-
Robert Davidson born in Elkton, Maryland (1750)
-
Carlisle, Pennsylvania laid out as a county seat (May)
|
1751
|
-
The first American hospital, the Pennsylvania Hospital,
founded (May 11). Opened Feb 11, 1752
-
Johann Sebastian Bach died (July 28, 1750)
-
William Cowper born (Nov. 15)
-
Second Carnatic War, an undeclared war between the British
East India Company and the French Compagnie des Indes continued
-
Population of Europe around 140 million
|
|
1752
|
-
Great Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar - Sep.
3 to 13 were omitted (Sep. 14)
-
Year also standardized to end Dec 31 (previously Mar.
24), this made 1752 a very short year in UK.
|
|
1753
|
-
The first steam engine imported into the Colonies, to
New Jersey (Sep. 25)
-
French troops from Canada seized the Ohio Valley
-
British Museum granted royal charter
|
-
Columbia chartered as King's College (Jan. 4)
-
John McKnight born in Carlisle (Oct. 1)
-
General Braddock's summer defeat brought the hasty construction
of Fort Lowther at Carlisle
|
1754
|
-
First bloodshed in that war at Uniontown, Pennsylvania
(May 28)
-
Fighting that developed into the French & Indian war
began, British and Americans combating French, Canadians and Native Americans
(May)
-
First battle in the war at Fort Necessity, Pennsylvania
(July 3)
|
-
First law instruction in the U.S. began at King's College
|
1755
|
-
Alexander Hamilton born (Jan. 11)
-
John Marshall born (Sep. 24)
-
Lisbon Earthquake killed 30,000 (Nov. 1)
-
Samuel Johnson began his Dictionary
-
Richard Shucksburgh wrote verses to "Yankee Doodle"
|
|
1756
|
-
Mozart born in Salzburg, Austria (Jan. 27)
-
Aaron Burr born in Newark, NJ (Feb. 6)
-
The governor of Pennsylvania offered a bounty of 130 Spanish
dollars for "the scalp of every male Indian enemy above the age of twelve
years produced as evidence of their being killed."
-
Britain declared war on France (May 16)
-
"The Black Hole of Calcutta" (June 20)
-
Frederick the Great led Prussia into Saxony, opening the
Seven Years War (Aug. 27)
|
|
1757
|
-
First public concert held in Philadelphia in the Assembly
Rooms on Lodge Alley (Jan. 25)
-
The British East India Company gained control of Bengal
after Robert Clive won the Battle of Plassey (June 23)
-
Russia joined the treaty of Versailles which Austria
and France had signed the year before; a Russian army attacked East Prussia
(Aug.)
-
The Marquis de Lafayette born (Sep. 6)
|
|
1758
|
-
The French fortress of Louisbourg in Nova Scotia fell
to the American and British attackers after a seven week siege (Summer);
Fort Duquesne fell later and the tide in America turned to the British
-
First state Indian reservation founded in New Jersey (August
29)
|
-
Thomas Cooper born in London
|
1759
|
-
British Museum opened to public (Jan. 15)
-
Robert Burns born (Jan. 25)
-
Halley's Comet returned, as predicted (Mar.)
-
The Duke of Bridgewater began to build a seven and a half
mile long canal between his mines and Manchester, thus lowering the cost
of his coal and demonstrating to the rest of Britain the importance of
canals; completed in 1761
-
Battle of Quebec ended French Canada (Sep. 13)
-
Friedrich von Schiller born (Nov. 10)
|
-
Benjamin Rush graduated from Princeton
|
1760
|
-
Philip Embury, first Methodist clergyman in the United
States, arrived in New York (Aug. 11)
-
First Jewish prayer books were printed in the American
colonies (Oct. 23)
-
Russians occupied and burned Berlin (Oct.)
-
George III of Great Britain crowned (Oct.)
-
Josiah Wedgewood opened his pottery business
|
|
1761
|
-
First life insurance policy in the colonies was
issued, in Philadelphia (May 22)
-
First knighthood conferred in America, on Jeffery Amherst,
Staten Island (Oct. 25)
-
Empress Elizabeth of Russia died, Peter III became
ruler (Dec. 25)
|
|
1762
|
-
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, age 6, with sister Nannerl, age
12, gave his first public concert (Jan. 7)
-
Peter III overthrown by his wife, Catherine the Great,
and her supporters (June) ; Peter was strangled (July 17)
-
Rousseau published his Social Contract
|
|
1763
|
-
Peace of Paris ended the Seven Years War and French
and Indian War. A Royal Proclamation renamed the colony of Canada
as the province of Quebec, and also named Florida and Grenada as provinces
(Feb. 10)
-
Boswell met Johnson for the first time (May 16)
-
Surveying for the Mason-Dixon line was completed (Nov.
15)
|
-
Brown University founded
-
First Market House built in Carlisle
|
1764
|
-
Mozart, aged 8, played for the French royal family
(Jan. 4)
-
St Louis founded by French trader (Feb. 15)
-
Sugar Act amended to tax American colonies
-
London began practice of numbering houses
|
-
First medical school in America, at College of Philadelphia,
founded, now University of Pennsylvania (May 3)
-
First brick courthouse built in Carlisle
|
1765
|
-
Stamp Act passed (Mar. 8)
-
Liberty Tree was dedicated in Boston (Aug. 14)
-
Stamp Act Congress in New York drew up declaration of
rights (Oct.)
|
-
Queen's College chartered under the Dutch Reformed Church
in New Brunswick, New Jersey (Nov. 10)
|
1766
|
-
The Stamp Act was repealed as unenforceable but right
to tax retained (Mar. 18)
-
First purpose built theater in America opened in Philadelphia
(November 21)
-
Oliver Goldsmith published The Vicar of Wakefield in
London
|
|
1767
|
-
Andrew Jackson born (Mar. 15)
-
Burmese unsuccessfully invaded Siam and King Alaungpaya
killed (Apr. - May)
-
New York Assembly suspended for refusing to quarter troops
(June)
-
John Quincy Adams born (July 11)
-
The Mason-Dixon line adopted, as drawn as two English
surveyors, for borders of Pennsylvania and Maryland (Oct. 18)
|
|
1768
|
-
John Dickinson's words "The Liberty Song" published
in Boston Gazette - the first patriotic American song (July 18)
-
Boston refused to quarter troops (Oct.)
-
Royal Academy founded (Dec. 10)
-
Encyclopedia Britannica began weekly issue
|
-
Dartmouth College chartered (Dec. 13)
|
1769
|
-
Duke of Wellington born (Apr. 24)
-
Decision made in London to retain tea duty (May)
-
Napoleon born in Corsica (Aug. 15)
-
Garrick organized first Shakespeare festival at Stratford-upon-Avon
(Sep. 6)
|
-
John Mitchell Mason born New York City (Mar. 19)
|
1770
|
-
Boston Massacre, five died (Mar. 5)
-
William Wordsworth born (Apr. 7)
-
Cook discovered New South Wales (Apr. 28)
-
Thomas Chatterton killed himself (Aug. 25)
-
Hegel was born in Stuttgart (Aug. 27)
-
Ludwig von Beethoven born (Dec. 17)
-
Handel's Messiah first performed in New York
|
|
1771
|
-
Spain ceded Falkland Islands to UK (Jan. 22)
-
Russia completed Crimean conquest (June 2)
-
Thomas Gray died (July 30)
-
Sir Richard Awkwright opened first spinning mill in Cromford
|
|
1772
|
-
Judge Mansfield ruled that there was no legal basis for
slavery in England (May 14)
-
Poland partitioned first of three times (Aug. 5)
-
New Jersey Legislature forbade the practice of medicine
without a license (Sep. 26)
-
Samuel Taylor Coleridge born (Oct. 21)
|
-
Thomas and John Penn granted
land on which to erect a Grammar School (Mar. 3)
-
Moravians built first schoolhouse located west of the
Alleghenies in Schoenbrunn, Ohio (July 29)
-
Jeremiah Atwater born New Haven, Connecticut (Dec. 27)
|
1773
|
-
Jeanne Baptiste Pointe de Sable founded what would become
Chicago (Mar. 12)
-
Klemens von Metternich born (May 15)
-
Clement XIV dissolved the Jesuit Order (July 21)
-
Boston colonists, dressed as Indians, dumped shiploads
of tea into the harbor to protest taxation (Dec. 16)
|
-
Citizens of Carlisle passed a declaration of independence
(July 12)
|
1774
|
-
British Law Lords ruled authors do not have perpetual
copyright (Feb. 22)
-
Coercive Acts passed in Parliament; Port of Boston closed
(May 20)
-
The Quebec Act was passed re-establishing old boundaries
of Canada, and allowing French law and the Catholic religion in Quebec,
angering the Americans (June 22)
-
Peace of Kutsjuk Kainardji ended the Russian Turkish War
(July 21)
-
Joseph Priestley isolated oxygen (Aug. 1)
-
First Continental Congress decided that America would
resist what they call the "Intolerable Acts" and sent a petition to the
King (Sep. 5)
|
|
1775
|
-
In Philadelphia, Ben Franklin and Benjamin
Rush formed the first abolition society, called the "Society
for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage" (Apr. 14)
-
Paul Revere made his famous ride (Apr. 18)
-
Battles of Lexington (Apr. 19)
-
J. M. W. Turner born (Apr. 23)
-
Second Continental Congress was held; George Washington
appointed commander-in-chief (May)
-
Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17)
-
General Arnold's attack on Quebec failed (Dec.)
|
-
Harvard College awarded the first honorary Doctor of Laws
degree - to George Washington (Apr. 3)
-
Phi Beta Kappa was organized at College of William
and Mary (Dec. 5)
|
1776
|
-
Thomas Paine published his pamphlet "Common Sense" (Jan.
10)
-
Adam Smith published Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations (Mar.)
-
Thomas Hickey became the first person to be executed by
the US army, he had plotted to deliver Washington to the enemy (June 27)
-
The Declaration of Independence was voted on (July 4)
and signed (Aug. 2)
-
General Howe captured New York City (Sep. 14)
-
San Francisco was founded (Sep. 17)
|
-
Roger Brooke Taney born (Mar. 17)
|
1777
|
-
Vermont abolished slavery (July 2)
-
General Howe captured Philadelphia (Aug.)
-
Gen. Burgoyne surrendered Saratoga (Oct. 17)
-
The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation
(Nov. 15)
-
France recognized U.S. independence (Dec. 17)
-
Washington's Army went to winter quarters at Valley Forge
(Dec. 17)
|
|
1778
|
-
Captain Cook discovered Hawaii (Jan. 18)
-
France recognized the United States as a sovereign nation
in Treaty of Amity (Feb. 6)
-
Voltaire died in Paris (May 30)
-
British peace offer rejected (June 28)
-
Rousseau died (July 2)
-
La Scala built in Milan; opened (Aug. 3)
-
Buffon published his Époques de la Nature
|
|
1779
|
-
Captain Cook killed by Hawaiians natives (Feb. 14)
-
American victory at Vincennes (Feb. 23)
-
Spain declared war on Britain, four year siege of Gibralter
began (June 23)
-
First running of The Derby, at Epsom (May 4)
|
-
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded
in Boston (May 5)
-
James Ross arrived in Carlisle from Philadelphia to teach
at Grammar School
|
1780
|
-
William Blackstone died (Feb. 15)
-
Anti-Catholic Gordon Riots in London (June 2-8)
-
French regulars arrived in Rhode Island (July)
-
First recorded lynching - named for William Lynch who
terrorized British loyalists (Sep. 22)
-
Benedict Arnold plot revealed (Sep. 23)
-
Sebastian Cerezo invented "the bolero," in Spain.
|
-
Trustees of Grammar School decided to incorporate the
school (Oct. 18)
-
Construction of Grammar School began on Liberty Alley.
|
1781
|
-
Articles of Confederation ratified (Mar. 1)
-
Hershel discovered planet Uranus (Mar. 13)
-
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason published at Riga
(July)
-
Franciscans founded Los Angeles (Sep. 4)
-
Surrender of Yorktown; all British land operations in
America ceased (Oct. 19)
|
-
Construction of Grammar School completed.
-
Meeting on William Bingham's porch between John
Montgomery and Benjamin Rush
-
Carlisle, Pennsylvania was incorporated
-
Washington College in Maryland was chartered
|
1782
|
-
British House of Commons voted against waging further
war on America (Feb. 2)
-
Dutch recognized US independence (Apr. 19)
-
Governor Morris suggested decimalizing the American coinage,
and Thomas Jefferson took up the idea based on the Spanish dollar
-
Mozart's "Abduction from the Seraglio" premiered
in Vienna (July 16)
-
Peace talks over American War opened in Paris; preliminary
peace articles signed (Nov. 30)
|
-
Charter for Dickinson College was approved by Pennsylvania
state legislature (Sep. 9)
|
1783
|
-
Sweden recognized the US as a nation (Feb. 5)
-
Siege of Gibraltar lifted (Feb. 7)
-
Moltgolfier brothers flew air balloon (June 5)
-
Simon Bolivar born (July 24)
-
Mozart's Mass in C Minor first performed in Salzburg
(Aug. 23)
-
The Treaty of Paris formalized independence and defined
America's borders (Sep. 3)
-
Last UK public hanging at Tyburn Hill (Nov. 6)
-
Jean Francois Pilatre de Rozier and the Marquis Francois
Laurant d'Arlandes made the first free flight in a balloon (Nov. 21)
-
British evacuated New York (Nov. 25)
-
William Pitt the Younger became British prime minister
(Dec.)
|
-
University of Georgia chartered in Athens as oldest state
university in US (Jan. 27)
-
First meeting of the Dickinson College Board of Trustees
in Carlisle (Apr. 6)
|
1784
|
-
Paris Peace Treaty ratified by Congress, ending the Revolutionary
War (Jan. 14)
-
John Wesley's Deed of Declaration published as
charter of Methodism (Feb. 28)
-
Russians settled Kodiak Island, Alaska (Sept. 22)
-
Henry Cort's "puddling process" in iron-making went into
production.
-
First golf club founded at St. Andrews, Scotland
|
-
Charles Nisbet arrived in Carlisle (July 4)
-
Trustees debated Benjamin Rush's "Plan of Education" (Aug. 11-15)
-
Charles Nisbet resigned (Oct. 16)
|
1785
|
-
The English Channel first crossed in a hot air balloon
(Jan. 6)
-
Madison's Religious Freedom Act law (Jan.)
-
In Britain, Joseph Bramah patented beer pump handles (May
9)
-
David's The Oath of the Horatii completed
|
-
Belles Lettres Society established (Feb. 22)
-
Charles Nisbet reinstated (May 10)
-
State granted money and land to Dickinson College (500
pounds and 10,000 acres)
|
1786
|
-
Robert Burns first published his "Scottish dialect" poetry
-
Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" debuted (May 1)
-
Frederick the Great died (Aug. 17)
-
Davy Crockett born (Aug. 17)
-
Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts (Aug. 26)
|
-
First Commencement - nine graduates (Sep. 26)
-
Dr. Thomas Gaulladet born (Dec. 10)
|
1787
|
-
Convention in Philadelphia opened to draft a Constitution
(May 25)
-
The Northwest Ordinance created the Northwest Territory,
an area to be free of slavery (July 13)
-
The Constitutional Convention agreed to count three fifths
of a state's slave population in apportioning representations; forbade
Congress from ending the Atlantic slave trade until 1808; and required
fugitive slaves to be returned to their owners.
-
Turkey declares war on Russia (Aug. 10)
-
Constitution signed, Federal system in place in the United
States when ratified (Sep. 17); sent to states (Sep. 21)
-
Mozart's opera Don Giovanni premiered in Prague
(Oct. 29)
|
-
James McCormick began teaching Mathematics
-
Charles Nisbet began series of lectures on Theology
|
1788
|
-
Lord Byron born (Jan. 22)
-
Botany Bay Colony established (Jan. 26)
-
Ratification of Constitution by New Hampshire brought
the new document into force (June 21)
-
UK founded Sierra Leone as home for freed slaves &
homeless Africans from England (Aug)
|
-
Union Philosophical Society established (Aug. 31)
|
1789
|
-
George Washington was chosen as President by the electoral
college (Feb. 4)
-
Mutiny on H.M.S. Bounty (Apr. 28)
-
The Tennis Court Oath in Paris (June 20)
-
Storming of the Bastille in Paris (July 14); National
Assembly took power in France; the Declaration of the Rights of Man adopted
by the Assembly (Aug. 27)
-
Bourbon whiskey first distilled (Nov. 8)
-
First steam powered textile factories opened in Manchester
-
Jeremy Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation published
|
-
Pennsylvania counted in the census as the most populated
state with 434,373 people (Aug. 1)
-
Samuel Blanchard How born in Burlington, New Jersey (Oct. 14)
-
State lottery held to raise funds for Philadelphia City
Hall and Dickinson College
|
1790
|
-
Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutti" debuted (Jan. 2)
-
First "State of the Union" speech (Jan. 4)
-
First session U.S. Supreme Court (Feb. 1)
-
Benjamin Franklin died aged 84 (Apr. 17)
-
Washington, D.C. founded as capital (July 16)
-
Adam Smith died (July 17)
-
The population of the U.S. was about 4,000,000 by
the first U.S. Census taken. NYC had around 33,000 people (Aug. 1)
-
Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
published (Nov. 1)
-
First cotton mill in US in Rhode Island (Dec. 20)
-
Aztec calendar stone found in Mexico City (Dec.)
|
-
James Buchanan, fifteenth president of the United States, born near Mercersburg,
Pennsylvania (Apr. 23)
-
Belles Lettres and Union Philosophical Societies established
their own libraries
|
1791
|
-
Tom Paine's Right of Man published in answer to
Burke (Feb. - Mar.)
-
Vermont became a state (Mar. 1)
-
Slave revolt in French Santo Domingo (Aug.)
-
French King and his family imprisoned (June 21)
-
Mozart died aged 35 in Vienna (Dec. 5)
-
The ten amendments of Bill of Rights went into effect
(Dec. 15)
-
First "one way street" in US, in NYC (Dec. 17)
|
-
Samuel Mitchell was named the first professor of agriculture
in America at Columbia College (July 9)
-
Students graduated by Board of Trustees mandamus
|
1792
|
-
Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of
Women published (Jan.)
-
U.S. Post Office founded (Feb. 20)
-
Gioachino Rossini was born (Feb. 29)
-
First U.S. mint established (Apr. 2)
-
First Presidential veto cast (Apr. 5)
-
Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composed "La Marseillaise"
(Apr. 24)
-
Nicolas Jacques Pelletier, French highwayman, first person
executed by the guillotine (Apr. 24)
-
U.S. Stock Exchange founded (May 17)
-
Kentucky became a U.S. state (June 1)
-
Percy Shelley born (Aug. 4)
-
French Republic declared (Sep. 21)
-
Denmark the first country to abolish slave trade
-
Republican and Federalist parties formed in U.S.
-
William Murdock developed coal gas lighting, installing
it in his Cornwall home
|
-
Nisbet moved from barracks to house in town
|
1793
|
-
Louis XIV executed in Paris (Jan. 21), followed Oct. 16
by his wife Marie Antoinette
-
Britain & France at war (Feb. 1)
-
Volcanic eruption in Japan killed 53,000 (Apr.)
-
Whitney applied to patent cotton gin (June 20)
-
Metric system adopted in France (Aug. 1)
-
"Reign of Terror" began in Paris (Sep. 5))
-
U.S. Capitol building begun (Sep. 18)
-
Louvre in Paris opened to public (Nov. 8)
|
-
Whiskey Rebellion; General Washington assembled his forces
in Carlisle (Oct.)
-
William Irvine replaced John Armstrong as President Pro Tem of the Board of Trustees
|
1794
|
-
United States Navy established (Mar. 27)
-
First trade union in US - shoemakers (May 1)
-
Antoine Lavoisier, father of modern chemistry, went to
the guillotine in Paris (May 5)
-
Robespierre overthrown and the Reign of Terror ended in
France (July 27)
-
Whiskey Rebellion began in western Pennsylvania (Aug.)
-
Battle of Fallen Timbers in Ohio (Aug. 20)
-
Burns published "Auld Lang Syne"
|
-
University of North Carolina opened as first state university
(Feb. 13)
-
John Armstrong died (Mar. 9)
-
Roger Brooke Taney graduated as valedictorian
-
Rules and Regulations printed
-
John Montgomery replaced William Irvine as President Pro Tem of the
Board of Trustees
|
1795
|
-
U.S. Post Office founded (May 9)
-
The Marseillaise was adopted officially as
the French national anthem (May 10)
-
Goya's Duchess of Alba completed (Sep.)
-
British forces captured Capetown in South Africa (Sep.
16)
-
Poland partitioned again (Oct. 24)
-
United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo
- "Pinkney's Treaty" (Oct. 27)
-
John Keats born in London (Oct. 31)
-
Thomas Carlyle born (Dec. 5)
-
Directory took power in France
|
-
Students first divided into classes (Freshman, Junior,
and Senior)
|
1796
|
-
First known elephant arrived in US (Apr. 13)
-
Napoleon occupied Venice (May 12)
-
Jenner introduced smallpox vaccination (May 14)
-
In the US, Tennessee became a state (June 1)
-
State Department issued first US passport (July 8)
-
President Washington's Farewell Address was published
(Sep. 17)
-
John Adams elected 2nd U.S. president (Nov. 2)
|
-
John Montgomery took over as Treasurer
|
1797
|
-
First top hat worn, in London (Jan. 15)
-
British captured Trinidad (Feb. 21)
-
Earthquake in Quito, Ecuador - 41,000 died (Feb)
-
William Blount of Tennessee became first US senator expelled
by impeachment (July 8)
-
Edmund Burke died (July 9)
-
Mary Wollestonecraft died (Sep. 10)
-
France & Austria signed peace treaty; Napoleon returned
to Paris (Oct. 17)
-
Haydn's "Emperor" Quartet premiered
|
-
Students demanded single year curriculum from Trustees,
which was granted (Nov. 7)
|
1798
|
-
Coleridge finished his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
and read it to Wordsworth (Mar. 23)
-
Switzerland formed a republic (Mar. 28)
-
Giacomo Casanova died in Bohemia (June 4)
-
Napoleon seized Malta (June 10) and then Egypt after Battle
of Pyramids (July 21)
-
Thomas Malthus published his Essay on the Principles
of Population (June)
-
The four Alien and Sedition Acts passed through US Congress
(June-July)
-
US abrogated its first treaties - those with France
in 1778 (July 7)
-
Coleridge & Wordsworth published part one of Lyrical
Ballads (Sep. 18)
|
-
Cornerstone laid for "New College" (June 20)
|
1799
|
-
New York State abolished slavery (Mar. 28)
-
Honoré de Balzac was born (May 20)
-
The Rosetta Stone found in Egypt (Aug.)
-
George Washington died (Dec. 14)
-
Church Missionary Society founded in London
-
Napoleon returned from Egypt and seized power as Consul
(Nov. 9)
|
-
Congress passed a bill to establish the Library of Congress,
appropriating $5,000 for books (Apr.)
|
1800
|
-
John Brown born in Connecticut (May 9)
-
White House completed in Washington (June 4)
-
Thomas Babington Macaulay born (Oct. 25)
-
Napoleon began to draw up the Civil Code
-
New York City had around 60,000 people
-
Sir Humphrey Davy first produced electric light
|