istoryworld
All Events
William Blake publishes Songs of Innocence, a volume of his poems with every page etched and illustrated by himself
In his Principles Jeremy Bentham defines 'utility' as that which enhances pleasure and reduces pain
A left-wing political club begins to meet in a Jacobin convent in Paris, thus becoming known as the Jacobins
The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave captured as a child in Africa, becomes a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic
Alexander Mackenzie explores by canoe from central Canada through the Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean
Delegates of the Third Estate swear an oath in a tennis court at Versailles, pledging themselves not to disperse until France has a constitution
The painter Jacques-Louis David sketches the events in the Versailles tennis court
Robert Tunstall builds a replacement stone bridge at Kew, designed by James Paine. It is opened by King George III driving over ‘with a great concourse of carriages’
An excited Paris mob liberates the seven prisoners held in the forbidding fortress of the Bastille
US painter and author William Dunlap has great success with his comedy The Father; or, American Shandyism
Parisians force their way into the palace at Versailles and insist on Louis XVI and his royal family accompanying them back to Paris
French doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposes a decapitation machine as a more humane form of capital punishment
Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMS Bounty against the captain, William Bligh
Francisco de Goya is appointed court painter to the new Spanish king, Charles IV
Mozart's opera Così fan Tutte has its premiere in Vienna, in the court theatre of Joseph II
A second great revivalist movement sweeps northeast America, inspired by the earlier example of Jonathan Edwards
Joseph Haydn sets off for England, where impresario Johann Peter Salomon presents his London symphonies
A second fleet arrives in Sydney, bringing more convicts and a regiment, the New South Wales Corps, to keep order
The Potomac is chosen as the navigable river on which the new US capital city will be sited
The USA becomes the first nation to establish a regular census as a systematic check on the size of the population
Anglo-Irish politician Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France, a blistering attack on recent events across the Channel
English painter J.M.W. Turner is only 15 when a painting of his, a watercolour, is first exhibited at the Royal Academy
After centuries as a chapel of Kingston, and 22 years in which it shared a parish with Kew, St Peter’s is established as a parish in its own right.
Under the guidance of Alexander Hamilton the First Bank of the United States is established in Philadelphia
The Canadian Constitution Act divides Quebec into Upper Canada (today's Ontario) and Lower Canada (today's Quebec)
