A 24-year-old, William Pitt the Younger, is appointed Britain's prime minister by George III

English ironmaster Henry Cort patents a process for puddling iron which produces a pure and malleable metal

Mozart and his friends perform for Haydn the Mozart quartets inspired by Haydn's 'Russian' quartets (op.33), which on publication are dedicated to him

The French queen Marie Antoinette is wrongly implicated in a scandal involving a diamond necklace

French physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb begins publishing his discoveries in the field of electricity and magnetism

James Hutton describes to the Royal Society of Edinburgh his studies of local rocks , launching the era of scientific geology

William Withering's Account of the Foxglove describes the use of digitalis for dropsy, and its possible application to heart disease

French sculptor Jean Antoine Houdon crosses the Atlantic to sculpt a statue of George Washington from the life at Mount Vernon

Mozart's Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna and then has a huge success in Prague

The emperor Joseph II is reported to have told Mozart that his opera The Marriage of Figaro has 'too many notes'

Francisco de Goya is appointed painter to the king of Spain, Charles III

French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier publishes a system for classifying and naming chemical substances

The French finance minister, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, is dismissed when his proposed reforms meet aristocratic opposition

The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in London, with a strong Quaker influence

The First Fleet (eleven ships carrying about 750 convicts) leaves Portsmouth for Australia

Scottish engineer James Watt devises the governor, the first example of industrial automation

Mozart's opera Don Giovanni has its premiere in Prague

The ministers of Louis XVI reluctantly announce that the estates general will meet in 1789, for the first time since 1614

Spain's affairs are controlled by Manuel de Godoy, lover of the queen, Maria Luisa

England's champion pugilist, the Jewish prize-fighter Daniel Mendoza, publishes The Art of Boxing

A pamphlet published in France by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès asks a challenging question, What is the Third Estate?

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

Delegates of the Third Estate swear an oath in a tennis court at Versailles, pledging themselves not to disperse until France has a constitution