Timeline 1771-1779
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1771 Apr 13,
Richard Trevithick, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in
Cornwall, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.4)
1771 May 14, Robert Owen, English
factory owner, socialist, was born.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1771 May 14, Thomas Wedgwood,
English physicist, was born. He is acknowledged as the first
photographer.
(HN, 5/14/99)
1771 Jun 3, Sydney Smith,
preacher, reformer, author, was born in Woodford, Essex.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1771 Jun 12, Patrick Gass, Sgt. of
Lewis & Clark Expedition, was born in Falling Springs, PA.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1771 Jun 24, E.I. Du Pont,
chemist, was born.
(HN, 6/24/98)
1771 Jul 12, James Cook sailed
Endeavour back to Downs, England.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1771 Jul 14, Father Junipero Serra
founded the Mission San Antonio de Padua in California.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)(MC, 7/14/02)
1771 Jul 30, Thomas Gray (54),
English poet, died. His work included "Elegy Written in a Country
Church Yard" (1751).
(MC, 7/30/02)
1771 Aug 15, Sir Walter Scott
(d.1832), Scottish novelist who wrote "Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy," was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.1281)(HN, 8/15/98)
1771 Sep 8, Mission San Gabriel
Archangel was formed in California.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1771 Sep 10, The Scottish explorer
Mungo Park (d.1806) was born. He settled the question as to the
direction of flow of the Niger River as he traced the northern reaches
of the African river in the 1790s. Park was one of the first explorers
sponsored by England's African Association. He died in 1806 on another
expedition to determine if the Niger linked with the Congo River. He
reportedly drowned while fleeing attackers near Bussa, which is in
present-day Nigeria.
(HNQ, 6/6/98)
1771 Sep 17, Tobias George
Smollett, novelist (Adventures of Roderick Random), died at 50.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1771 Nov 4, Carlo Goldoni's "Le
Bourru Bienfaisant," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1771 Nov 6, Alois Senefelder,
inventor (lithography), was born.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1771 Nov 11, Ephraim McDowell,
surgeon (pioneered abdominal surgery), was born.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1771 Dec 26, Claude A.
Helvétius (56), French encyclopedist (L'esprit), died.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1771 Fedot Ivanovich Choubine,
Russian sculptor and painter, carved a bust of Catherine the Great.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.126)(http://tinyurl.com/y4ydna)
1771 A color engraving from this
year of the fish Acarauna is on display at the Mariner's Museum Library
in Newport News, Va., USA.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.97)
1771 Mark Catesby had his work:
"The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands"
printed in London.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1771 In California Father Junipero
Serra moved the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Rio Carmelo over from
Monterey. The Carmel mission was his 7th.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
1771 Benjamin Banneker, black
mathematician and surveyor, helped create the initial boundaries of
Washington D.C.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-7)
1771 By this time some 50,000
British convicts were dumped on American shores. Most of them came from
Middlesex, the county that includes London.
(SFEC, 10/27/96, p.T9)
1771 A group of 79 underwriters
established their Society of Lloyd's, Lloyd's of London, at the Lloyd's
coffee shop.
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.89)
1771 Britain’s Parliament named
Benjamin Franklin to a committee to investigate how lightning rods
might help protect gunpowder.
(WSJ, 8/15/05, p.D8)
1771 Joseph Priestley, English
minister, grasped the rudiments of the carbon cycle after his
experiments showed that mint in a sealed jar refreshed the air.
(NG, Feb, 04, p.28)
1771 In Mexico Father Toribio
Basterrechea, vicar of Huachinango, was convicted by the Inquisition of
officiating at the marriage of two dogs. He was sentenced to 4 months
of fasting and penance.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1771-1858 Johann Baptist Cramer, composer and
pianist, played Bach in public before 1800.
(LGC-HCS, p.32)
1772 Feb 10, Louis Tocque (75),
French painter, died.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1772 Mar 10, Friedrich Von
Schlegel (d.1829) was born. He was a German romantic poet and critic
whose books included "Philosophy of History" and "History of
Literature." "A historian is a prophet in reverse."
(AP, 5/25/97)(HN, 3/10/99)
1772 Apr 11, Manuel Jose Quintana,
Spanish author, poet (El Duque de Viseo), was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1772 May 10, British Parliament
passed the Tea Act, taxing all tea in the colonies. [see Apr 27, 1973]
(HN, 5/10/98)
1772 May 11, Joseph Kerckhoff,
Limburg surgeon, robber captain, was hanged.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1772 May 20, William Congreve,
English officer (design fire rocket), was born.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1772 Jun 6, Haitian explorer Jean
Baptiste-Pointe DuSable settled Chicago. [see Mar 12, 1773]
(MC, 6/6/02)
1772 Jun 9, The 1st naval attack
of Revolutionary War took place when residents of Providence, RI.,
stormed the HMS Gaspee, burned it to the waterline and shot the captain.
(WSJ, 6/24/03, p.A1)
1772 Jun 22, Slavery was in effect
outlawed in England by Chief Justice William Murray, First Earl of
Mansfield, following the trial of James Somersett. In 2005 Steven Wise
authored “Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial that Led to
the End of Human Slavery.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somersett%27s_Case)(Econ, 2/5/05,
p.76)(ON, 12/08, p.9)
1772 Jul 13, Capt James Cook began
a 2nd trip on the ship Resolution to South Seas.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1772 Aug 11, An explosive eruption
blew 4,000 feet off Papandayan, Java, and 3,000 people were killed.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1772 Aug 19, Gustavus III of
Sweden eliminated the rule of parties and establishes an absolute
monarchy. It had been subordinate to parliament since 1720.
(HN, 8/19/98)(MC, 8/19/02)
1772 Sep 1, Mission San Luis
Obispo de Tolosa formed in California. Father Junipero Serra held the
1st Mass at San Luis Obispo. He left Father Jose Cavalier the task of
building the state’s 5th mission.
(SFEC, 10/11/98, p.T6)(MC, 9/1/02)(SSFC, 10/20/02,
p.C1)
1772 Sep 26, New Jersey passed a
bill requiring a license to practice medicine.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1772 Oct 4, Francois-Louis Pierne,
composer, was born.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1772 Oct 21, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (d.1834), English poet and author, was born. His work
included "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan".
(AP, 9/12/97)(HN, 10/21/00)
1772 Oct 30, Capt. Cook arrived
with ship Resolution in Capetown.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1772 Nov 2, The first Committees
of Correspondence were formed in Massachusetts under Samuel Adams.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1772 Dec 22, A Moravian missionary
constructed the 1st schoolhouse west of Allegheny.
(MC, 12/22/01)
1772 Beaumarchais wrote his
"Barber" as an opera. Rossini later adopted it for his opera "Barber of
Seville."
(SFC, 8/13/96, p.B2)
1772 After Father Serra
established a mission in Monterey, Ca, Pedro Fages and Father Juan
Crespi set out to explore the SF Bay by land.
(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)
1772 Daniel Rutherford discovered
nitrogen.
(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)
1772 Shoelaces were invented in
England.
(SFC, 8/28/98, p.B4)
1772 The Paris Faculty of Medicine
declared potatoes to be an edible food.
(SSFC, 10/5/08, p.A15)
1772 In Germany the silver and
most of the silver-gilt in the Green Vault of Dresden was melted down
and made into coin.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.95)
1772 Upon the partition of
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth the Kingdom of Galicia and
Lodomeria, or simply Galicia, became the largest, most populous, and
northernmost province of Austria where it remained until the
dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Central_Europe))
1772-1801 Friedrich von Hardenberg, aka Novalis,
visionary Romantic poet, novelist and political theorist. In 1997 a
novel by English author Penelope Fitzgerald, "The Blue Flower," gave an
account of his life.
(WSJ, 4/8/97, p.A20)
1772-1811 Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the grandson of
the founder of Hasidism, used storytelling to teach his followers.
(WSJ, 6/28/99, p.A24)
1772-1823 David Ricardo, English Economist and
stockbroker. He postulated that landlords become rich at the expense of
society.
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1773 Jan 12, The first public
museum in America was established, in Charleston, S.C.
(AP, 1/12/98)
1773 Jan 17, Captain James Cook
became the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle (66d 33'
S).
(HN, 1/17/99)(MC, 1/17/02)
1773 Feb 9, William Henry
Harrison, the 9th president of the United States (March 4- April 4,
1841), was born in Charles City County, Va.
(HN, 2/9/97)(AP, 2/9/99)(MC, 2/9/02)
1773 Feb 26, Construction was
authorized for Walnut St. jail in Philadelphia, (1st solitary).
(SC, 2/26/02)
1773 Mar 12, Jeanne Baptiste
Pointe de Sable settled what is now known as Chicago. [see Jun 6, 1772]
(MC, 3/12/02)
1773 Mar 26, Nathaniel Bowditch
(d.1838), mathematician, astronomer, polyglot, author (Marine Sextant),
was born in Salem, Mass. In 1802 he published "The New American
Practical Navigator."
(SS, 3/26/02)(AH, 12/02, p.22)
1773 Apr 6, James Mill (d.1836),
English philosopher, historian (Hist of British India) and economist,
was born in Scotland.
(V.D.-H.K.p.253)(WUD, 1994 p.909)(MC, 4/6/02)
1773 Apr 27, British Parliament
passed the Tea Act. [see May 10, 1772]
(HN, 4/27/98)
1773 May 10, To keep the troubled
East India Company afloat, Parliament passed the Tea Act, taxing all
tea in the American colonies.
(HN, 5/10/99)
1773 May 15, Prince Clemens Von
Metternich (d.1859), Chancellor of Austria, was born in Coblenz. His
policies dominated Europe after the Congress of Vienna.
(HN, 5/15/99)(WUD, 1994 ed., p.903)
1773 Jul 20, Scottish settlers
arrived at Pictou, Nova Scotia (Canada).
(MC, 7/20/02)
1773 Jul 21, Pope Clement XIV
abolished the Jesuit order. He disbanded, defrocked, and stripped them
of their sustenance. They were ignored by other orders and denounced as
schemers and plotters. The Jesuits finally regained respectability in
1814after flourishing underground.
(HN, 7/21/98)(MC, 7/21/02)
1773 Sep 1, Phillis Wheatley
(d.1834), a slave from Boston, published a collection of poetry, "Poems
on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," in London. Although she
received her freedom soon after, Wheatley’s last years saw only misery.
(HN, 9/1/99)(HNPD, 2/21/00)
1773 Sep 11, Benjamin Franklin
wrote "There never was a good war or bad peace."
(MC, 9/11/01)
1773 Sep 14, Russian forces under
Aleksandr Suvorov successfully stormed a Turkish fort at Hirsov, Turkey.
(HN, 9/14/99)
1773 Oct 14, Britain's East India
Company tea ships' cargo was burned at Annapolis, Md.
(HN, 10/14/98)
1773 Nov 22, Robert Clive (~48),
English occupier (India), died.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1773 Dec 16, Some 50-60 "Sons of
Liberty" of revolutionary Samuel Adams disguised as Mohawks defied the
3 cents per pound tax on tea boarded a British East India Tea
Company ship and dumped 342 chests of British tea into the Boston
Harbor in what became known as the Boston Tea Party. Parliament had
passed the 1773 Tea Act not to regulate trade or make the colonies pay
their own administrative costs, but to save the nearly bankrupt British
East India Tea Company. The Tea Act gave the company a monopoly over
the American tea trade and authorized the sale of 17 million pounds of
tea in America at prices cheaper than smuggled Dutch tea. In spite of
the savings, Americans would not accept what they considered to be
taxation without representation. Overreacting to the Boston Tea Party,
the British attempted to punish Boston and the whole colony of
Massachusetts with the Intolerable Acts of 1774--another in the series
of events that ultimately led to American independence. A bill for the
tea ($196) was paid Sep 30, 1961.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(A&IP, Miers,
p.18)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(AP, 12/16/97)(HNPD, 12/16/98)(MC,
9/30/01)
1773 Dec 26, Expulsion of tea
ships from Philadelphia.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1773 Dec 27, George Cayley,
founder of the science of aerodynamics, was born in England.
(MC, 12/27/01)
1773 Dmitri Levitsky (1735-1822),
Kiev born Russian-Ukrainian artist, painted a portrait of Katerina
Khrouchtchova and princess Katerina Khonanskaia.
(Econ, 12/23/06,
p.126)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Levitsky)
1773 Augustin Pajou, French
sculptor, completed his bust of Madame du Barry.
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A20)
1773 Phillis Wheatley, black poet,
published "Poems on Various Subjects."
(SFEC, 4/30/00, p.C12)
1773 Thomas Jefferson planted
Yellow Newtown Pippin apples at his home in Monticello.
(T&L, 10/1980, p.42)
1773 In England Sir Robert Clive
was acquitted of embezzlement.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1773 A group of English traders
broke away from Jonathan's coffee house and moved to a new building.
This became the forerunner of the London Stock Exchange (f.1801).
(Econ, 12/20/03, p.89)
1773 The Samuel Deacon & Co.
ad agency opened in London.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1773 A large earthquake destroyed
so much of Antigua that the Spanish moved away and built a new capital
on a plateau 30 miles away that became Guatemala City.
(NG, 6/1988, p.798) (SFEM, 6/13/99, p.33)
1773 The Royal Captain, a merchant
ship of the British East India Co., was lost off a coral reef in the
Philippines.
(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W2)
1773 Captain James Cook found a
group of islands 1800 miles northeast of New Zealand. They became known
as the Cook Islands. "A couple of years ago, the Cook Islands hired a
lawyer from the United States to draft an asset protection statute that
instantly made the islands one of the best places in the world to
protect assets from creditors.
(Hem, 8/95, p.38)
1773 In Russia the Cossack
Yemelyan Pugachev, pretending to be the dead emperor Peter III, incited
a widespread rebellion.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1773 Samuel Johnson and James
Boswell toured the countryside of Scotland.
(SFC, 6/25/95, p.T-1)
1773-1777 William Bartram, American Quaker
naturalist, was commissioned by Dr. John Fothergill to travel through
the American South to hunt plants. Bartram’s travels led to the
publication in 1791 of his "Travels Through North and South Carolina,
Georgia, East and West Florida."
(Nat. Hist., 4/96, p.10-12)
1773-1785 Warren Hastings served as the British
governor-general of India. [see 1787]
(WSJ, 5/1/00, p.A24)(WSJ, 2/22/00, p.A20)
1773-1793 Rule of Timur Shah. The capital of
Afghanistan was transferred from Kandahar to Kabul because of tribal
opposition. Constant internal revolts occurred.
(www.afghan, 5/25/98)
1773-1827 Elizabeth de Meulan Guizot, French author:
"Much misconstruction and bitterness are spared to him who thinks
naturally upon what he owes to others, rather than on what he ought to
expect from them."
(AP, 7/18/99)
1773-1833 John Randolph, state representative from
Virginia. He said of Edward Livingston, a mayor of NY and later a
senator from Louisiana and US Sec. Of State, that he "shines and stinks
like rotten mackerel by moonlight."
(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A20)
1774 Feb 10, Andrew Becker
demonstrated a diving suit.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1774 Feb 17, Raphaelle Peale, U.S.
painter, was born.
(HN, 2/17/98)
1774 Feb 22, English House of
Lords ruled that authors do not have perpetual copyright.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1774 Mar 4, The 1st sighting of
the Orion nebula was made by William Herschel.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1774 Mar 7, A 2nd Boston tea party
was held.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)
1774 Mar 7, The British closed the
port of Boston to all commerce.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1774 Mar 25, English Parliament
passed the Boston Port Bill.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1774 Mar 28, Britain passed the
Coercive Act against Massachusetts. [see May 20]
(HN, 3/28/98)
1774 Apr 4, Oliver Goldsmith,
Irish poet (She Stoops to Conquer), died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1774 Apr 19, Gluck's opera
"Iphigenia in Aulis," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1774 Apr, NYC patriots dumped 18
chests of tea off Murray’s Wharf.
(WSJ, 10/16/02, p.D8)
1774 May 10, Louis XV (64), King
of France (1715-74), died of smallpox and was succeeded by his grandson
Louis XVI (19).
(WUD, 1994, p.848)(AP, 5/10/97)(HN, 5/10/99)(PCh,
1992, p.318)
1774 May 19, Ann Lee and eight
Shakers sailed from Liverpool to New York. The religious group
originated in Quakerism and fled England due to religious persecution.
They become the first conscientious objectors on religious grounds and
were jailed during the American Revolution in 1776. In 1998 Suzanne
Skees published "god Among the Shakers." The United Society of
Believers in Christ's Second Appearing is the full, proper name for the
19th-century religious group better known as the Shakers. Although they
were the largest and best-known communal society a century ago, the
Shakers were rarely referred to by their proper name. Outsiders dubbed
them "Shakers" for the movements in their ritualistic dance.
(DTnet 5/19/97)(WSJ, 3/27/98, p.W10)(HNQ, 7/2/98)
1774 May 20, The British
Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their
increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts closed the port of Boston.
[see Mar 28]
(HN, 5/20/99)
1774 May, The conjunction of the
Moon, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in the same constellation spread panic
among the unenlightened in Europe.
(NH, 6/00, p.10)
1774 Jun 1, The Boston Port
Bill, the first bill of the Intolerable Acts (called by the Colonists)
became effective. It closed Boston harbor until restitution for the
destroyed tea was made (passed Mar. 25, 1774).
(DTnet 6/1/97)(HN, 6/1/98)
1774 Jun 2, The Quartering Act,
requiring American colonists to allow British soldiers into their
houses, was reenacted.
(HN, 6/2/98)
1774 Jun 13, Rhode Island became
the 1st colony to prohibit importation of slaves.
(MC, 6/13/02)
1774 Jul 11, Jews of Algiers
escaped an attack of the Spanish Army. Jun 11 was also cited for this
event.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1774 Jul 12, Citizens of Carlisle,
Penn., passed a declaration of independence.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1774 Jul 16, Russia and the
Ottoman Empire signed the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, ending their
six-year war. This brought Russia for the first time to the
Mediterranean as the acknowledged protector of Orthodox Christians.
(HN, 7/16/98)(WSJ, 4/29/99, p.A24)
1774 Jul 17, Capt Cook arrived at
New Hebrides (Vanuatu).
(MC, 7/17/02)
1774 Aug 1, British scientist
Joseph Priestley succeeded in isolating oxygen from air in Calne,
England. He called his new gas "dephlogisticated air.”
(ON, 10/05, p.2)(AP, 8/1/07)
1774 Aug 6, Mother Ann Lee,
founder of the Shaker Movement, arrived in NY.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1774 Aug 12, Robert Southey,
English poet laureate (1813-1843) and biographer of Nelson, was born.
(HN, 8/12/98)(SC, 8/12/02)
1774 Aug 18, Meriwether Lewis,
American explorer, was born in Charlottsville, VA. He led the Corps of
Discovery with William Clark.
(HN, 8/18/00)(MC, 8/18/02)
1774 Aug 28, Mother Elizabeth Ann
Seton, the first American-born saint and the founder of the Sisters of
St. Joseph, was born in New York City. She was canonized in 1975..
(AP, 8/28/97)(HN, 8/28/98)(RTH, 8/28/99)
1774 Sep 5, The first Continental
Congress assembled in Philadelphia in a secret session in Carpenter's
Hall with representatives from every colony except Georgia. Tensions
had been tearing at relations between the colonists and the government
of King George III. The British taking singular exception to the 1773
shipboard tea party held in Boston harbor. The dispute convinced
Britain to pass the "Intolerable Acts"- 4 of which were to punish Mass.
for the Boston Tea Party. Peyton Randolph of Williamsburg, Va., chaired
the 1st Continental Congress.
(AP, 9/5/97)(HNQ, 6/25/00)(AH, 10/04, p.14)
1774 Sep 13, Tugot, the new
controller of finances, urged the king of France to restore the free
circulation of grain in the kingdom.
(HN, 9/13/98)
1774 Sep 26, John Chapman
(d.1845), later known as Johnny Appleseed, was born in
Massachusetts. A pioneer agriculturalist of early America,
Chapman began his trek in 1797, collecting apple seedlings from western
Pennsylvania and establishing apple nurseries around the early American
frontier. Chapman was a Swedenborgian missionary, a land speculator, a
heavy drinker and an eccentric dresser (he hated shoes and seldom wore
them. He planted orchards across western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
Indiana from seed.
(www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=94)(T&L, 10/1980,
p.42)(HNQ, 9/4/01)(ON, 4/09, p.10)
1774 Oct 14, Patrick Henry, in
declaring his love of country in a speech during the First Continental
Congress on October 14, 1774, proclaimed, "I am not a Virginian, but an
American."
(HN, 8/2/98)
1774 Oct 20, The Continental
Congress ordered the discouragement of entertainment.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1774 Oct 26, The first Continental
Congress, which protested British measures and called for civil
disobedience, concluded in Philadelphia.
(AP, 10/26/97)(HN, 10/26/98)
1774 Oct 26, Minute Men were
organized in the American colonies.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1774 Nov 14, Gaspare Luigi
Pacifico Spontini, composer, was born.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1774 Nov 26, A congress of
colonial leaders criticized British influence in the colonies and
affirmed their right to "Life, liberty and property."
(HN, 11/26/98)
1774 Dec 2, Johann Friedrich
Agricola (54), German court composer and organist, died.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1774 Dec 13, Some 400 colonists
attacked Ft. William & Mary, NH.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1774 Dec 18, Empress Maria Theresa
expelled Jews from Prague, Bohemia and Moravia.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1774 Dec, In Paris nearly 100 feet
of the Rue d’Enfer ("street of Hell") collapsed to a depth of 100 feet.
(Hem., 3/97, p.129)
1774 Sir Francis Beaufort (d.1857)
hydrogapher, was born near Navan in Co. Meath, Ireland.
(NH, 11/1/04, p.51)
1774 Kaspar David Friedrich
(d.1840), German painter and master of numinous landscapes, was born.
He painted "Wreck of the Hope."
(AAP, 1964)(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1774 John Singleton Copley,
painter, left for England. This allowed his student, Charles Willson
Peale, to step in as the most fashionable colonial portraitist.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.E3)
1774 Goethe published his novel
"Werther." It was later turned into an opera by Massenet.
(WSJ, 1/21/98, p.A16)
1774 Ann Lee, leader of the United
Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, arrived in the New
World. She was a young Englishwoman and led the Shakers in their faith
which is based on celibacy, confession of sin, and belief in human
perfectibility. She never learned to read or write. They withdrew from
the world into their own agricultural communities which spread to Ohio
& Kentucky and produced a wealth of songs, as many as 10,000. One
of the best known is Simple Gifts made famous by Aaron Copland in
Appalachian Spring.
(WSJ, 10/16/95, p. A-12)(SFC, 9/21/96, p.E4)
1774 Nicholas Cresswell,
Englishman, arrived in the US and spent 3 years traveling and meeting
prominent Americans of the time including George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson and British Gen. William Howe. Cresswell kept a journal and
in 2009 it was published as “A Man Apart: The Journal of Nicholas
Cresswell 1774-1781.”
(WSJ, 4/11/09, p.W9)
1774 Tadeusz Kosciusko came to
America from Poland after an unsuccessful love affair. He became a hero
fighting the British in the American war for Independence.
(SFEC, 11/24/96, T7)
1774 A Dutch merchant cobbled
together the earliest mutual-style fund, Eendragt Maakt Magt (Unity
creates Strength). The first modern mutual fund was launched in Boston
in 1924.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.83)
1774 Captain Cook dropped anchor
at the Marquesas Islands.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)
1774 Capt. Cook discovered the
13-square-mile Norfolk Island 1,000 miles east of Sidney. It was later
turned into a penal settlement from which the last prisoner left in
1855.
(AP, 8/12/02)
1774 Captain Cook discovered
Norfolk Island, between new Caledonia and new Zealand, and dubbed it
"paradise" in his log. The British later turned it into a penal colony
and resettled the inhabitants of Pitcairn island there in 1856.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.66)
1774 In England Georgiana Spencer
(1757-1806) married William Cavendish, the 5th Duke of Devonshire.
Spencer was the great-great-great-great-aunt of Princess Diana. In 1999
Amanda Foreman authored "Georgiana," a biography of Georgiana Spencer.
(WSJ, 1/7/00, p.W4)
1774 In England Sir Robert Clive
(b.1725), considered by some as the richest man ever, committed suicide.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
1774 Mexico exported 600 tons of
the cochineal shell, known as carmine, to Spain. The acid color was
extracted from the shell of the tiny red beetle that grew on cactus
leaves. It was used to manufacture a red dye that was used in British
"redcoats" and by Betsy Ross to color the first US flag.
(WSJ, 10/7/98, p.B1)
1774 A Scottish printer finally
overturned a copyright monopoly that had allowed English booksellers to
lock up the works of Shakespeare and other authors for nearly 2
centuries.
(WSJ, 3/26/04, p.W6)
1774 Spain established a small
settlement on the Falkland Islands, which lasted to 1811. An Argentine
outpost was established in the 1820s.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.36)
1774-1781 The British army occupied Manhattan, Staten
Island and western Long Island for 7 years. In 2002 Richard M. Ketchum
authored "Divided Loyalties," an account of the Revolutionary spirit in
NY; Barnet Schecter authored "The Battle for New York," and Judith L.
Van Buskirk authored "Generous Enemies," an account of interactions
between loyalists and rebels during the war.
(WSJ, 10/16/02, p.D8)
1774-1784 The 1997 film "Beaumarchais" by French
director Edouard Molinaro focused on these years.
(SFEC,11/23/97, DB p.14)(SFC,11/28/97, p.C15)
1774-1789 Abdul Hamid I succeeded Mustafa III in the
Ottoman House of Osman.
(Ot, 1993, xvii)
1774-1792 In France King Louis XIV ruled.
(WUD, 1994, p.848)
1774-1852 George Chinnery, English watercolorist. He
lived and worked in Hong Kong, Macao and Canton.
(Hem., 3/97, p.92)
1775 Jan 8, John Baskerville (68),
English printer, type designer, died.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1775 Jan 11, In South Carolina
Francis Salvador became the 1st Jew elected to office in America. [see
Aug 1]
(AH, 2/05, p.16)
1775 Jan 17, 9 old women were
burned as witches for causing bad harvests in Kalisk, Poland.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1775 Jan 22, Marshal Oscar von
Lubomirski expelled Jews from Warsaw, Poland.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1775 Jan 25, Americans dragged
cannon up hill to fight the British at Gun Hill Road, Bronx.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1775 Jan 28, Peter the Great, Czar
of Russia, was born.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1775 Feb 9, English Parliament
declared the Mass. colony was in rebellion.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1775 Feb 10, Charles Lamb
(d.1834), critic, poet, essayist, was born in London, England. "No one
ever regarded the first of January with indifference. It is the
nativity of our common Adam."
(AP, 12/31/97)(MC, 2/10/02)
1775 Feb 12, Louisa Adams, wife of
John Quincy Adams was born.
(HN, 2/12/98)
1775 Feb 21, As troubles with
Great Britain increased, colonists in Massachusetts voted to buy
military equipment for 15,000 men.
(HN, 2/21/99)
1775 Feb 22, Jews were expelled
from the outskirts of Warsaw, Poland.
(MC, 2/22/02)
1775 Mar 17, Richard Henderson, a
North Carolina judge, representing the Transylvania Company, met with
three Cherokee Chiefs (Oconistoto, chief warrior and first
representative of the Cherokee Nation or tribe of Indians, and
Attacuttuillah and Sewanooko) to purchase (for the equivalent of
$50,000) all the land lying between the Ohio, Kentucky and Cumberland
rivers; some 17 to 20 million acres. It was known as the Treaty of
Sycamore Shoals or The Henderson Purchase. The purchase was later
declared invalid but land cession was not reversed.
(www.tngenweb.org/cessions/17750317.html)
1775 Mar 19, In Italy 4 people
were buried by avalanche for 37 days and 3 survived. [not clear if this
was the date of the avalanche or the recovery date.]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1775 Mar 19, Portuguese fleet was
repulsed in attack on Montevideo, Uruguay.
(AP, 3/19/03)
1775 Mar 22, British statesman
Edmund Burke made a speech in the House of Commons, urging the
government to adopt a policy of reconciliation with America.
(AP, 3/22/99)
1775 Mar 23, In a speech to the
Virginia Provincial Convention, American revolutionary Patrick Henry
made his famous plea for independence from Britain, saying, "Give me
liberty, or give me death!"
(AP, 3/23/97)(HN, 3/23/98)
1775 Apr 7, Francis C. Lowell was
born. He founded the 1st raw cotton-to-cloth textile mill.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1775 Apr 8, Adam A. earl von
Neipperg, Austrian general, Napoleon's wife Marie lover, was born.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1775 Apr 13, Lord North extended
the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbade trade with any
country other than Britain and Ireland.
(HN, 4/13/99)
1775 Apr 14, The first American
society for the abolition of slavery was organized by Benjamin Franklin
and Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia.
(AP, 4/14/97)(HN, 4/14/97)
1775 Apr 14, Gen. Thomas Gage,
commander of British forces in North America, received orders from
Parliament authorizing him to use aggressive military force against the
American rebels.
(ON, 3/01, p.2)
1775 Apr 18, Several post riders
set out to warn colonists of the British attack that started the
American Revolution. One patriotic myth that grew out of that movement
began with a poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called "Paul Revere's
Ride." Paul Revere began his famous ride from Charlestown to Lexington,
Mass., warning American colonists that the British were coming.
American revolutionaries Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott
warned that "the British are coming". Only Prescott galloped all the
way to Concord. Revere was corralled by a British cavalry patrol near
Lexington, MA; Dawes and Prescott escaped. A company of over 700
British troops marched toward Concord. 23-year-old church sexton Robert
Newman hung two lanterns in the Old North Church to warn riders that
the British were leaving Boston by boat to march on Concord. Every
April, a descendant of the 18th-century patriot still climbs to the
steeple of Old North Church and hangs two small tin and glass lanterns.
(HN, 4/18/98)(ON, 3/01, p.2)(HNQ, 7/5/01)(AP,
4/18/07)
1775 Apr 19, Alerted by Paul
Revere the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington Common with
the Battle of Lexington-Concord. Capt. John Parker mustered 78
militiamen on the town green of Lexington to send a warning to the 700
British soldiers marching to Concord to seize weapons and gunpowder.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage sent a force of 700 British troops to Concord,
west of Boston, to capture colonial weapons and arrest Patriot leaders
Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Arriving at Lexington on their way to
Concord, the British were met on the town common by about 70 Minutemen.
The "shot heard ‘round the world" ignited the American Revolutionary
War. No one knows who fired the first shot, but when the smoke cleared,
eight Americans lay dead. The British suffered more than 250 casualties
as they opposed more than 1,500 Massachusetts men. The events are
documented in the 1997 book "Liberty by Thomas Fleming." Isaac Davis
was among the first to die at Lexington and Concord.
(HFA, '96, p.28)(V.D.-H.K.p.224)(AP,
4/19/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14) (HN, 4/19/97)(HNPD, 4/19/99)(HNQ,
10/17/00)
1775 Apr 20, British troops began
the siege of Boston.
(HN, 4/20/98)
1775 Apr 23, Joseph Mallord
William Turner, landscape painter, was born in England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner)
1775 Apr 23, Mozart's Opera "Il Re
Pastore" was produced (Salzburg).
(MC, 4/23/02)
1775 May 10, The Second
Continental Congress convened in Pennsylvania and named George
Washington as supreme commander.
(HN, 5/10/98)(MC, 5/10/02)
1775 May 10, Ethan Allen and his
83 Green Mountain Boys captured the British-held fortress at
Ticonderoga, N.Y., on the western shore of Lake Champlain. They took
the entire garrison captive without firing a shot. This was the 1st
aggressive American action in the War of Independence.
(AP, 5/10/97)(HN, 5/10/98)(ON, 3/00, p.4)
1775 May 20, North Carolina became
the first colony to declare its independence. Citizens of Mecklenburg
County, NC, declared independence from Britain.
(HN, 5/20/98)(MC, 5/20/02)
1775 May, George Washington went
to the Philadelphia State House where the Second Continental Congress
was meeting and John Adams moved to name him Commander-in-chief of the
Continental army.
(A & IP, ESM, p.13)
1775 Jun 7, The United Colonies
changed name to United States.
(HN, 6/7/98)
1775 Jun 12, In the 1st naval
battle of Revolution the US ship Unity captured the British ship
Margaretta.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1775 Jun 14, The Continental Army,
forerunner of the United States Army, was founded when the Continental
Congress first authorized the muster of troops under its sponsorship.
(HN, 6/14/98)(AP, 6/14/07)
1775 Jun 15, Word reached the
Americans that the British intended to occupy the Charlestown peninsula.
(HT, 3/97, p.30)
1775 Jun 15, The Second
Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington
head of the Continental Army.
(AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)
1775 Jun 16, American Col. William
Prescott led 1200 men from Cambridge to dig in at Bunker’s Hill but
arrived at night and dug in at Breed’s Hill. A siege on Boston by
Colonial militia generals John Stark and Israel Putnam prompted the
British to attack.
(HT, 3/97, p.30)(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)
1775 Jun 17, The Battle at
Bunker’s Hill was actually fought on Breed’s Hill near Boston. It
lasted less than 2 hours and was the deadliest of the Revolutionary
War. The British captured the hill on their third attempt but suffered
over 1,000 casualties vs. about 400-600 for the Americans. Patriotic
hero Dr. Joseph Warren died in the battle. Patriot General William
Prescott allegedly told his men, "Don't one of you fire until you see
the whites of their eyes!" British casualties were estimated at
226 dead and 828 wounded, while American casualties were estimated at
140 dead and 301 wounded.
(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)(AP, 6/17/98)(HNQ, 4/1/99)(AH,
10/07,
p.72)
1775 Jul 2, George Washington
arrived in Boston and took over as commander-in-chief of the new
Continental Army.
(HT, 3/97, p.33)
1775 Jul 3, Gen. George Washington
took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Mass.
(AP, 7/3/97)
1775 Jul 5, William Crotch,
composer, was born.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1775 Jul 5, The Olive Branch
Petition was adopted by the Continental Congress and professed the
attachment of the American people to George III. It expressed hope for
the restoration of harmony and begged the king to prevent further
hostile actions against the colonies. The following day, Congress
passed a resolution written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, a
"Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms," which
rejected independence but asserted that Americans were ready to die
rather than be enslaved. King George refused to receive the Olive
Branch Petition on August 23 and proclaimed the American colonies to be
in open rebellion.
(HNQ, 7/2/99)
1775 Jul 10, Gen Horatio Gates,
issued an order excluding blacks from Continental Army. [see Oct 8]
(MC, 7/10/02)
1775 Jul 16, John Adams graduated
from Harvard.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1775 Jul 25, Anna Symmes Harrison,
1st lady, was born.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1775 Jul 25, Maryland issued
currency depicting George III trampling the Magna Carta.
(SC, 7/25/02)
1775 Jul 26, The Continental
Congress established a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin
Franklin as the first postmaster general in Philadelphia.
(AP, 7/26/97)(HN, 7/26/98)
1775 Jul 30, Captain Cook returned
to England.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1775 Aug 1, Francis Salvador and
his men were ambushed by a group of Cherokees and Loyalists near
present-day Seneca, South Carolina, while leading a militia group under
the general command of Major Wilkinson. Salvador was wounded and then
scalped by the Cherokees.
(MC, 1/11/02)
1775 Aug 5, Lieutenant Juan Manuel
de Ayala was the first European explorer to sail through the Golden
Gate of California. He anchored at Angel Island and waited for the
overland expedition of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza. Isla de los
Angeles, or Angel Island, was one of the first landforms named by the
Spanish when they entered SF Bay. The Spanish fregata, Punta de San
Carlos, was the first sailing vessel to enter the San Francisco Bay
while on a voyage of exploration. Ayala named Alcatraz Island after a
large flock of pelicans, called alcatraces in Spanish.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(CAS, 1996,
p.19)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W38)(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A28)
1775 Aug 23, Britain's King George
III refused the American colonies' offer of peace and proclaimed the
American colonies in a state of "open and avowed rebellion."
(HN, 8/23/98)(AP, 8/23/07)
1775 Sep 13, Gotthold Lessing's
"Die Juden," premiered in Frankfurt-am-Main.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1775 Sep 25, British troops
captured Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, when he and a handful of
Americans led an attack on Montreal, Canada.
(AP, 9/25/97)(HN, 9/25/98)
1775 Oct 8, Officers decided to
bar slaves and free blacks from Continental Army. [see Jul 10, Oct 23,
Nov 12, Dec 31]
(MC, 10/8/01)
1775 Oct 13, The U.S. Navy had its
origins as the Continental Congress ordered the construction of a naval
fleet. The Continental Congress authorized construction of two
warships. The 1st ship in the US Navy was the schooner Hannah. It was
commissioned by George Washington and outfitted at Beverly, Mass. In
2006 Ian W. Toll authored “Six Frigates: The Epic History of the
Founding of the US Navy.
(AP, 10/13/97)(HN, 10/13/98)(SFC, 2/12/00,
p.B3)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.94)
1775 Oct 16, Portland, Maine, was
burned by British.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1775 Oct 23, Continental Congress
approved a resolution barring blacks from army.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1775 Oct 30, Fr. Lasuen founded
Mission San Juan Capistrano, but the site was abandoned after eight
days when they received word of an attack at the San Diego Mission.
They quickly buried the bells for safe keeping and fled to the Presidio
(fort) in San Diego for shelter.
(http://missions.bgmm.com/sanjuanc.htm)
1775 Nov 7, Lord Dunmore promised
freedom to male slaves who would join the British army.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1775 Nov 10, The US Marines were
organized under authority of the Continental Congress. Congress
commissioned Samuel Nicholas to raise two Battalions of Marines. That
very day, Nicholas set up shop in Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern. He
appointed Robert Mullan, then the proprietor of the tavern, to the job
of chief Marine Recruiter serving, of course, from his place of
business at Tun Tavern.
(AP,
11/10/97)(www.usmcpress.com/heritage/usmc_heritage.htm)
1775 Nov 12, General Washington
forbade the enlistment of blacks.
(MC, 11/12/01)
1775 Nov 12, US Gen. Montgomery
began his siege of St. John’s and brought about the surrender of 600
British troops.
(ON, 3/00, p.6)
1775 Nov 13, American forces under
Gen. Richard Montgomery captured Montreal. This was part of a
two-pronged attack on Canada, with the goal of capturing Quebec
entrusted to Benedict Arnold, who was leading a 1,100 man force through
a hurricane ravaged Maine wilderness. In 2006 Thomas A. Desjardin
authored “Through A Howling Wilderness,” an account of Arnold’s march
to Quebec.
(AP, 11/13/97)(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W5)
1775 Nov 17, George Washington was
in Boston with his ragtag army facing 12,000 Redcoat regulars.
(SFEC, 10/15/00, p.T12)
1775 Nov 28, The Second
Continental Congress formally established the American Navy.
(DTnet 11/28/97)
1775 Nov 29, Sir James Jay
invented invisible ink.
(MC, 11/29/01)
1775 Dec 6, Nicolas Isouard,
composer, was born.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1775 Dec 16, Jane Austen (d.1817),
novelist, was born in [Steventon] Hampshire, England, as the 6th of 7
children [7th of 8]. Her well-educated parents encouraged reading and
writing. Her work included "Sense and Sensibility" (1811), "Pride and
Prejudice" (1812), "Mansfield Park" (1814) "Lady Susan" and "Emma"
(1815). Her books "Persuasion" (1817) and "Northanger Abbey" were
published posthumously. Austen's witty, well-constructed stories about
realistic middle-class characters challenged the limits of women
writers. Although she called herself a "merely domestic" novelist, she
greatly influenced the development of the modern novel. Austen's most
famous works were published between 1811 and 1816, shortly before she
died in July 1817. Later in the 19th century critics appreciated
Austen's writing more, and her novels remain popular today--for both
literary critics and moviegoers, as they are widely read and adapted
for the silver screen. "One does not love a place the less for having
suffered in it unless it has all been suffering, nothing but
suffering." Two biographies were published in 1997 with the same title:
"Jane Austen: A Life," one by Calire Tomalin and the other by David
Nokes.
(SFEC, 5/11/97, BR p.10)(Hem., 5/97, p.102)(AP,
5/31/97)(SFEC, 11/9/97, BR p.4)(WSJ, 11/17/97, p.A24)(HN,
12/16/98)(HNPD, 12/18/98)
1775 Dec 22, Esek Hopkins was
named the first commander of the US Navy. He took command of the
Continental Navy, a total of seven ships.
(HFA,'96,.44)(AP, 12/22/97)(HN, 12/22/98)
1775 Dec 31, George Washington
ordered recruiting officers to accept free blacks into the army.
(HN, 12/31/98)
1775 Dec 31, The British repulsed
an attack by Continental Army generals Richard Montgomery and Benedict
Arnold at Quebec during a raging snowstorm; Montgomery was killed.
(AP, 12/31/97)(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T5)
1775 James Adair (~65) authored
“The History of the American Indians,” based on his experiences living
in their midst. In 2005 Kathryn E. Holland Braund edited a new edition.
(WSJ, 2/11/05, p.W6)
1775 Beaumarchais wrote his farce
"The Barber of Seville." Beaumarchais reconceived his Barber opera as a
play and turned it into a triumph at the Comedie Francaise.
(WSJ, 12/19/96, p.A16)(SFC, 8/13/96, p.A20)
1775 Joseph Priestley published
his book “Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air.” He
refuted some opinions of Lavoisier, who had recently named oxygen based
on experiments modeled after Priestley’s work. In 1777 German chemist
Karl Wilhelm Schele verified that he had independently isolated oxygen
in 1772.
(www.woodrow.org/teachers/chemistry/institutes/1992/Priestley.html)(ON,
10/05, p.2)
1775 Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s
wrote "The Duenna." In 1940 Prokofiev composed the opera "Betrothal in
a Monastery," based on Sheridan’s work. The Prokofiev work had its
premiere in Prague.
(WSJ, 5/7/98, p.A21)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.D1)
1775 Mozart at 19 composed Il Re
Pastore, K. 208. It is considered the last major stage work from
Mozart’s Salzburg period.
(EMN, 1/96, p.3)
1775 Presbyterians made up the
third largest denomination in America with more than 400,000 members.
The largest denomination was made up of Congregationalists, with the
second largest being Anglicans.
(HNQ, 7/6/99)
1775 Tucson, Arizona was founded
as a Spanish presidio.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.31)
1775 Bodega Bay, Ca., was founded
by the Spanish.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, p.T3)
1775 Juan Manuel de Ayala named
Alcatraz Island after a large flock of pelicans, called alcatraces in
Spanish.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W38)
1775 Juan Bautista Anza, a
40-year-old Mexican captain, led 240 soldiers, priests and settlers to
Monterey, Ca. [see 1775-1776]
(SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1775 The 7th Virginia Volunteers
first fought as militia in the War of Independence.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)
1775 Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor
of Virginia, called on local slaves to join the British side to
suppress the American Revolution: “When we win we will free you from
your shackles.” The British issued similar proclamations throughout
their North American colonies and enticed thousands of indentured
servants and slaves, known as Black Loyalists, to the British side.
(MT, summer 2003, p.8)
1775 The Hornet and the Wasp were
frigates of the Continental Navy that fought British ships in
Chesapeake Bay.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A22)
1775 The Swedish chemist Scheele
found a way to detect arsenic in the body.
(SFEC, 12/22/96, zone1 p.2)
1775 Captain Cook on his 2nd
voyage around the southern continent landed on an island (South
Georgia) that he named after his sponsor, George III of England. He
described the land as "savage and horrible."
(NH, 2/97, p.54)
1775 Daniel Boone blazed a trail
through the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky.
(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.W8)
1775 Kabul became the capital of
Afghanistan.
(NG, V184, No. 4, Oct. 1993, p.66)
1775 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
moved to Weimar after Carl August asked him to be his secretary of
state.
(SSFC, 8/1/04, p.D10)
1775 Altar was founded in Mexico’s
Sonora state as a military base. It’s location 60 miles south of
Arizona later proved valuable as a jumping off point for immigrant
smuggling to the US.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.31)
1775 In Mexico the Monte de Piedad
(Mount of Pity), or National Pawn Shop, stands on the site of
Montezuma's brother's palace in Mexico City. It was founded by the
Count of Regla. As a lender of last resort the shop provided loans
worth one-fifth to one-third an item’s value at interest rates of 4% a
month.
(Hem., 1/96, p.50)(SFC, 1/15/98, p.A10)
1775 In Mexico Manuel Arroyo of
Real del Monte confessed to 30 counts of oral sex on men. He claimed
that his doctor told him it was good for his health and a way to avoid
evil thoughts about women. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison by the
Inquisition.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1775 Szymon Antoni Sobiekrajski,
cartographer to King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, calculated that
the center of Europe was in Suchowola, Eastern Poland.
(WSJ, 7/14/04, p.A7)
1775 Catherine the Great of Russia
received an ornament containing over 1000 diamonds, the "Sultan
Feather" from the Turkish Sultan Abdulhamid.
(WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)
1775 In Russia the Cossack
Yemelyan Pugachev was captured and beheaded.
(SFC,10/28/97, p.A8)
1775-1776 Juan Bautista de Anza led 198 colonists and
1,000 cattle from Sonora, Mexico, to California.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1775-1781 George Washington got his brother-in-law,
Fielding Lewis, to take charge of provisioning his regiments for the 6
years of the Revolutionary War. In 2002 Gordon S. Wood authored "The
American Revolution: A History."
(HT, 5/97, p.47)(WSJ, 3/8/02, p.AW9)
1775-1781 Some 5,000 Black Americans fought in the
Revolutionary War. A silver coin commemorating their contribution was
issued in 1998 to help finance a new memorial on the National Mall.
(SFC, 2/26/98, p.A22)
1775-1781 The Royal Welch Fusiliers, a British
regiment, was among the British troops that fought in the American
Revolution during this period. In 2007 mark Urban authored “Fusiliers:
the Saga of a British Redcoat Regiment in the American Revolution.
(WSJ, 11/15/07, p.D6)
1775-1782 More Revolutionary War engagements were
fought in New Jersey--238--than in any other state. New York was second
with 228. New Hampshire. The only one of the original 13 colonies not
invaded by the British during the Revolutionary War was New Hampshire.
(HNQ, 4/17/99)(HNQ, 7/31/99)
1775-1844 John Rubens Smith, British born painter. He
came to the US in 1806 and produced numerous paintings of the emerging
American landscape. He authored such books as: A Compendium of
Picturesque Anatomy (1827), The Key to the Art of Drawing the Human
Figure (1831), and the Juvenile Drawing-Book (1839). A collection of
almost 700 drawings, paintings and engravings was acquired by the
Library of Congress in 1993.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.66)
1775-1847 Daniel O'Connell, Irish political leader:
"Bigotry has no head, and cannot think; no heart, and cannot feel."
(AP, 8/12/98)
1775-1851 Joseph Mallord William Turner, English
painter. In 1999 Anthony Bailey published "Standing in the Sun: A Life
of J.M.W. Turner."
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.B5)(SFEC, 2/7/99, BR p.6)
1775-1880 The Shaker community produced handmade
furniture until 1880 when manufactured furniture became acceptable and
their workshops were forced to close. The watercolors "Tree of Light"
by Hannah Cohoon and "Gift Drawing" by Polly Collins were found in 1996
and put up for auction.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-12)
1776 Jan 1-1776 Dec 31, In
2005 David McCullough authored “1776,” and an account of Washington’s
Continental Army throughout this year.
(SSFC, 6/19/05, p.C1)
1776 Jan 2, 1st US revolutionary
flag was displayed.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1776 Jan 5, Assembly of New
Hampshire adopted its 1st state constitution.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1776 Jan 10, Thomas Paine
(1737-1809), British émigré and propagandist, anonymously
published "Common Sense," a scathing attack on King George III's reign
over the colonies and a call for complete independence. It sold some
120,000 copies in just a few months, greatly affecting public sentiment
and the deliberations of the Continental Congress leading up to the
Declaration of Independence. He advocated an immediate declaration of
independence from Britain. An instant bestseller in both the colonies
and in Britain, Paine baldly stated that King George III was a tyrant
and that Americans should shed any sentimental attachment to the
monarchy. America, he argued, had a moral obligation to reject monarchy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Paine)(AP,
1/10/98)
1776 Jan 14, George Washington
commanded an army that consisted of some 9,000 men, up to half of whom
were not fit for duty.
(WSJ, 5/19/05, p.W10)
1776 Jan 16, Continental Congress
approved the enlistment of free blacks. This led to the all-black First
Rhode Island Regiment, composed of 33 freedmen and 92 slaves, who were
promised freedom if they served to the end of the war. The regiment
distinguished itself at the Battle of Newport.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(MC, 1/16/02)
1776 Feb 8, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe's "Stella" premiered in Hamburg.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1776 Feb 17, Edward Gibbon
(1737-1794), English historian, published his 1st volume of " The
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He completed the
6-volume classic in 1788.
(WUD, 1994 p.596)(WSJ, 5/26/07, p.P6)
1776 Mar 1, French minister
Charles Gravier advised his Spanish counterpart to support the American
rebels against the English.
(HN, 3/1/99)
1776 Mar 2, Americans began
shelling British troops in Boston. Henry Knox had managed to drag 58
canon and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga to the Dorchester Heights above
Boston.
(HN, 3/2/99)(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.W10)
1776 Mar 3, US commodore Esek
Hopkins occupied Nassau, Bahamas.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1776 Mar 5, A terrific storm
wrecked British hope of a counterattack on Dorchester Heights in
Boston, Mass.
(WSJ, 5/20/05, p.W10)
1776 Mar 17, British forces
evacuated Boston to Nova Scotia during the Revolutionary War. Suffolk
Ct. Massachusetts declared this day Evacuation Day
(AP, 3/17/97)(HN, 3/17/98)(SFEC, 4/25/99, Z1 p.8)
1776 Mar 25, The Continental
Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1776 Mar 31, Abigail Adams wrote
to her husband John that women were "determined to foment a rebellion"
if the new Declaration of Independence failed to guarantee their rights.
(HN, 3/31/98)
1776 Mar, "An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" was published by Adam
Smith. He was the first to describe and explain the workings of the
labor market and argued for a laissez faire economy. [see 1723-1790,
Smith]
(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-20)(V.D.-H.K.p.214,253)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R14)
1776 Mar, Captain Juan Bautista de
Anza, Lt. Jose Moraga, and Franciscan priest Pedro Font arrived at the
tip of San Francisco. De Anza planted a cross at what is now Fort
Point. They searched inland for a more hospitable area and found a site
they called Laguna de los Dolores or the Friday of Sorrows since the
day was Friday before Palm Sunday.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1776 Apr 1, Friedrich von
Klinger's "Sturm und Drang," premiered in Leipzig.
(MC, 4/1/02)
1776 Apr 3, George Washington
received an honorary doctor of law degree from Harvard College.
(AP, 4/3/97)
1776 Apr 12, North Carolina's
Fourth Provincial Congress adopted the Halifax Resolves, which
authorized the colony's delegates to the Continental Congress to
support independence from Britain.
(AP, 4/12/07)
1776 Apr 22, Johann Adolph Scheibe
(67), German music theorist, composer, died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1776 Apr 26, Joan M. Kemper, Dutch
lawyer (designed civil code law book), was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1776 May 1, Adam Weishaupt founded
the secret society of Illuminati.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1776 May 2, France and Spain
agreed to donate arms to American rebels.
(HN, 5/2/98)
1776 May 4,
Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the
Declaration of Independence was adopted.
(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)
1776 May 10, George Thomas Smart,
composer, was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1776 May 12, Turgot, French
minister of Finance, resigned.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1776 May 13, Rodrigo Ferreira da
Costa, composer, was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1776 May 15, Virginia took the
lead in instructing its delegates to go for complete independence from
Britain at the Continental Congress.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.60)
1776 May-1776 Jun, Betsy Ross
finished sewing the 1st American flag.
(www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagtale.html)
1776 Jun 7, Richard Henry Lee of
Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress the resolution calling
for a Declaration of Independence: that "these United Colonies are, and
of right ought to be, free and independent States..." Congress delayed
the vote on the resolution until July 1. In the meantime, a committee
consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin
Franklin and Robert R. Livingston was created to prepare a declaration
of independence.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.60)(AP, 6/7/97)(HNQ,
7/3/98)
1776 Jun 10, The Continental
Congress appointed a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.
(HN, 6/10/98)
1776 Jun 11, John Constable
(d.1837), English landscape painter (Hay Wain), was born.
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.B5)(SC, 6/11/02)
1776 Jun 11, A committee to draft
the document of Independence met. John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert
Livingston, Roger Sherman and Thomas Jefferson were the members. They
immediately delegated the writing to Adams and Jefferson, and Adams
gave it over to Jefferson. The events were later documented by Pauline
Maier in her 1997 book: "American Scripture: Making the Declaration of
Independence."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.60)(AP, 6/11/97)(SFEC,
6/29/97, BR p.5)
1776 Jun 11-1776 Jul 4, The
Continental Congress met and Jefferson wrote the Declaration of
Independence, based on the principals of John Locke. But where Locke
had used the word "property," Jefferson used the term "the pursuit of
happiness."
(V.D.-H.K.p.224-226)
1776 Jun 12 Virginia's colonial
legislature became the first to adopt a Bill of Rights. The Virginia
Declaration of Rights granted every individual the right to the
enjoyment of life and liberty and to acquire and possess property. The
Virginia document was written by George Mason and was a precursor to
the Declaration of Independence. In 1787 Mason refused to endorse the
Declaration of Independence because it did not include a Bill of Rights.
(SFEC, 7/27/97, Par p.8)(AP, 6/12/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R55)
1776 Jun 15, Delaware declared
independence from both England and Pennsylvania with whom it had shared
a royal governor.
(WSJ, 5/30/00, p.A24)
1776 Jun 23, The final draft of
Declaration of Independence was submitted to US Congress.
(MC, 6/23/02)
1776 Jun 26, In San Francisco the
St. Francis of Assisi Church, later Mission Dolores, was founded by
Father Francisco Palleu.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, DB p.26)
1776 Jun 27, Thomas Hickey, who
plotted to hand George Washington over to British, was hanged.
(MC, 6/27/02)
1776 Jun 28, Jefferson's document
was placed before the Congress after some minor changes by Adams and
Franklin. This event was immortalized in the painting by John Trumball.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.61)
1776 Jun 28, Colonists repulsed a
British sea attack on Charleston, South Carolina.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1776 Jun 28, Thomas Hickey,
American sergeant convicted of treason, was hanged.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1776 Jun 29, Settlers who had been
waiting in Monterey headed north and gathered for Mass under a crude
shelter at the new mission in San Francisco.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1776 Jun, Pierre-Augustin Caron de
Beaumarchais established Hortalez et Cie, a fictitious company, to
facilitate the transfer of arms to revolutionaries in America. It
facilitated the transfer of weapons and munitions from France and Spain
to the Americans. Under the scheme, France and Spain each loaned funds
to the company for the purchase of munitions and the Americans would in
turn pay for the material with rice, tobacco and other products. The
scandal-plagued operation continued after the signing of the
Franco-American alliance permitting open shipments of military aid
between the two countries.
(HNQ, 4/20/00)
1776 Jul 1, The Continental
Congress, sitting as a committee, met on July 1, 1776, to debate a
resolution submitted by Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee on June 7.
The resolution stated that the United Colonies "are, and of right ought
to be, free and independent States." The committee voted for the motion
and, on July 2 in formal session took the final vote for independence.
(HNQ, 7/1/99)
1776 Jul 1, The British fleet
anchored off Sandy Hook in New York Bay.
(WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A28)
1776 July 2, The Continental
Congress passed Lee's resolution that "these united Colonies are, and
of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States," and then spent two
days over the wording of Jefferson's document.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.61)(AP, 7/2/97)(HN, 7/2/98)
1776 cJul 3, Caesar Rodney rode 80
miles from Dover to Philadelphia to vote for the Declaration of
Independence. In 1998 the ride was commemorated by the US mint on the
back of a new quarter.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A2)
1776 Jul 4, The Continental
Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of Independence,
prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John Hancock--President of
the Continental Congress--and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary,
without dissent. However, the New York delegation abstained as directed
by the New York Provisional Congress. On July 9, the New York Congress
voted to endorse the declaration. On July 19, Congress then resolved to
have the "Unanimous Declaration" inscribed on parchment for the
signature of the delegates. Among the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, two went on to become presidents of the United States,
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of Independence was
signed by president of Congress John Hancock and secretary Charles
Thomson. John Hancock said, "There, I guess King George will be able to
read that." referring to his signature on the Declaration of
Independence. Other signers later included Benjamin Rush and Robert
Morris. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, eight
were born outside North America. In 2007 David Armitage authored “The
Declaration of Independence: A Global History.”
(HN, 7/4/98)(SFC,12/19/97,p.B6)(SFC,2/9/98,
p.A19)(HNQ, 9/10/00)(WSJ, 1/4/07, p.B11)
1776 Jul 5, The Declaration of
Independence was first printed by John Dunlop in Philadelphia. 200
copies were prepared July 5-6 and distributed to the states.
(HN, 7/5/98)(HNQ, 7/4/99)(SFC, 7/4/01, p.A3)
1776 Jul 6, The US Declaration of
Independence was announced on the front page of "PA Evening Gazette."
(MC, 7/6/02)
1776 Jul 8, Col. John Nixon gave
the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence to a crowd
gathered at Independence Square in Philadelphia. The reading was
announced by the "Liberty Bell." The bell had the inscription:
"proclaim liberty throughout all the land onto all the inhabitants
thereof."
(AP, 7/8/97)(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.T5)
1776 Jul 9, The Declaration of
Independence was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops in New
York.
(AP, 7/9/97)
1776 Jul 9, New York was the 13th
colony to ratify the Declaration of Independence.
(SFC, 7/7/96, T1)
1776 Jul 10, The statue of King
George III was pulled down in New York City.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1776 Jul 12, Capt. Cook departed
with Resolution for 3rd trip to Pacific Ocean.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1776 Jul 14, Jemima Boone (13),
the daughter of Daniel Boone, and 2 friends were kidnapped by a group
of 5 Shawnee and Cherokee Indians near Boonesborough, Kentucky. They
were rescued on July 16 by Daniel Boone and 7 other Boonesborough men.
(ON, 8/08, p.6)
1776 Jul 15, Declaration of
Independence was read to every brigade in NYC.
http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~brixr01/theTIMEMACHINE.html
1776 Jul 19, After New York’s
Provincial Congress voted to endorse the declaration, Congress resolved
on July 19 to have the "Unanimous Declaration" engrossed on parchment
for the signature of the delegates.
(HNQ, 7/4/99)
1776 Aug 2, In Philadelphia
most members of the Continental Congress began attaching their
signatures to the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Benjamin Harrison was one of the signers. His son and grandson later
became the 9th and 23rd presidents of the US. Most of the 55 signatures
were affixed on August 2, but Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire, who
was not a member of Congress when the declaration was adopted, added
his name in November.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.61)(SFC, 5/7/96,
p.A-6)(AP, 8/2/97)(HNQ, 7/4/99)
1776 Aug 8, John Paul Jones was
commissioned as a captain and appointed to command the Alfred. His
orders were to harass enemy merchant ships and defend the American
coast.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)(Internet)
1776 Aug 27, The Americans were
defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York.
(HN, 8/27/98)
1776 Aug 29, General George
Washington retreated during the night from Long Island to New York City.
(HN, 8/29/98)
1776 Aug 29, Americans withdrew
from Manhattan to Westchester.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1776 Sep 2-9, The Hurricane of
Independence killed 4,170 people from North Carolina to Nova Scotia.
(WSJ, 9/13/01, p.B11)
1776 Sep 6, The Turtle, the 1st
submarine invented by David Bushnell, attempted to secure a cask of
gunpowder to the HMS Eagle, flagship of the British fleet, in the Bay
of NY but got entangled with the Eagle’s rudder bar, lost ballast and
surfaced before the charge was planted.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(MC, 9/6/01)
1776 Sep 6, A hurricane hit
Martinique; 100 French & Dutch ships sank and 600 died.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1776 Sep 9, The term "United
States" was adopted by the second Continental Congress to be used
instead of the "United Colonies."
(AP, 9/9/97)(HN, 9/9/98)
1776 Sep 10, George Washington
asked for a spy volunteer and Nathan Hale volunteered.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1776 Sep 11, An American
delegation consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Edward
Rutledge met with British Admiral Richard Lord Howe to discuss terms
upon which reconciliation between Britain and the colonies might be
based. The talks were unsuccessful. In 2003 Barnet Schecter authored
“The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American
Revolution.”
(AH, 6/03,
p.61)(www.patriotresource.com/people/howe/page2.html)
1776 Sep 12, Nathan Hale left
Harlem Heights Camp (127th St) for a spy mission.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1776 Sep 15, British forces
occupied New York City during the American Revolution. British forces
captured Kip's Bay, Manhattan, during the American Revolution.
(AP, 9/15/97)(HN, 9/15/99)(MC, 9/15/01)
1776 Sep 17, The Presidio of SF
formed as a Spanish fort. The Spanish built the Presidio on the hill
where the Golden Gate Bridge now meets San Francisco.
(WSJ, 9/17/96, p.A12)(MC, 9/17/01)
1776 Sep 20, American soldiers,
some of them members of Nathan Hale’s regiment, filtered into
British-held New York City and stashed resin soaked logs into numerous
buildings and a roaring inferno was started. A fourth of the city was
destroyed including Trinity Church. The events are documented in the
1997 book "Liberty by Thomas Fleming."
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(WSJ, 9/14/01, p.W13)
1776 Sep 21, Nathan Hale was
arrested in NYC by the British for spying for American rebels.
(SFC, 9/20/03, p.A2)
1776 Sep 21, NYC burned down in
the Great Fire 5 days after British took over.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1776 Sep 22, American Captain
Nathan Hale was hanged as a spy with no trial by the British in New
York City during the Revolutionary War. He was considered as one of the
incendiaries of the burning of NYC. Hale was commissioned by
General George Washington to cross behind British lines on Long Island
and report on their activity. His last words are reputed to have been,
"I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
(AP, 9/22/97)(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.14)(HN, 9/22/98)
1776 Oct 3, Congress borrowed five
million dollars to halt the rapid depreciation of paper money in the
colonies.
(HN, 10/3/98)
1776 Oct 9, A group of Spanish
missionaries settled in present-day San Francisco. The formal
dedication of Mission San Francisco de Asis was made.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(AP, 10/9/97)
1776 Oct 11, C. Randle painted: "A
View of the New England Arm’d Vessels on Valcure Bay on Lake
Champlain." It depicted the fleet of Benedict Arnold just before the
Battle of Valcour Island on this day. The fleet was defeated but it
slowed the British advance from Canada.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A3)
1776 Oct 11, The naval Battle of
Valcour Island on Lake Champlain was fought during the American
Revolution. American forces led by Gen. Benedict Arnold suffered heavy
losses, but managed to stall the British.
(AP, 10/11/07)
1776 Oct 12, British Brigade began
guarding Throgs Necks Road in Bronx.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1776 Oct 13, Benedict Arnold was
defeated at Lake Champlain by the British, who then retreated to Canada
for the winter. Arnold’s efforts bought the colonists 9 months to
consolidate their hold in northern New York. In 2006 James L. Nelson
authored “Benedict Arnold’s Navy.”
(HN, 10/13/98)(WSJ, 5/12/06, p.W5)
1776 Oct 18, In a NY bar decorated
with bird tail, a customer ordered a "cocktail."
(MC, 10/18/01)
1776 Oct 18, At the Battle of
Pelham Col. John Glover and the Marblehead regiment collided with
British Forces in the Bronx.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1776 Oct 28, The Battle of White
Plains was fought during the Revolutionary War, resulting in a limited
British victory. Washington retreated to NJ.
(AP, 10/28/06)
1776 Nov 1, Father Junipero Serra
arrived at the site of Mission of San Juan Capistrano and re-founded
it. His mission was to convert the members of the Acagchemem tribe
called Juanenos by the Spaniards. The tribe at the time was
experiencing the end of a 7-year draught.
(HT, 3/97,
p.58)(http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/missioncalifornia/a/capistranohist.htm)
1776 Nov 16, British troops
captured Fort Washington on the north end of Manhattan during the
American Revolution.
(AP, 11/1697)(MC, 11/16/01)
1776 Nov 18, Hessians captured Ft
Lee, NJ.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1776 Nov 20, The British invaded
New Jersey.
(NH, 5/97, p.76)
1776 Nov 28, Washington and his
troops crossed the Delaware River.
(DTnet 11/28/97)
1776 Nov 30, Captain Cook began
his 3rd and last trip to the Pacific South Seas.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1776 Dec 2, George Washington's
army began retreating across the Delaware River from New Jersey to
Pennsylvania. In 2004 David Hackett Fischer authored "Washington's
Crossing."
(WSJ, 2/6/04, p.W8)
1776 Dec 5, Phi Beta Kappa was
organized as the first American college scholastic Greek letter
fraternity, at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va. In 2005 the
honor society had some 600,00 members with about 15,000 new members
joining annually.
(AP, 12/5/97)(HN, 12/5/98)(WSJ, 11/4/05, p.W12)
1776 Dec 8, George Washington's
retreating army in the American Revolution crossed the Delaware River
from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
(AP, 12/8/97)
1776 Dec 19, Thomas Paine
published his first "American Crisis" essay, writing: "These are the
times that try men's souls." In the first of his Crises papers, Thomas
Paine wrote, "These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer
soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of their country." Written as Paine took part in the
Revolutionary Army‘s retreat across New Jersey in 1776, the pamphlet
was ordered read to the troops in the Revolutionary encampments.
(HFA, '96, p.44)(AP, 12/19/97)(HNQ, 9/21/99)
1776 Dec 23, Continental Congress
negotiated a war loan of $181,500 from France.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1776 Dec 23, Thomas Paine wrote
"These are the times that try men's souls."
(MC, 12/23/01)
1776 Dec 25, Gen. George
Washington and his troops crossed the Delaware River for a surprise
attack against 1,400 Hessian forces at Trenton, N.J.
(AP, 12/25/97)(MC, 12/25/01)
1776 Dec 26, The British suffered
a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.
After crossing the Delaware River into New Jersey, George Washington
led an attack on Hessian mercenaries and took 900 men prisoner. Two
Americans froze to death on the march but none died in battle. There
were 30 German casualties, 1,000 prisoners and 6 cannon captured. Four
Americans were wounded in the overwhelming American victory, while 22
Hessians were killed and 78 wounded. The surprise attack caught most of
the 1,200 Hessian soldiers at Trenton sleeping after a day of Christmas
celebration. The Americans captured 918 Hessians, who were taken as
prisoners to Philadelphia. The victory was a huge morale booster for
the American army and the country. The victory at Trenton was a huge
success and morale booster for the American army and people. However,
the enlistments of more than 4,500 of Washington’s soldiers were set to
end four days later and it was critical that the force remain intact.
General George Washington offered a bounty of $10 to any of his
soldiers who extended their enlistments six weeks beyond their December
31, 1776, expiration dates. The American Revolution Battle of Trenton
saw the routing of 1,400 Hessian mercenaries, with 101 killed or
wounded and about 900 taken prisoner, with no Americans killed in the
combat. Four Americans were wounded and two had died of exhaustion en
route to Trenton.
(AP, 12/26/97)(HN, 12/26/98)(SFC, 12/26/98,
p.A3)(HNQ, 3/20/99)(HNQ, 4/11/99)(HNQ, 12/26/99)
1776 Dec 26, Johann Gottlieb Rall,
Hessian colonel and mercenary, died in battle of Trenton.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1776 Dec 29, Charles Macintosh,
patented waterproof fabric, was born in Scotland.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1776 Augustin Pajou, French
sculptor, completed his "Monument to Buffon."
(WSJ, 3/18/98, p.A20)
1776 Fort Sullivan, outside the
town of Charleston, S.C., was built primarily of palmetto logs and
sand. Commanded by Colonel William Moultrie--for whom it was later
renamed--the partially uncompleted Fort Sullivan on Sullivan’s Island
bore the brunt of gunfire from a British naval force when the British
tried to invade Charleston on June 28, 1776. The palmetto logs and sand
from which the fort was primarily constructed absorbed most of the
British shot, while the fort’s defenders managed to inflict
disproportionate punishment to the British warships, one of which, the
frigate Actaeon, ran hard aground and had to be abandoned and blown up
by her crew. The successful defense of Charleston effectively left the
Carolinas in the hands of the rebelling Patriots until a new invasion
force returned to Charleston in February 1780.
(HNQ, 10/25/01)
1776 Nano Nagle, a wealthy Irish
woman, founded the Sisters of Presentation. At this time it was a crime
in Ireland for a Catholic to teach or be taught.
(SFC, 11/12/04, p.F11)
1776 A New York tavern keeper
mixed a rum and "cocktail." The name was derived from rooster feathers
used as ornaments for glasses.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1776 George Washington ordered his
chief of artillery, Henry Knox, to establish an American arsenal to
manufacture guns and ammunition for his army. Knox chose Springfield,
Mass., on the Connecticut River. The Springfield Armory stayed open 173
years and was closed in 1967, but continues as a museum.
(WSJ, 3/9/95, p.A-16)
1776 Col. George Rogers Clark was
charged by the Virginia Assembly to seize the Northwest
Territory. By 1778, Clark was in control of the land between
Virginia and the Mississippi River—except Fort Sackville.
(HNQ, 7/24/00)
1776 Margaret Corbin, the wife of
an artilleryman, was badly wounded while serving in her husband’s gun
crew at the Battle of Harlem Heights.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)
1776 The first issue of the US $2
bill was 49,000 notes by the Continental Congress as "bills of credit
for the defense of America."
(SFC, 9/14/96, p.A4)
1776 Don Marcos Briones came to
San Francisco. His daughter, Juana Briones, was the first settler on
Powell St. in North Beach. She was a battered wife and was the first
California woman to get a divorce.
(SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)
1776 Spanish explorers encountered
the native Havasupai Indians in Arizona.
(SSFC, 2/19/06, p.F4)
1776 The southernmost of the Bantu
peoples, the Xhosa, arrived at the Fish River in South Africa.
(Enc. of Africa, 1976, p.169)
1776 The Russian Bolshoi Theater
was founded.
(SFC, 3/29/01, p.A11)
1776 Ike Taiga (b.1723), Japanese
painter based in Kyoto, died.
(SFC, 12/8/05, p.E1)
1776 David Hume, Scottish
philosopher, died. He was the first prominent European atheist. Hume
said "the overriding force in all our actions is… the desire for
self-gratification. In order to survive, society has to devise
strategies to channel our passions in constructive directions." "The
most unhappy of all men is he who believes himself to be so."
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 3/20/99, p.B4)(WSJ,
12/14/01, p.W14)
1776 The Dutch built a slave house
on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A10)
1776-1781 During this period Britain sent 60,000
troops to America.
(WSJ, 5/16/96, p.A-12)
1776-1781 It is estimated that 30,000 Hessian
soldiers fought for the British during the American Revolution. After
Russia refused to provide troops for the war, the German states of
Brunswick, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Hanau, Waldeck, Anspach-Bayreuth and
Anhalt-Zerbst supplied mercenary soldiers, collectively referred to as
Hessians. Seven thousand Hessians died in the war and another 5,000
deserted and settled in America. The British paid the German rulers for
each soldier sent to North America and an additional sum for each
killed.
(HNQ, 3/31/99)
1776-1781 During the Revolutionary War some 100 ships
were scuttled in the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth, Virginia, to
prevent their capture by the British.
(AM, Jul/Aug ‘97 p.15)
c1776-1781 Molly Corbin manned a cannon during the
American Revolution and was wounded. She was cited for bravery and sent
to the Invalid Regiment at West Point where she received half the male
pay. She was also denied the daily rum ration until her complaints were
heard.
(SFEC, 6/4/00, Z1 p.3)
1776-1789 Charles Burney wrote "A General History of
Music" that covers this period.
(LGC-HCS, p.36)
1776-1822 E.T.A. Hoffman, German poet and novelist,
author of "The Tales of Hoffman." The ballet "Coppelia" was based on
one of his tales.
(Harvard BDM, p.294)(SFC, 11/19/96, p.E1)(WSJ,
6/10/97, p.A16)
1776-1836 The correspondence between Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison is documented in "The Republic of Letters" by James
Morton Smith in 3 volumes published by Norton 1995. The two men are
believed to have met in 1776 in the Virginia House of Delegates.
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)
1776-1841 Jane Austin, English author. She wrote
"Sense and Sensibility."
(WSJ, 3/25/96, p.A-1)
1776-1856 Amadeo Avogadro, Italian chemist.
(V.D.-H.K.p.324)
1776-1876 The population of California Native
Americans diminished from about 300,000 to 20,000.
(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)
1777 Jan 3, Gen. George
Washington's army routed the British led by Cornwallis in the Battle of
Princeton, N.J.
(AP, 1/3/98)(HN, 1/3/99)
1777 Jan 12, Franciscans founded
Mission Santa Clara de Asis, the 8th of California’s original 21
missions.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A13)(MC, 1/12/02)
1777 Jan 15, The people of New
Connecticut declared their independence. The tiny republic became the
state of Vermont in 1791.
(AP, 1/15/99)(ST, 3/2/04, p.A1)
1777 Feb 13, The Marquis de Sade
was arrested without charge and imprisoned in Vincennes fortress.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1777 Mar 13, Congress ordered its
European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send
troops to reinforce the American army.
(HN, 3/13/99)
1777 Mar 31, A young Abigail Adams
encouraged her husband John to give women voting privileges in the new
American government. She wrote to her husband on this day while he was
a delegate to the Constitutional Convention: "I desire you would
remember the ladies and be more generous to them than were your
ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands.
Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and
attention are not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a
rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in which
we have no voice or representation." Twenty years later her husband was
a candidate in America’s first real election.
(HNPD, 3/30/99)
1777 Mar, The Rev. Patrick Bronte
was born on St. Patrick’s Day in County Down, Ireland. He married Maria
Branwell of Cornwall in 1812 and they had six children that included
the writers Charlotte and Emily. Mrs. Branwell died in 1821 at 38.
(WP, 1952, p.34)
1777 Apr 12, Henry Clay, the
"Great Compromiser", American politician and statesman, was born. He
ran unsuccessfully for president three times. [see Apr 22]
(HN, 4/12/99)
1777 Apr 14, NY adopted a new
constitution as an independent state. Governeur Morris was the chief
writer of the state constitution. [see Apr 20]
(MC, 4/14/02)(WSJ, 5/28/03, p.D8)
1777 Apr 16, New England's minute
men, Green Mountain Boys, routed British regulars at the Battle of
Bennington.
(HN, 4/16/98)(MC, 4/16/02)
1777 Apr 20, New York adopted a
new constitution as an independent state. [see Apr 14]
(MC, 4/20/02)
1777 Apr 22, Henry Clay, American
statesman, the "Great Compromiser," was born. Henry Clay of Kentucky
was a master politician in the era preceding the Civil War. Clay was a
lawyer by trade. He began his lengthy political career in the Kentucky
legislature and made three unsuccessful bids as the Whig Party's
presidential candidate. [see Apr 12]
(HN, 4/22/98)(HNPD, 6/29/98)
1777 Apr 26, Sybil Ludington (16)
rode from NY to Ct rallying her father’s militia.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1777 Apr 30, Karl Friedrich Gauss,
German mathematician, was born. He researched infinitesimal calculus,
algebra and astronomy. He was also a pioneer in topology and is
considered one of the world's great mathematicians. His methods in
World War II helped disarm magnetic mines
(HN, 4/30/99)
1777 May 1, Richard Brinsley
Sheridan's "School for Scandal," premiered in London with Georgiana
Cavendish as Lady Teazle. "Its assumptions are that lust and greed -
when allied with beauty and cunning - deserve to triumph over dullness
and age." He also wrote "A Trip to Scarborough," a rewrite of a
Restoration original.
(WSJ,11/24/95, p.A-6)(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)(MC,
5/1/02)
1777 May 12, The 1st ice cream
advertisement appeared in the Philip Lenzi NY Gazette.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1777 May 13, University library at
Vienna opened.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1777 May 16, Button Gwinnet, US
revolutionary leader, died from wounds.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1777 Jun 13, Marquis de Lafayette
landed in the United States to assist the colonies in their war against
England.
(HN, 6/13/99)
1777 Jun 14, The Continental
Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes, created by
Betsy Ross, as the national flag. America's Flag Day, commemorates the
date when John Adams spoke the following words before the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia. "Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen
United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that
the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new
constellation." Over the years, there have been 27 versions of the
American flag. The present version was adopted on July 4, 1960, when
Hawaii became the 50th state. In 2005 Marc Leepson authored “Flag: An
American Biography.”
(AP, 6/14/97)(HNQ, 6/14/98)(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.W4)
1777 Jul 1, British troops
departed from their base at the Bouquet river to head toward
Ticonderoga, New York.
(HN, 7/1/00)
1777 Jul 2, Vermont became the 1st
American colony to abolish slavery. [see Mar 1, 1780]
(SC, 7/2/02)
1777 Jul 6, British forces under
Gen. Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga from the Americans.
(AP, 7/6/97)(MC, 7/6/02)
1777 Jul 7, American troops gave
up Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, to the British.
(HN, 7/7/98)
1777 Jul 8, The Continental
frigate Hancock was captured by the British ships Rainbow and Flora.
The prisoners, including cabin-boy John Blatchford, were taken to
Halifax.
(ON, 1/00, p.4)
1777 Jul 27, Thomas Campbell,
Scottish writer (The Pleasures of Hope), was born.
(HN, 7/27/01)
1777 Jul 27, The Marquis of
Lafayette arrived in New England to help the rebellious colonists fight
the British.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1777 Jul 31, The Marquis de
Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in
the American Continental Army.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1777 Jul, John Paul Jones was
given command of the 20-gun ship Ranger at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
He was then ordered to report to a Secret Committee in Paris, that
included Benjamin Franklin.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)
1777 Aug 14, Hans Christian
Oersted, Danish scientist, was born. He discovered electromagnetism.
(HN, 8/14/00)
1777 Aug 16, American forces won
the Revolutionary War Battle of Bennington, Vt.
(AP, 8/16/97)
1777 Aug 16, France declared a
state of bankruptcy.
(HN, 8/16/98)
1777 Aug 22, With the approach of
General Benedict Arnold's army, British Colonel Barry St. Ledger
abandoned Fort Stanwix and returns to Canada.
(HN, 8/22/98)
1777 Sep 3, The American flag
(stars & stripes), approved by Congress on June 14th, was carried
into battle for the first time by a force under General William Maxwell.
(HN, 9/3/00)
1777 Sep 11, General George
Washington and his troops were defeated by the British under General
Sir William Howe at the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania. Posing as
a gunsmith, British Sergeant John Howe served as General Gage's eyes in
a restive Massachusetts colony.
(HN, 9/11/98)
1777 Sep 16, Nathan Rothschild
(d.1836), banker, was born in Frankfurt. He was the son of Mayer
Rothschild (1744-1812), who rose from the Frankfurt ghetto to become
the banker to Prince William of Prussia. Nathan worked in London as a
banker and invested Prussian money in the Napoleonic Wars and smuggled
it to Wellington in Spain. He was the first to hear news from Waterloo
and sold stock to convince other investors that the British had lost.
His agents bought the stock at low prices. His 4 brothers established
banks in Vienna, Naples and Paris.
(WSJ, 1/11/98,
p.R18)(www.rothschildarchive.org/ib/?doc=/ib/articles/BW3bNathan)y
1777 Sep 19, During the
Revolutionary War, American soldiers won the first Battle of Saratoga,
aka Battle of Freeman's Farm (Bemis Heights). American forces under
Gen. Horatio Gates met British troops led by Gen. John Burgoyne at
Saratoga Springs, NY.
(AP,
9/19/97)(www.americanrevolution.com/BattleofSaratoga.htm)
1777 Sep 20, British Dragoons
massacred sleeping Continental troops at Paoli, Pa. Prior to
launching a surprise night attack on Anthony Wayne’s Continental
division at Paoli, General Charles Grey ordered his troops to rely
entirely on their bayonets. To ensure that his troops obeyed, he had
his men remove the flints from their weapons so they could not be fired.
(MC, 9/20/01)(HNQ, 8/19/02)
1777 Sep 25, English general
William Howe conquered Philadelphia. [see Sep 26]
(MC, 9/25/01)
1777 Sep 26, The British army
launched a major offensive during the American Revolution, capturing
Philadelphia. [see Sep 25]
(HN, 9/26/99)(AP, 9/26/97)
1777 Sep 27, At the Battle of
Germantown the British defeated Washington's army. English General
William Howe occupied Philadelphia. [see Sep 25,26]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1777 Sep 30, The Congress of the
United States, forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces,
moved to York, Pennsylvania.
(AP, 9/30/00)
1777 Oct 4, George Washington's
troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn.,
resulting in heavy American casualties.
(AP, 10/4/97)
1777 Oct 7, The second Battle of
Saratoga began during the American Revolution. During the battle
General Benedict Arnold was shot in the leg. Another bullet killed his
horse, which fell on Arnold, crushing his leg. The "Boot Monument" sits
close to the spot where Arnold was wounded, and is a tribute to the
general’s heroic deeds during that battle. Although Arnold’s
accomplishments are described on the monument, it pointedly avoids
naming the man best known for betraying his country. The British
forces, under Gen. John Burgoyne, surrendered 10 days later.
(AP, 10/7/97)(HNQ, 7/20/01)
1777 Oct 7, Simon Fraser, English
general, died in the battle of Saratoga, NY.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Simon_Fraser_of_Balnian)
1777 Oct 15, Tory Maj. James
Graves Simcoe was appointed commandant of Queen's Rangers to combat
American rebels.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1777 Oct 17, General John Burgoyne
with British forces of 5,000 men surrendered to General Horatio Gates,
commander of the American forces at Schuylerville, NY. In the fall of
1777, the British commander Gen'l. Burgoyne and his men were advancing
along the Hudson River. After Burgoyne had retreated to the
heights of Saratoga, the Americans stopped and surrounded them.
The surrender was a turning point in the American Revolution,
demonstrating American determination to gain independence. After
the surrender, France sided with the Americans, and other countries
began to get involved and align themselves against Britain.
(AP, 10/17/97)(HN, 10/17/98)(HNPD, 10/17/99)(SSFC,
6/30/02, p.C10)
1777 Nov 15, The Continental
Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation in York, Pa. These
instituted the perpetual union of the United States of America and
served as a precursor to the U.S. Constitution. The structure of the
Constitution was inspired by the Iroquois Confederacy of six major
northeastern tribes. The matrilineal society of the Iroquois later
inspired the suffragist movement.
(PCh, 1992, p.325)(AP, 11/15/97)(SFEC, 4/19/98, BR
p.2)(HN, 11/15/98)
1777 Nov 30, San Jose, California,
was founded by the Spanish as El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadeloupe,
California's first town.
(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 9/2/99, p.A12)(SFC,
11/30/07, p.B4)
1777 Nov 30, Jean-Marie Leclair
(74), composer, died.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1777 Dec 2, British officers under
Gen. Howe met in the Philadelphia home of Lydia Darragh to discuss
plans to the attack American forces on December 5, just prior to Gen.
Washington’s planned move to Valley Forge. Mrs. Darragh listened in on
the plans and sent word to Whitemarsh of the impending attack.
(ON, 8/07, p.8)
1777 Dec 8, Britain’s Gen. Howe
withdrew to Philadelphia following a failed attempt on American forces
encamped at Whitemarsh.
(ON, 8/07, p.8)
1777 Dec 8, Captain Cook left the
Society Islands (French Polynesia).
(MC, 12/8/01)
1777 Dec 12, Rev. Benjamin Russen
was hanged at Tyburn, England, for rape.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1777 Dec 17, France recognized
American independence.
(AP, 12/17/97)
1777 Dec 18, The 1st America
Thanksgiving Day commemorated Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. A
national Thanksgiving was declared by Congress after the American
victory over the British at the Battle of Saratoga in December 1777.
For many years Thanksgiving celebrations were haphazard with Presidents
Washington, Adams and Madison declaring occasional national festivities.
(HNPD, 11/26/98)(MC, 12/18/01)
1777 Dec 19, Gen. George
Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, Pa., to
camp for the winter. [see Dec 17]
(AP, 12/19/97)
1777 Dec 23, Alexander I, Czar of
Russia, was born.
(HN, 12/23/98)
1777 Jean-Baptiste Greuze painted
a portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
(WSJ, 8/26/97, p.A14)
1777 The Acagchemem Indians built
a small adobe church at Mission San Juan Capistrano. It’s been renamed
the Serra Chapel and is the oldest building still in use in California.
In 1791 a bell tower was completed.
(HT, 3/97,
p.60)(http://gocalifornia.about.com/cs/missioncalifornia/a/capistranohist.htm)
1777 George Washington wrote a
letter offering Nathaniel Sackett $50 a month to set up an intelligence
network.
(SFC, 7/17/02, p.A3)
1777 The circular saw was invented.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1777 Captain James Cook, while
exploring the Pacific, reported on long-board surfers in Tahiti and
Oahu and observed that the sport appeared recreational rather than
competitive.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1777 Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch
Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, arrived in the US in his
own boat and offered his services to Gen’l. George Washington.
(WSJ, 1/15/97, p.A12)
1777 An Italian scientist became
the 1st to identify a certain eel as female. In 1882 another scientist
figured out how to identify a male eel.
(SFC, 7/22/00, p.E4)
1777 George Washington led a
campaign against the British and their Iroquois allies in Pennsylvania,
New York, and the Ohio country. These included the Six Nations Indians:
Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, Oneida, and Tuscarora. In 2005 Glenn
F. Williams published “The Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s
Campaign Against the Iroquois.
(WSJ, 7/26/05, p.D8)
1777-1778 Some 2,000 American soldiers died at
Washington’s Valley Forge encampment in Penn. over a harsh weather
period of 7 months.
(WSJ, 1/3/02, p.A7)
1777-1787 Juan Bautista de Anza served as the
governor of New Mexico.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1777 Vermont including the town of
Killington declared independence from New York and New Hampshire. It
became a country unto itself, coined its own money, set up its own
postal service and elected its own president. The Republic of Vermont
stayed independent until 1791.
(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A6)(ST, 3/2/04, p.A5)
1777-1810 Phillip Otto Runge, German artist.
(WSJ, 7/16/98, p.A16)
1777-1811 Heinrich von Kleist, writer. His work
included "St. Cecilia or The Power of Music."
(SFC, 2/19/96, p.E1)
1777-1851 Hans Christian Ursted (Oersted), Danish
physicist.
(AHD, 1971, p.911)
1778 Jan 10, Carolus Linnaeus
[Carl von Linné, b.1707], Swedish botanist, died. His system for
classifying living organisms in a hierarchy placed kingdoms at the top
and species at the bottom.
(HN,
5/23/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolus_Linnaeus)
1778 Jan 18, English navigator
Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands, which he dubbed the
"Sandwich Islands" after the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord
Sandwich. About 350,000 Hawaiians inhabited them. Cook first landed on
Kauai and then Niihau where his men introduced venereal disease.
(Wired, 8/95, p.90)(AP, 1/18/98)(HN, 1/18/99)
1778 Jan 27, Nicolo Piccinni's
(1728-1800) opera "Roland" premiered in Paris.
(WUD, 1994 p.1088)(MC, 1/27/02)
1778 Feb 6, The United States won
official recognition from France as the nations signed a treaty of aid
in Paris. The Franco-American Treaty of Alliance bound the 2 powers
together "forever against all other powers." It was the first alliance
treaty for the fledgling U.S. government and the last until the 1949
NATO pact.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A15)(AP, 2/6/97)(HNQ, 5/24/99)
1778 Feb 6, England declared war
on France.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1778 Feb 13, Fernando Sor,
composer, was born.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1778 Feb 14, The American ship
Ranger carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port
for the first time as it arrived in France.
(AP, 2/14/98)
1778 Feb 22, Rembrandt Peale,
American painter who painted excellent portraits of the founding
fathers of the United States, was born.
(HN, 2/22/99)
1778 Feb 23, Baron von Steuben
joined the Continental Army at Valley Forge.
(HN, 2/23/98)
1778 Feb 25, Jose Francisco de San
Martin (d.1850) was born in Argentina. He liberated Argentina, Chile
and Peru. Protector of Peru (1821-1822).
(WUD, 1994 p.1267)(MC, 2/25/02)
1778 Feb 28, Rhode Island General
Assembly authorized the enlistment of slaves.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1778 Mar 5, Thomas A. Arne (67),
English composer (Alfred, Rule Britannia), died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1778 Mar 7, Capt. James Cook 1st
sighted the Oregon coast and named Perpetua Cape in honor of St.
Perpetua’s Day.
(SSFC, 9/21/08, p.E7)
1778 Mar 15, In command of two
frigates, the Frenchman la Perouse sailed east from Botany Bay for the
last lap of his voyage around the world.
(HN, 3/15/99)
1778 Mar 15, Nootka Sound,
Vancouver Island, was discovered by Captain Cook.
(HN, 3/15/98)(MC, 3/15/02)
1778 Mar 22, Captain Cook sighted
Cape Flattery in Washington state.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1778 Apr 1, Oliver Pollock,
a New Orleans businessman, created the "$" symbol.
(HN, 4/1/98)(OTD)
1778 Apr 10, William Hazlitt
(d.1830), essayist, critic, was born in Maidstone, Kent, England.
(AP,
11/10/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt)
1778 Apr 18, John Paul Jones
attacked the British revenue cutter Husar near the Isle of Man, but it
escaped. Soon thereafter he raided Whitehaven and burned one coal ship.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)
1778 Apr 22, James Hargreaves,
inventor (spinning jenny), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1778 Apr 23, US Captain John Paul
Jones attempted to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk, but he only got Lady
Selkirk's silverware.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)
1778 Apr 24, US Ranger Captain
John Paul Jones captured the British ship Drake.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)(Internet)
1778 May 11, William Pitt Sr.
(69), English premier (1756-61, 66-68), died.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1778 May 30, Voltaire (b.1694),
French writer born as Francois-Marie Arouet, died. His books included
Candide (1759).
(www.online-literature.com/voltaire/)
1778 Jun 7, George Byran "Beau"
Brummell (d.1840), English wit, was born. He influenced men's fashion
and introduced trouser to replace breeches.
(HN, 6/7/99)
1778 Jun 18, American forces
entered Philadelphia as the British withdrew during the Revolutionary
War.
(AP, 6/18/97)(HN, 6/18/98)
1778 Jun 19, General George
Washington’s troops finally left Valley Forge after a winter of
training. Washington left to intercept the British force on its way to
New York City.
(HN, 6/19/98)(MC, 6/20/02)
1778 Jun 27, The Liberty Bell came
home to Philadelphia after the British left.
(MC, 6/27/02)
1778 Jun 28, "Molly Pitcher," Mary
Ludwig Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water
to the soldiers during the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth,
N.J. and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his cannon
after he is overcome with heat. According to myth she was presented to
General George Washington after the battle. Her actual existence is a
matter of historical debate and the outcome of the battle was
inconclusive.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)(HNQ, 7/25/99)(AP, 6/28/08)
1778 Jun, George Washington
appointed Benedict Arnold as military governor of Philadelphia.
(ON, 11/01, p.1)
1778 Jul 2, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(b.1712), Swiss-born writer and philosopher, died in France. He
was considered part of the French Enlightenment along with Voltaire and
Diderot. In 2005 Leo Damrosch authored “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless
Genius.”
(www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rous.htm)(WSJ, 6/7/00,
p.A24)
1778 Jul 3, The Wyoming Massacre
occurred during the American Revolution in the Wyoming Valley of
Pennsylvania. As part of a British campaign against settlers in the
frontier during the war, 360 American settlers, including women and
children, were killed at an outpost called Wintermoot's Fort after they
were drawn out of the protection of the fort and ambushed.
(HNQ, 11/5/98)(MC, 7/3/02)
1778 Jul 8, George Washington
headquartered his Continental Army at West Point.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1778 Jul 10, In support of the
American Revolution, Louis XVI declared war on England.
(HN, 7/10/98)
1778 Jul 27, British and French
fleets fought to a standoff in the first Battle of Ushant.
(HN, 7/27/98)
1778 Summer, American Captain
Leonard Helm occupied fort Sackville the British having withdrawn to
Detroit.
(HNQ, 7/24/00)
1778 Aug 9, Captain Cook reached
Cape Prince of Wales in the Bering straits.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1778 Aug 14, Augustus Montague
Toplady (b.1740), English Calvinist hymn writer (Rock of Ages), died.
His best prose work is the "Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism
of the Church of England" (London, 1774).
(MC, 8/14/02)(Wikipedia)
1778 Aug 20, Bernardo O'Higgins
was born in Chile. He later won independence for Chile.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1778 Aug 31, British killed 17
Stockbridge Indians in Bronx during Revolution.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1778 Sep 3, Jean Nicolas Auguste
Kreutzer, composer, was born.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1778 Sep 5, Gideon Olmstead and 3
fellow Americans took over the British sloop Active and sailed it
toward the New Jersey coast, where it was intercepted by the American
brig Convention, owned by the state of Pennsylvania. A state court
ruled the sloop a prize of the state. An appeals committee overturned
the Philadelphia court. Olmstead spent the next 30 years fighting for
his claim and won in 1808. [see Mar 6, 1779]
(ON, 12/01, p.9)
1778 Sep 7, Shawnee Indians
attacked and laid siege to Boonesborough, Kentucky.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1778 Sep 17, The 1st treaty
between the US and Indian tribes was signed at Fort Pitt.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1778 Oct 3, Capt. Cook anchored
off Alaska.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1778 Nov 9, Giovanni Battista
Piranesi (58), Italian etcher, died.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1778 Nov
11, British redcoats, Tory rangers and Seneca Indians in central New
York state killed more than 40 people in the Cherry Valley Massacre. A
regiment of 800 Tory rangers under Butler (1752-1781) and 500 Native
forces under the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant (1742-1807), fell upon
the settlement, killing 47, including 32 noncombatants, mostly by
tomahawk.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Cherry-Valley-Massacre)(AP, 11/11/07)
1778 Nov 14, Johann Nepomuk
Hummel, composer, was born.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1778 Nov 26, Captain Cook
discovered Maui in the Sandwich Islands, later named Hawaii.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1778 Nov 27, John Murray,
publisher, was born.
(MC, 11/27/01)
1778 Dec 17, Humphrey Davy
(d.1829), English chemist who discovered the anesthetic effect of
laughing gas (1799), was born.
(HN, 12/17/98)(Dr, 7/17/01, p.2)(ON, 12/01, p.7)
1778 Dec 17, The British—under Lt.
Col. Henry Hamilton—returned and recaptured Fort Sackville (near
Vincennes, Indiana).
(HNQ, 7/24/00)
1778 Dec 26, Juan Lovera, artist,
was born: ‘artist of independence’: originator of Venezuelan historical
painting: paintings commemorate Venezuela’s independence dates.
(440.com)
1778 Dec 29, British troops,
attempting a new strategy to defeat the colonials in America, captured
Savannah, the capital of Georgia.
(HN, 12/29/98)
1778 John Singleton Copley,
American artist, painted "Watson and the Shark." The work was based on
a real life incident from 1749 in Cuba’s Havana Harbor, where Brook
Watson (14) lost half a leg to a shark. Watson went on to become the
Lord Mayor of London.
(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W16)
1778 Federalists won over
anti-Federalists in a crucial New York state ratifying convention for
the Constitution.
(WSJ, 6/10/98, p.A18)
1778 In the winter of 1778,
American troops stationed at West Point on the Hudson River nicknamed
the place "Point Purgatory." Now the site of the famous military
academy, during the Revolutionary War West Point was a strategic
highland on the Hudson. Both the British and the Americans considered
it very important for controlling the vital Hudson.
(HNQ, 5/29/00)
1778 British troops ordered ships
in Newport Harbor, R.I., to be sunk as French naval forces approached.
(SFC, 3/12/99, p.A9)
1778 In France Benjamin Franklin
approved a plan by John Paul Jones to disrupt British merchant shipping
along Britain's undefended west coast.
(ON, 2/04, p.6)
1778 Ethan Allen, the hero of
Ticonderoga, was released from prison in England as part of a prisoner
exchange.
(ON, 3/00, p.6)
1778 In New York City Robert
Edwards, a Welsh buccaneer, or his son supposedly leased 77 acres of
prime land to Trinity Church on a 99-year lease. The land later
included what became Wall street. The land was supposed to revert to
his descendants but that didn't happen. The case was to go to court in
1999.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.A13)
1778 Benjamin Tallmadge, under
orders from George Washington, organized a spy network in NYC, the
heart of the British forces. The code name for the group was Samuel
Culper and it became known as the Culper Gang.
(MT, Fall/99, p.6)
1778 A census in Argentina showed
that about 30% of the 24,363 residents of Buenos Aires were African.
(SSFC, 11/27/05, p.A24)
1778 Juan Bautista de Anza led a
punitive expedition across new Mexico and Colorado against the
Comanches. His forces cornered and killed Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde
and other leaders at what later became Rye, Colo.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1778 The king of the Big Island of
Hawaii sent his warrior-general Kamehameha to Lana’i, under the rule of
Maui, after being thwarted in a bid to conquer Maui. Kamehameha’s
troops destroyed everyone on the island, which event gave the island
its name. Lana’i means "day of conquest."
(SFEM, 10/13/96, p.24)
1778 Joshua Spoontree was murdered
by three ruffians hired by his wife.
(LSA., Fall 1995, p.21)
1778 In England the Catholic
Relief Act was enacted. It inspired London riots in Jun 1780.
(HNQ, 2/24/99)
1878 A repressive general of the
Russian Czar was shot and wounded by revolutionary Vera Zasulich. She
was able to talk a jury into acquitting her. Oscar Wilde’s first play,
“Vera” (1883), was inspired by her actions.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.E1)
1778 King Carlos III of Spain sent
Spanish settlers from the Canary Islands to Louisiana. They settled in
St. Bernard Parish and became known as Islenos or Spanish Cajuns.
(SFC, 9/4/00, p.B2)
1778-1781 Under the Treaty of Commerce and
Friendship, France aided the American revolutionaries. Some 44,000
French troops served during the American War of Independence.
(AP, 5/3/03)
1778-1788 John Adams began a series of numerous
missions to Europe. He was the first American ambassador to the court
of St. James. Adams was able to negotiate a treaty with the Dutch
government and secured a loan of $2 million. He also arranged a secret
treaty with Brittain that recognized American territorial rights in the
Mississippi Valley.
(A&IP, Miers, p.20)(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
1778-1829 Sir Humphrey Davy, British chemist. He
discovered 12 chemical elements.
(AHD, 1971 p.337)
1779 Jan 5, Stephen Decatur
(d.1820), U.S. naval hero during actions against the Barbary pirates
and the War of 1812, was born. [see 1820 Decatur-Barron duel]
(HFA, '96, p.26)(HN, 1/5/99)
1779 Jan 5, Zebulon Montgomery
Pike, explorer, (Pike's Peak), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1779 Feb 14, American Loyalists
were defeated by Patriots at Kettle Creek, Ga.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1779 Jan 18, Peter Roget,
thesaurus fame, inventor (slide rule, pocket chessboard), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1779 Feb 7, William Boyce (67),
composer, died. [see Feb 16]
(MC, 2/7/02)
1779 Feb 14, Captain James Cook
(b.1728), English explorer, was killed on the Big Island in Hawaii. In
2002 Tony Horwitz authored "Blue Latitudes," and Vanessa Collingridge
authored "Captain Cook: A Legacy Under Fire."
(WSJ, 10/2/02,
p.D12)(www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/3521.html)
1779 Feb 16, William Boyce,
English organist, composer (Cathedral Music), died. [see Feb 7]
(MC, 2/16/02)
1779 Feb 25, Fort Sackville,
originally named Fort Vincennes, was captured by Colonel George Rogers
Clark in 1779. Col. Clark led a force of some 170 men from Kaskaskia to
lay siege to Fort Sackville in January, and received Hamilton‘s
surrender on February 25. With the surrender of Fort Sackville,
American forces gained effective control of the Old Northwest, thereby
affecting the outcome of the Revolutionary War. The fort, which Clark
described as “a wretched stockade, surrounded by a dozen wretched
cabins called houses,” was located near present-day Vincennes, Indiana.
(HNQ, 7/24/00)(AP, 2/25/08)
1779 Mar 6, The US Congress
declared that only the federal government, and not individual states,
had the power to determine the legality of captures on the high seas.
This was the basis for the 1st test case of the US Constitution in
1808.
(ON, 12/01, p.9)
1779 Mar 31, Russia and Turkey
signed a treaty by which they promised to take no military action in
the Crimea.
(HN, 3/31/99)
1779 Apr 24, Mr. H. Sykes, an
English optician living in Paris, wrote to Ben Franklin and explained a
delay in sending an order for special spectacles, complaining that he
was having difficulty making them. Franklin is believed to have ordered
his first pair of bifocals from Sykes.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1779 May 13, War of Bavarian
Succession ended.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1779 May 23, Benedict Arnold,
military governor of Philadelphia, wrote a query to the British asking
what they would pay for his services. He had already begun trading with
the British for personal profit and faced charges.
(ON, 11/01, p.1)
1779 May 25, Henry M. Baron de
Kock, Dutch officer, politician, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1779 May 28, Thomas Moore, Irish
poet, was born.
(HN, 5/28/01)
1779 Jun 16, Spain, in support of
the US, declared war on England.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1779 Jun 16, Vice-Admiral Hardy
sailed out of Isle of Wight against the Spanish fleet.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1779 Jun 18, French fleet occupied
St Vincent.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1779 Jul 4, A French fleet
occupied Grenada.
(Maggio)
1779 Jul 10, Alois Basil Nikolaus
Tomasini, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1779 Jul 15, Clement Moore,
founder of the General Theological Seminary in New York City, was born.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1779 Jul 16, American troops under
General Anthony Wayne, aka Mad Anthony Wayne, captured Stony Point, NY,
with a loss to the British of more than 600 killed or captured.
(HN, 7/16/98)(http://hhr.highlands.com/stpt.htm)
1779 Jul 24, The Siege of
Gibraltar by the Spanish and French was begun. British Gen. George
Eliott led the 5,000 man Gibraltar garrison. The siege was finally
lifted on Feb 7, 1783. In 1965 T.H. McGuffie authored "The Siege of
Gibraltar, 1779-1783).
(HN, 2/7/99)(ON, 7/01, p.8)
1779 Aug 1, Francis Scott Key,
author of the "Star Spangled Banner," was born.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1779 Aug 7, Carl Ritter, cofounder
of modern science of geography, was born in Quedlinberg, Prussia.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1779 Aug 19, Americans under Major
Henry Lee took the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey.
(HN, 8/19/98)
1779 Sep 2, Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte (d.1844), French king of the Netherlands (1806-10), was born
in Corsica. He was one of 3 younger brothers of Napoleon I.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Louis-Napoleon-Bonaparte)
1779 Sep 10, Louis Alexandre
Piccinni, composer, was born.
(MC, 9/10/01)
1779 Sep 13, Frederick II of
Prussia issued a manifesto in which he bemoaned the increased use of
coffee and called for more consumption of beer.
(SFC, 1/30/99, p.D3)
1779 Sep 23, During the
Revolutionary War, the American navy under John Paul Jones, commanding
from Bonhomie Richard, defeated and captured the British man-of-war
Serapis. An American attack on a British convoy pitted the British
frigate HMS Serapis against the American Bon Homme Richard. The
American ship was commanded by Scotsman John Paul Jones, who chose to
name the ship after Benjamin Franklin's “Poor Richard’s Almanack.”
Fierce fighting ensued, and when Richard began to sink, Serapis
commander Richard Pearson called over to ask if Richard would surrender
and Jones responded, "I have not yet begun to fight!"--a response that
would become a slogan of the U.S. Navy. Pearson surrendered and Jones
took control of Serapis. The Bonhomie Richard sank 2 days after the
battle. In 1959 the film Jean Paul Jones starred Robert Stack.
(TVM, 1975, p.294)(AP, 9/23/97)(HN, 9/23/98)(HNPD,
9/23/98)(Arch, 9/02, p.17)
1779 Sep 27, John Adams was named
to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.
(AP, 9/27/97)
1779 Oct 9, The Luddite riots
being in Manchester, England in reaction to machinery for spinning
cotton.
(HN, 10/9/00)
1779 Oct 11, Polish nobleman
General Casimir Pulaski died two days after being mortally wounded
while fighting for American independence during the Revolutionary War
Battle of Savannah, Ga. Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski had come to America
in 1777. In 2005 an attempt to confirm his remains using DNA was
inconclusive.
(AH, 10/04, p.15)(AP, 6/24/05)(AP, 10/11/07)
1779 Dec 25, A court-martial was
convened against Benedict Arnold. He defended himself successfully on 6
of 8 charges but was convicted of illegally issuing a government pass
and using government wagons to transport personal goods.
(ON, 11/01, p.2)
1779 Nov 4, John W. Pieneman,
historical painter (Battle at Waterloo), was born.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1779 Nov 13, Thomas Chippendale
(61), English furniture maker, died.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1779 Dec 6, Jean-Baptiste Simeon
Chardin (80), French still life painter, died.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1779 Dec 19, Auguste-Gaspard-Louis
Desnoyers, engraver, was born in Paris, France.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1779 Dec 23, Benedict Arnold was
court-martialed for improper conduct. He followed the time-honored
military tradition of using government carts to transport his personal
items. He was routinely sentenced to be censured by Gen. Washington- a
formality which the thin-skinned Arnold took personally, ultimately
leading him to switch allegiance to the British cause.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1779 Frances Trollope was born the
daughter of a clergyman and raised near Bristol. She produced 35 novels
and 5 travel books. In 1998 Pamela Neville-Sington wrote the biography
"Fanny Trollope: The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman."
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)
1779 Charles Willson Peale
(1741-1827) painted the portrait “George Washington at Princeton.” In
2006 it was auctioned for a $21.3 million, a record price for an
American portrait.
(SFC, 1/11/06, p.G2)(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.A3)
1779 Richard Samuel (d.1787),
British painter, sent the Royal Academy exhibition his “Nine Living
Muses of Great Britain.” The 1778 painting featured a group of female
writers and artists that included the Swiss-Austrian painter Angelica
Kauffman (1741-1807).
(Econ, 3/22/08,
p.97)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelica_Kauffmann)
1779 The captured journal of
British officer Henry De Berniere was published by John Gill, member of
the Sons of Liberty. Gill had printed many anti-British pamphlets
including the rebel newspaper Boston Gazette.
(AH, 10/01, p.56)
1779 The play "Nathan der Weise"
(Nathan the Wise) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German playwright, was
1st produced. It is set in Jerusalem in 1193 and shows a humane Jewish
merchant, Nathan, spreading benevolence and reconciliation among local
Muslims and Christians. Nathan tells Saladin a story: "My council is:
Accept the matter wholly as it stands …Let each one believe his ring to
be the true one."
(WSJ,11/24/95, p.A-6)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R55)(WSJ,
1/4/02, p.A11)
1779 Richard Brinsley Sheridan
wrote his play "The Critic." It was a rewrite of a Restoration original.
(WSJ, 11/20/98, p.W6)
1779 Ethan Allen authored "A
Narrative of Ethan Allen’s Captivity."
(ON, 3/00, p.6)
1779 The Gluck opera "Iphigenie en
Tauride" was composed.
(WSJ, 8/12/97, p.A12)
1779 There were 21 regiments of
loyalists in the British army estimated at 6500-8000 men. Washington
reported a field army of 3468 men.
(SFEC,11/23/97, Par p.19)
1779 Thomas Jefferson (36) was
wartime governor of Virginia and James Madison (28) served in his
cabinet.
(WSJ, 2/2/95, p.A-16)
1779 John Adams drafted most of
the Massachusetts state constitution.
(WSJ, 12/22/98, p.A16)
1779 The Italian grappa
distillery, Ditta Bortolo Nardini, was founded.
(Econ, 12/18/04, p.104)
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