Timeline 1751-1800
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1761
1771
1781
1791
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  • 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