istoryworld
Events relating to europe
Captain Cook reaches New Zealand and sets off to chart its entire coastline
French inventor Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot successfully tests a steam wagon, probably the first working mechanical vehicle
Captain Cook reaches the mainland of Australia, at a place which he names Botany Bay, and continues up the eastern coast
The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the Atlantic as slaves
British troops fire into an unruly crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five
17-year-old Thomas Chatterton, later hailed as a significant poet, commits suicide in a London garret
In response to American protests, the British government removes the Townshend duties on all commodities with the exception of tea
English entrepreneur Richard Arkwright adds water power to spinning by means of the water frame
Richard Arkwright pioneers the factory environment with his cotton mill at Cromford in Derbyshire
Russia, Prussia and Austria agree a treaty enabling them to divide the spoils in the first partition of Poland
The first partition of Poland begins the process of Lithuania being progressively absorbed into Russia
Gustavus III achieves a coup d'état which brings executive power in Sweden back into royal hands
Captain Cook sets off, in HMS Resolution, on his second voyage to the southern hemisphere
The London brokers who meet to do business in Jonathan's coffee house decide to call themselves the Stock Exchange
Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer is produced in London's Covent Garden theatre
Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolates oxygen but does not immediately publish his achievement
Samuel Johnson and James Boswell undertake a journey together to the western islands of Scotland
Some fifty colonists, disguised as Indians, tip a valuable cargo of tea into Boston harbour as a protest against British tax
Responding to pressure from the Catholic monarchs of Europe, Clement XIV abolishes the Jesuit Order
As a retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, the British parliament closes Boston's port with the first of its Coercive Acts
Goethe's romantic novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, brings him an immediate European reputation
Britain's new Coercive (or Intolerable) Acts include the requirement that Massachusetts citizens give board and lodging to British troops
The Spanish, now in sole occupation of the Falkland Islands, call them Las Islas Malvinas
Encouraged by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine emigrates to America and settles in Philadelphia
In the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, ending the recent Russo-Turkish war, the Ottoman empire cedes the Crimea to Russia
