1780s

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	17th century – 18th century – 19th century
Decades:	1750s 1760s 1770s – 1780s – 1790s 1800s 1810s
Years:	1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789
Categories:	Births – Deaths – Architecture Establishments – Disestablishments

This is a list of events occurring in the 1780s, ordered by year.

January–June

• January 16 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Cape St. Vincent: British Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats a Spanish fleet.
• February – The League of Armed Neutrality is formed between Denmark, Sweden, and Russia.
• February 29 – The Omicron Delta Omega co-ed fraternity is founded by Benjamin Franklin.
• March 8 – Formation of the League of Armed Neutrality.
• March 26 – The British Gazette and Sunday Monitor, the first Sunday newspaper in Britain, begins publication.
• April 16 – The University of Münster in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany is founded.
• May 12 – American Revolutionary War: Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.

May 29: Waxhaw Massacre in America.

• May 13 – Cumberland Compact signed by American settlers in the Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.
• May 19 – New England's Dark Day: An unaccountable darkness spreads over New England, regarded by some observers as a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
• May 29 – American Revolutionary War: Loyalist forces under Col. Banastre Tarleton kill surrendering American soldiers in the Waxhaw Massacre.
• June 2 – Gordon Riots in London, Great Britain: The Duke of Richmond calls, in the House of Lords, for manhood suffrage and annual parliaments.

July–December

• July 11 – French soldiers arrive in Newport, Rhode Island to reinforce colonists in the American Revolutionary War.
• August 16 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Camden: British troops inflict heavy losses on a Patriot army at Camden, South Carolina.
• August 9 – American Revolutionary War: Spanish admiral Luis de Córdova y Córdova captures a British convoy totalling 55 vessels amongst Indiamen, frigates and other cargo ships off Cape St. Vincent.
• August 24 – Louis XVI of France abolishes the use of torture in extracting confessions.
• September 21 – Benedict Arnold gives detailed plans of West Point to Major John André. Three days later, André is captured with papers revealing that Arnold was planning to surrender West Point to the British.
• September 25 – Benedict Arnold flees to British-held New York.
• October 2 – American Revolutionary War: In Tappan, New York, British spy John André is hanged by American forces.
• October 7 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Kings Mountain: Patriot militia forces annihilate a Loyalists under British Major Patrick Ferguson at Kings Mountain in South Carolina.
• October 10–October 16 – The Great Hurricane flattens the islands of Barbados, Martinique and St. Eustatius: 22,000 dead.
• November 29 – Maria Theresa of Austria dies and her Habsburg dominions pass to her ambitious son, Joseph II, who has already been Holy Roman Emperor since 1765.
• December 16 – Emperor Kōkaku accedes to the throne of Japan.
• December 20 start of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.

Date unknown

Final volume, Diderot Encyclopédie.

• In Ireland, Lady Berry, who is sentenced to death for the murder of her son, is released when she agrees to become an executioner (retires 1810)
• The original Craven Cottage is built by William Craven, 6th Baron Craven (located on the centre circle of the pitch).
• Jose Gabriel Kunturkanki, businessman and landowner, proclaims himself Inca Tupac Amaru II.
• Nikephoros Theotokis starts introducing Edinoverie, an attempt to integrate the Old Believers into Russia's established church.
• Western countries pay 16,000,000 ounces of silver for Chinese goods.
• c. 9 million population in Britain.
• Det Dramatiske Selskab is founded in Norway.

January–June

• January – William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister, enters Parliament.
• January 2 – Virginia passes a law ceding its western land claims, paving the way for Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
• January 5 – American Revolution: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
• January 6 – Battle of Jersey: The British beat the French in what is technically the last battle fought in the British Islands (coming after the Battle of Culloden in 1745). It is the last attempt by France to invade Jersey militarily.
• January 17 – American Revolution – Battle of Cowpens: Americans under Daniel Morgan defeat British forces.
• February 2 – The Articles of Confederation are ratified by Maryland, the 13th and final state to do so.
• March – Riots break out in Socorro and spread to other towns.
• March 1 – The United States Continental Congress implements the Articles of Confederation, forming its Perpetual Union as the United States in Congress Assembled.

March 13: Uranus discovered [image in false color].

• March 13 – Sir William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus. Originally he calls it Georgium Sidus (George's Star) in honour of King George III of England.
• March 15 – American Revolution – Battle of Guilford Court House: American General Nathanael Greene loses to the British.
• May 18 – An army sent from Lima put down the rebellions and captures and savagely execute Túpac Amaru II.
• June 4 – The commission agrees to the rebel's terms: reduction of the alcabala and of the Indians' forced tribute, abolition of the new taxes on tobacco and prederence for Creoles over peninsulares in government positions.

July–December

• July 27 – French spy Francis Henry de la Motte is executed in Tyburn Prison in England for high treason.
• July 29 – American Revolution – Skirmish at the House in the Horseshoe: A Tory force under David Fanning attacks Phillip Alston's smaller force of Whigs at Alston's home in Cumberland County, North Carolina (in present day Moore County, North Carolina). Alston's troops surrender after Fanning's men attempt to ram the house with a cart of burning straw.
• August 30 – American Revolution: A French fleet under Comte de Grasse enters Chesapeake Bay, cutting British General Charles Cornwallis off from escape by sea.
• September 4 – Los Angeles is founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Ángeles de Porciuncula (City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula) by a group of 44 Spanish settlers.
• September 5 – American Revolution – Battle of the Chesapeake: A British fleet under Thomas Graves arrives and fights de Grasse, but is unable to break through to relieve the Siege of Yorktown.
• September 6 – American Revolution – Battle of Groton Heights: The British army attacks a fort in Groton, Connecticut.
• September 10 – American Revolution: Graves gives up trying to break through the now-reinforced French fleet and returns to New York, leaving Cornwallis to his fate.
• September 28 – American Revolution: American and French troops begin a siege of the British at Yorktown, Virginia.
• October 19 – American Revolution: Following the Siege of Yorktown, General Charles Cornwallis surrenders to General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the armed struggle of the American Revolution.
• October 20 – A Patent of Tolerance, providing limited freedom of worship, is approved in the Habsburg Monarchy.
• November 5 – John Hanson is elected President of the Continental Congress.
• November 29
  • The slave ship Zong dumps its living cargo into the sea to claim insurance.
  • Henry Hurle officially founds the Ancient Order of Druids (AOD) in London, England.
• December – A school is founded in Washington County, Pennsylvania that would later be known as Washington & Jefferson College.
• December 12 – Second Battle of Ushant: A British fleets defeats French ships.

Date unknown

• Bank of North America is chartered by the Continental Congress.
• Charles Messier publishes the final catalog of Messier objects.
• Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers tungsten.
• Immanuel Kant publishes his Critique of Pure Reason.
• Jeremy Bentham formulates utilitarian ethics.
• Reverend Samuel Peters publishes his General History of Connecticut, using the term blue law for the first time.
• Founding of Phillips Exeter Academy
• Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor abolishes serfdom.

January–June

• January 7 – The first American commercial bank (Bank of North America) opens.
• January 15 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.
• January 23 – Laird of Johnstone, George Ludovic Houston invites people to buy marked plots of land which, when built upon, form the planned town of Johnstone, Scotland, to provide employment for his thread and cotton mills.
• February 5
  • The Spanish defeat British forces and capture Minorca.
• March 8 In Ohio, the Gnadenhutten massacre of Native Americans takes place in which 29 men, 27 women, and 34 children are killed by white militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by another Native American group.
• March 14 – Battle of Wuchale: Emperor Tekle Giyorgis pacifies a group of Oromo near Wuchale.
• March 27 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• March 31 (Easter Sunday) – Mission San Buenaventura is founded in Las Californias, part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain.

April 12: Battle of the Saintes.

• April 6 – Rama I succeeds King Taksin of Siam (now Thailand) who is overthrown in an coup d'etat and moves the political capital from Thonburi across the Menam to Rattanakosin Island, the historic center of Bangkok.
• April 12 – Battle of the Saintes: A British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse in the West Indies.
• April 19 – John Adams secures recognition of the United States as an independent government by the Dutch Republic. During this visit, he also negotiates a loan of five million guilders financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink.
• May 17 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act, a major component of the reforms collectively known as the 'Constitution of 1782' which restore legislative independence to the Parliament of Ireland.
• June 18 – In Switzerland, Anna Göldi is sentenced to death for witchcraft (the last legal witchcraft sentence).
• June 20 – The bald eagle is chosen as the emblem of the United States of America.

July–December

• July – Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, receives a visit from Pope Pius VI.
• July 1 – American privateers attack Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
• August 7 – George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit (or the Order of the Purple Heart) to honor soldiers' merit in battle (reinstated later by Franklin D. Roosevelt and renamed to the more poetic "Purple Heart" to honor soldiers wounded in action).
• November 30 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized in the Treaty of Paris).

Watt's steam engine patent renewed.

Date unknown

• Chief Kamehameha I of Hawaii gains control of the northern part of the island of Hawaii after defeating his cousin Kiwala'o.
• London creates the Foot Patrol for public security.
• The British parliament extends James Watt's patent for the steam engine to the year 1800.
• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Washington, North Carolina.
• In China, the Siku Quanshu is completed, the largest literary compilation in China's history (surpassing the Yongle Encyclopedia of the 15th century). The books are bound in 36,381 volumes (册) with more than 79,000 chapters (卷), comprising about 2.3 million pages, and approximately 800 million Chinese characters.
• Saint Petersburg has 300,000 inhabitants.

January–June

The first manned hot-air balloon, designed by the Montgolfier brothers, takes off from the Bois de Boulogne, on November 21, 1783

• February 3 – American Revolutionary War: Britain acknowledges the United States independence.
• February 4
  • American Revolutionary War: Great Britain formally declares that it will cease hostilities with the United States of America.
  • A sequence of earthquakes begins in Calabria, Italy, leaves 50,000 dead.
• February 26 – Continental Army Corps of Engineers disbanded.
• March 5 – Last celebration of Massacre Day.
• April 15 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War are ratified.
• May 18 – Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada – The first United Empire Loyalists reach Parrtown.
• May 26 – A Great Jubilee Day celebrating end of American Revolution held in Trumbull, Connecticut.
• June 4 or June 5 – The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon) in Annonay, France.
• June 8 – The volcano Laki, in Iceland, begins an 8-month eruption which kills tens of thousands throughout Europe, including up to 33% of Iceland's population, and causes widespread famine. It has been described as one of "the greatest environmental catastrophes in European History".

July–December

The first manned hydrogen balloon La Charlière' on its first flight on December 1, 1783. Piloted by Prof. Jacques Charles with Nicolas-Louis Robert.

• July 16 – Grants of land in Canada to American loyalists are announced.
• July 24 – The Treaty of Georgievsk is signed between the Imperial Russia and the Kingdom of Kartli and Kakheti (Georgia).
• August 5 – Mount Asama erupts, causing turmoil in Edo period Japan.
• August 18 – A large fireball passes on a thousand-mile track across the North Sea, the United Kingdom and France, prompting scientific discussion.
• August 27 – Le Globe - Jacques Charles and Les Frères Robert launched the world's first hydrogen-filled balloon in Paris.
• September 3 – American Revolutionary War – Treaty of Paris: A treaty between the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain is signed in Paris, formally ending the war.
• September 9 – Dickinson College was chartered in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
• October 3 – The Waterford Glassware Factory begins production in Waterford City, Ireland.
• November 2 – In Rocky Hill, New Jersey, US General George Washington gives his Farewell Address to the Army.
• November 21 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, marquis d'Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight (flight time: 25 minutes, Maximum height: 900 m).
• November 24 – In Spain, the Cedula of Population is signed, stating that anyone who will swear fealty to Spain and is of the Roman Catholic faith is welcome to populate Trinidad and Tobago.
• November 25 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City 3 months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.
• November 30 – A 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck New Jersey.
• December 1 – La Charlière - Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert made the first manned flight in a hydrogen-filled balloon in Paris.
• December 4 – At Fraunces Tavern in New York City, U.S. General George Washington formally bids his officers farewell.

Date unknown

• The city of Sevastopol is founded on the Crimean peninsula of the Russian Empire.
• United Empire Loyalists flee to Canada from the new United States.
• The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending hostilities between the Franco-Spanish Alliance and England.
• Loyalists from New York settle Great Abaco in the Bahamas.
• Ireland's last grey wolf is killed.
• Spanish government refuses to grant diplomatic recognition to the USA.
• Evan William's distillery was founded in Bardstown Kentucky.

January–June

• January 6 – The Turks agree to Russia's annexation of the Crimea in the Treaty of Constantinople.
• January 14 – The Congress of the United States ratifies the Treaty of Paris with Great Britain to end the American Revolutionary War, with the signature of President of Congress Thomas Mifflin.
• January 15 – Henry Cavendish's paper to the Royal Society of London, Experiments on Air, reveals the composition of water.
• February 27 – The Count of St. Germain dies of pneumonia in Schleswig-Holstein.

February 28: John Wesley ordains ministers for the Methodist Church.

• February 28 – John Wesley ordains ministers for the Methodist Church in the United States.
• June 4 – Elizabeth Thible is the first woman to ride in a hot air balloon, at Lyon, France.

July–December

• August 15 – Cardinal de Rohan is called before the court to account for his actions in the Queen's Necklace Affair.
• August 16 – Britain creates the colony of New Brunswick.
• September 22 – Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.
• November 26 – The Roman Catholic Apostolic Prefecture of the United States is established.
• December 25 – The Methodist Episcopal Church, USA is officially formed at the "Christmas Conference" led by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury.

Date unknown

• Emperor Josef II suspends the Hungarian Constitution because of a revolution in Transylvania.
• King Carlos III of the Spanish Empire authorizes land grants in Alta California.
• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the town of Morgansborough, named for Daniel Morgan. The town is designated as the county seat for Burke County, North Carolina and is subsequently renamed "Morgantown" and later shortened to become Morganton.
• The North Carolina General Assembly changes the name of Kingston, North Carolina, originally named for King George III of Great Britain, to Kinston.
• The Japanese famine continues as 300,000 die of starvation.
• A huge locust swarm hits South Africa.
• Benjamin Franklin tries in vain to persuade the French to alter their clocks in winter to take advantage of the daylight.
• Benjamin Franklin invents bifocal spectacles.
• Antoine Lavoisier pioneers quantitative chemistry.
• Cholesterol is isolated.
• Carl Friedrich Gauss pioneers the field of summation with the formula summing 1:n as (n(n+1))/2, at the age of 7.
• Madame du Coudray, pioneer of modern midwifery, retires.
• The India Act requires that the governor general be chosen from outside the British East India Company and it makes company directors subject to parliamentary supervision.
• Britain receives its first bales of imported American cotton.
• Emmanuel Kant writes What is Enlightenment?

January–June

• January 1 – The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.
• January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.
• January 27 – The University of Georgia is founded.
• May 10 – A hot air balloon crashes in Tullamore, causing a fire that burns down about 100 houses, making it the world's first aviation disaster (by 36 days).
• June 3 – Continental Navy disbanded.
• June 15 – After several attempts, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and his companion, Pierre Romain, set off in a balloon from Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the balloon suddenly deflates (without the envelope catching fire) and crashes near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais, killing both men. Although more than a month after the Tullamore crash, some people consider this crash the world's first aviation disaster.

July–December

• July 6 – The dollar is unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States (the first time a nation has adopted a decimal coinage system).
• August 1 – The fleet of French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse leaves Paris for the circumnavigation of the globe.
• August 15 – Cardinal de Rohan is arrested in Paris; the Necklace Affair comes into the open.
• November – A drought occurs in Haiti.
• November 28 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation.

Date unknown

• The University of New Brunswick is founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
• Coal gas is first used for illumination.
• Louis XVI of France signs to a law that a handkerchief must be square.
• The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.
• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Lincolnton, North Carolina (named for American General Benjamin Lincoln) as the new county seat for Lincoln County.
• Belfast Academy (later Belfast Royal Academy) is founded by Rev. Dr James Crombie in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi publishes Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza, and starts the Pantheism controversy.
• Napoleon Bonaparte becomes a lieutenant in the French artillery.
• Music: Mozart's "Haydn" String Quartets are published.

January–June

• January 3 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Choctaw Nation.
• January 10 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Chickasaw Nation.
• February 2 – In a speech before The Asiatic Society in Calcutta, Sir William Jones notes the formal resemblances between Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, laying the foundation for comparative linguistics and Indo-European studies.
• May 1 – Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro premieres in Vienna.
• May 21 – The trial of the Necklace Affair ends in Paris.
• June 10 – An earthquake-caused landslide dam on the Dadu River gives way, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China.
• June 25 – Gavriil Pribylov discovers St. George Island of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.

July–December

• August – James Rumsey tests his first steam boat in the Potomac river at Shepherdstown Virginia (now West Virginia).
• August 1 – Caroline Herschel discovers a comet (the first discovered by a woman).
• August 8 – Mont Blanc is climbed for the first time by Dr. Michael-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat.

August 8: Mont Blanc climbed.

• August 11 – Captain Francis Light, known as the founder of Penang, lands in Penang and renames it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne.
• August 29 – Shays' Rebellion begins in Massachusetts.
• September–December – Goethe undertakes his Italian Journey (published in 1817).
• September 2 – A hurricane strikes Barbados.
• September 11–September 14 – Annapolis Convention held, but the only result was the scheduling of the Philadelphia Convention.
• November 7 – The oldest musical organization in the United States (the Stoughton Musical Society) is founded.
• November 30 – Peter Leopold Joseph of Habsburg-Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, promulgates a penal reform making his country the first state to abolish the death penalty. November 30 is therefore commemorated by 300 cities around the world as Cities for Life Day.
• December 4 – Mission Santa Barbara is founded by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, becoming the 10th mission in the California mission chain.

December 4: Mission Santa Barbara is founded.

Date unknown

• Robert Burns publishes Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.
• Francis Light acquires the island of Penang from the Sultan of Kedah on behalf of the British East India Company. It is the first British colony in South-East Asia.
• An Anglo-Spanish treaty gives Belize to Britain.
• The first ship leaves Britain for Botany Bay, Australia: 820 out of 1,138 aboard are convicts.
• The trade with Iceland is opened to all Danish and Norwegian traders.
• Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, is founded.
• The town of Martinsborough, North Carolina, itself named for Royal Governor Josiah Martin in 1771, is renamed "Greenesville" in honor of United States General Nathanael Greene by the North Carolina General Assembly; the name "Greenesville" is later shortened to become Greenville.

January–June

• January 6 – The North Carolina General Assembly authorizes nine commissioners to purchase 100 acres (0.40 km²) of land for the county seat of Chatham County. The town is named Pittsborough (later shortened to Pittsboro) for William Pitt the Younger.
• January 11 – William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, 2 moons of Uranus.
• February 4 – Shays' Rebellion fails.
• February 28 – A charter is granted establishing the institution known today as the University of Pittsburgh.
• April 2 – A Charter of Justice is signed providing the authority for the establishment of the first New South Wales (i.e. Australian) Courts of Criminal and Civil Jurisdiction.
• May 13 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England with 11 ships packed with 1,000 convicts and their jailers to establish a penal colony in Australia.
• May 14 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates begin arriving to write a new Constitution for the United States.
• May 25 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates begin to convene a Constitutional Convention intended to amend the Articles of Confederation. However, a new Constitution for the United States is eventually produced. George Washington presides over the Convention.
• May – Orangist troops attack Vreeswijk, Harmelen and Maarssen; civil war starts in the Netherlands.
• June 6 – Franklin College, named for Benjamin Franklin, opens in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It later merges with Marshall College to become Franklin and Marshall College.
• June 20 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention that the government be called the United States.
• June 28 – Princess Wilhelmina of Orange, sister of Frederick, the king of Prussia, is captured by patriots and taken to Goejanverwellesluis, and not allowed to travel to the Hague.

July–December

• July 13 – The U.S. Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.
• July 15 – Lord's cricket ground is established and the MCC incorporated.
• August 27 – Launching a 45-foot (14 m) steam powered craft on the Delaware River, John Fitch demonstrates the first U.S. patent for his design.
• September 13 – Prussian troops enter the Netherlands. Within a few weeks 40,000 Patriots (out of a population of 2,000,000) go into exile in France (and learn from observation the ideals of the French Revolution).
• September 17 – The United States Constitution is adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
• September 24 – Washington Academy (now Washington & Jefferson College) was chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
• October 1 – Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792 – Battle of Kinburn: Alexander Suvorov, though sustaining a wound, routs the Turks.
• October 27 – The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, is published in a New York paper.
• October 29 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte) premieres in the Estates Theatre in Prague.
• December 3 – James Rumsey demonstrates a water-jet propelled boat on the Potomac.
• December 7 – Delaware ratifies the Constitution and becomes the first U.S. state.
• December 8 – Mission La Purisima Concepcion is founded by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, becoming the 11 mission in the California mission chain.
• December 12 – Pennsylvania becomes the second U.S. state.
• December 18 – New Jersey becomes the third U.S. state.

Date unknown

• In Britain, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp found the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.
• Caroline Herschel is granted an annual salary of £50 by King George III of Great Britain for acting as assistant to her brother William in astronomy.
• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Waynesborough and designates it the county seat for Wayne County, North Carolina.
• The element Silicon is first identified by Antoine Lavoisier as a component of the Latin term silex or "Flints" (meaning "Hard Rocks").

January–June

• January 1 – The first edition of The Times, previously The Daily Universal Register, is published in London.
• January 2 – Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the fourth U.S. state under the new government.
• January 9 – Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the fifth U.S. state.
• January 18 – The leading ship in Captain Arthur Phillip's First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay to colonise Australia.
• January 22 – Cyrus Griffin becomes the tenth and last President of the United States in Congress Assembled.
• January 24 – The La Perouse expedition in the Astrolabe and Boussole arrives off Botany Bay just as Captain Arthur Phillip is attempting to move his colony from there to Sydney Cove in Port Jackson.
• January 26 – Australia Day: Eleven ships of the First Fleet from Botany Bay, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, land at Sydney Cove (which will become Sydney), Australia, where he determines to establish the British prison colony of New South Wales, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.
• January 31 – Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Henry IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.
• February 1 – Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent a steamboat.
• February 6 – Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the sixth U.S. state.
• February 9 – Austria enters the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 and attacks Moldavia.
• February 17 – The uninhabited Lord Howe Island is discovered by the brig HMS Supply, commanded by Lieutenant Ball, who is on his way from Botany Bay to Norfolk Island with convicts to start a penal settlement there.
• March 10 – The La Perouse expedition leaves Sydney Cove for New Caledonia, never to be seen again.
• March 14 – The Edinburgh Evening Courant carries a notice of £200 reward for the capture of William Brodie, a town councilor doubling as a burglar.

March 21: Fire in New Orleans requires rebuilding Jackson Square area.

• March 21 – Great New Orleans Fire kills 25% of the population and destroys 856 buildings, including St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, leaving most of the town in ruins.
• April 13 – America's first recorded riot, the 'Doctors' Mob', begins. Residents of Manhattan are angry about grave robbers stealing bodies for doctors to dissect. The rioting is suppressed on the 15th.
• April 28 – Maryland ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the seventh U.S. state.
• May 10 – The Royal Dramatic Theatre (Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern), Sweden's national drama company, is founded.
• May 23 – South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the eighth U.S. state.
• June 7 – France: Day of the Tiles, which some consider the beginning of the French Revolution.
• June 9 – The African Association, an exploration group dedicated to plotting the Niger River and finding Timbuktu, is founded in England.
• June 17 – English captains Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall, returning from Botany Bay, become the first Europeans to encounter the Gilbert Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
• June 21 – New Hampshire ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the ninth U.S. state, enabling the Constitution to go into effect. (The latter happens on March 4, 1789, when the first Congress elected under the new Constitution assembles.)
• June 25 – The Virginia Ratifying Convention‎ ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the tenth U.S. state under the new government.
• June 26 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, completes his antepenultimate symphony, now called the Symphony No. 39 in E-flat.

July–December

• July – King Louis XVI of France calls for a spring session of the Estates General.
• July 13 – A hailstorm sweeps across France and the Dutch Republic with hailstones 'as big as quart bottles' that take 'three days to melt'; immense damage is done.
• July 24 – Governor General Lord Dorchester, by proclamation issued from the Chateau St. Louis in Quebec City, divides the British Province of Quebec into five Districts, namely: Gaspé, Nassau, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, and Hesse.
• July 26 – New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the eleventh U.S. state.
• July 28 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, completes his penultimate symphony, now called the Symphony No. 40 in G Minor.
• August 8 – King Louis XVI of France agrees to convene the Estates-General meeting in May 1789, the first time since 1614.
• August 10 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in Vienna, completes his final symphony, now called the Symphony No. 41 in C Major, and nicknamed (after his death) The Jupiter.
• August 27 – The trial of William Brodie begins in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is sentenced to death by hanging.
• October 1 – William Brodie is hanged.
• December 6 – Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792: The Ottoman fortress of Özi falls to the Russians after a prolonged siege and a murderous storm with a temperature of -23 degrees C.
• December 14 – King Charles III of Spain dies and is succeeded by his son Charles IV.

Date unknown

• Annual British iron production reaches 68,000 tons.
• In Australia some time in May the Australian Frontier Wars begin.

January–June

• January 7 – 1789 United States presidential elections and House of Representatives elections are held.
• January 21 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts.
• January 23 – Georgetown University is founded in Washington, D.C., becoming the first Catholic college in the United States.

February 4: First President of the United States, George Washington, elected.

• February 4 – George Washington is unanimously elected the first President of the United States by the United States Electoral College.
• March 4 – At Federal Hall in New York City, the 1st United States Congress meets and declares the new United States Constitution to be in effect.
• April 1 – At Federal Hall, the United States House of Representatives attains its first quorum and elects congressman Frederick Muhlenberg as the first Speaker of the House.
• April 6 – At Federal Hall, the United States Senate attains its first quorum and elects John Langdon of Pennsylvania as its first President pro tempore. Later that day, the Senate and the House of Representatives meet in joint session for the first time, and the electoral votes of the first U.S. Presidential election are counted. General George Washington is certified as President-elect and John Adams is certified as Vice-President elect.
• April 7 – Selim III (1789–1807) succeeds Abd-ul-Hamid I (1773–1789) as Ottoman Sultan.
• April 28 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Fletcher Christian leads the mutiny on HMS Bounty against Captain William Bligh.
• April 21 John Adams takes office as the first Vice-President of the United States and begins presiding over the United States Senate.
• April 30 – George Washington is inaugurated at Federal Hall in New York City, beginning his term as the first President of the United States.
• May 5 – In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 175 years.
• June 14 – Bounty mutiny survivors, including Captain William Bligh and 18 others, reach Timor after a nearly 4,000-mile (6,400 km) journey in an open boat.

April 28: Mutiny on the Bounty.

• June 17 – In France, representatives of the Third Estate at the Estates-General declare themselves the National Assembly.
• June 20 – Tennis Court Oath is made in Versailles.
• June 23 – Louis XVI of France makes a conciliatory speech urging reforms to a joint session and orders the three estates to meet together.

July–December

• July – An estimated 150,000 of Paris's 600,000 people are without work.
• July 1 – The comic ballet La fille mal gardée choreographed by Jean Dauberval is first presented under the title Le ballet de la paille at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, in Bordeaux, France.
• July 9
  • In Versailles, the National Assembly reconstitutes itself as the National Constituent Assembly and begins preparations for a French constitution.
  • The Theater War officially ends.
• July 10 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches Mackenzie River Delta.
• July 11 – Louis XVI of France fires popular Chief Minister Necker.
• July 12 – An angry Parisian crowd demonstrates against the King’s decision to dismiss Minister Necker.
• July 13 – The people begin to seize arms for the defense of Paris.
• July 14 – The French Revolution (1789–1799) begins: Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille and free seven prisoners. In rural areas, peasants attack noble manors.

July 14: Storming of the Bastille.

• July 27 – The first U.S. federal government agency under the new Constitution, the Department of Foreign Affairs (later renamed the Department of State), is established.
• August 4 – In France, members of the Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.
• August 7 – The United States Department of War is established.
• August 21 – A proposal for a Bill of Rights is adopted by the United States House of Representatives.
• August 26 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man is proclaimed in France by the Constituent Assembly.
• August 28 – William Herschel discovers Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.
• September 2 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.
• September 15 – Department of State
• September 22 – Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792 – Battle of Rymnik: Alexander Suvorov roundly defeats 100,000 Turks.
• September 24 – The Judiciary Act of 1789 establishes the federal judiciary and the United States Marshals Service.
• September 25 – The United States Congress proposes a set of 12 amendments for ratification by the states. Ratification for 10 of these proposals is completed on December 5, 1791, creating the United States Bill of Rights.
• September 29 – The U.S. Department of War establishes the nation's first regular army, with a strength of several hundred men.
• October – Some 7,000 women march 12 miles (19 km) from Paris to Versailles to demand action.
• November 6 – Pope Pius VI appoints John Carroll the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.
• November 20 – New Jersey ratifies the United States Bill of Rights, the first state to do so.
• November 21 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 12th U.S. state.
• November 26 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
• December 11 – The University of North Carolina, the oldest public university in the United States, is founded.
• December 23 – A leaflet circulated in France accuses marquis de Favras of plotting to rescue the royal family.

Date unknown

• February - King Gustav III of Sweden enforces the Union and Security Act, delivering the coup de grace to Sweden's 70-year old parliamentarian system in favor of absolute monarchy
• The Bengal Presidency first establishes a penal colony in the Andaman Islands.
• Thomas Jefferson returns from Europe, bringing the first macaroni machine to the United States.
• Influenced by Dr. Benjamin Rush's argument against the excessive use of alcohol, about 200 farmers in a Connecticut community form a temperance association.
• Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, decrees that all peasant labor obligations be converted into cash payments.
• Fort Washington, Cincinnati, Ohio, is built to protect early U.S. settlements in the Northwest Territory.

Significant people

• George Washington
• Benjamin Franklin