istoryworld
All Events
Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes Tam o' Shanter, in which a drunken farmer has an alarming encounter with witches
French inventor Claude Chappe develops a hilltop signalling system, for which he coins the words telegraph and semaphore
A stranger arrives in Vienna with a mysterious commission for Mozart to write a requiem mass, just months before the composer's death
Louis XVI and his family attempt to flee from Paris to the border but are captured at Varennes
Stationed at Valence, Napoleon becomes president of the local Jacobin club and makes radical speeches against the nobility and clergy
An Indian raid on an American military camp beside the Maumee river leaves more than 600 US soldiers dead
The Ordnance Survey is founded in Britain, to make detailed maps of the country for military purposes
Naval officer George Vancouver sails from Britain on the voyage which will bring him to the northwest coast of America
Mozart's opera The Magic Flute has its premiere in Vienna in a popular theatre run by the librettist, Emanuel Shikaneder
Wolfe Tone is one of the founders in Belfast of the Society of United Irishmen
Mozart dies, at the age of just 35, leaving his Requiem unfinished
The first ten amendments to the US Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights, are ratified by the states
London's Albion Mills burn
Thomas Paine publishes the first part of The Rights of Man, his reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France
The Swedish king Gustavus III is assassinated at a midnight masquerade in Stockholm – an event later dramatized by Verdi
France declares war on the Austrian emperor, an event that plunges Europe into more than 20 years of conflict
In a first demonstration of the gullotine, a highwayman is beheaded in a Paris square
A French officer, Rouget de Lisle, writes a stirring anthem for France, soon to be known as the Marseillaise
Scottish painter Henry Raeburn depicts the Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch
George Washington is unanimously elected for a second term as president of the USA
The Brazilian rebel Tiradentes is beheaded in public in Rio de Janeiro as a warning to would-be revolutionaries
Charlotte Square in Edinburgh begins to be built to the design of Robert Adam
English author Mary Wollstonecraft publishes a passionately feminist work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Thomas Paine moves hurriedly to France, to escape a charge of treason in England for opinions expressed in his Rights of Man
A French revolutionary army defeats the Austrians and Prussians at Valmy, and thus saves Paris from attack
