 15 1st Catholic college in US, Georgetown, opens
First US Cabinet Meeting
Nov 26 1st US cabinet meeting, held at George Washington's home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph attend.
- Nov 29 Chatham Islands sighted by HMS Chatham commanded by William Broughton
First Issue of The Observer
Dec 4 Britain's "The Observer" is first published, the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world
Bill of Rights
Dec 15 US Bill of Rights ratified when Virginia gives its approval, becomes amendments 1-10 of the US constitution
- Dec 17 NYC traffic regulation creates 1st 1-way street
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists