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Britain's ministry secures the expulsion of John Wilkes from Parliament for a second time February 3 (see 1768), he is reelected for Middlesex February 16, expelled once again, and reelected March 16 despite a resolution in the Commons that he is not capable of serving in the present Parliament. He is reelected once again April 13, but the Commons declares his opponent Henry Luttrell to have been duly elected. His friends and sympathizers form a Society for the Defence of the Bill of Rights to champion his cause and pay his debts; Wilkes becomes a city alderman and pursues his attacks on the ministry (see 1774).
French forces on Corsica defeat the island's nationalist defenders (see 1768); patriot Pasquale Paoli flees to England, where he receives a comfortable pension from George III (see 1790).
France's Louis XV installs the comtesse du Barry as his maitresse-en-titre April 23—4 days after her 23rd birthday (the king is 59) (see 1768). Although snubbed by the court, she gains such power that for the next 6 years she will virtually reign as the uncrowned queen. Queen Marie Leszczinska dies at Versailles June 25 at age 66, plunging the court into mourning.
Russian troops occupy Moldavia and enter Bucharest in the continuing war with the Ottoman Turks. Austrian forces occupy parts of Poland. Prussia's Friedrich II (the Great) and the Holy Roman Emperor Josef II meet in Silesia to discuss the partition of Poland.
The maharajah of Mysore Haidar Ali forces the British to sign a treaty of mutual assistance as famine devastates Bengal. The East India Company increases its demands on Bengal's remaining 20 million people to insure "a reasonable profit."
Ethiopia comes under attack from Galla (Oromo) tribesmen to the south. The emperor Iyoas calls on the nobleman Mikael Sehul, 77, to resist the invasion, Mikael occupies the capital, Gonder, with his own troops and has himself appointed regent, and when Iyoas tries to have him assassinated Mikael has Iyoas tried and hanged, ending the Solomonid dynasty that has ruled for 27 centuries. Mikhael will control the next three emperors (see 1784).
The Ottawa chief Pontiac is murdered April 20 by a Native American at Cahokia. Suspicions are rife that the British had him killed to prevent any repetition of the 1763-1766 rebellion.
Boston lawyer James Otis scuffles with an officer of the crown September 5 and suffers a severe blow to the head; now 44, he has been showing signs of mental instability, British officials have threatened to try him on treason charges, and he will hereafter have frequent periods of insanity.
Virginia colonists defy George III's 1763 decree and settle on the Watauga River in what will be Tennessee.
Daniel Boone leads an expedition to the Kentucke region (see 1767; 1775; Harrod, 1774).
Spain's Carlos III authorizes the founding of 21 missions in California over the next 54 years along with four presidios (armed garrison forts) at San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Francisco. Spain's empire covers more than half the known world.
Spanish Franciscans led by Father Junipero Serra, 56, come by ship from New Spain to found the Mission of San Diego de Aleala. Gaspar de Portolá, 46, governor of Baja California, has left Velicatá May 15 with Father Serra, whose ulcerated leg does not diminish his zealotry; after founding the mission at San Diego in late June, Serra continues on with 40 men to the Monterey Peninsula, where he establishes another colony in early autumn (see 1536; 1602). De Portolá's company stops August 2 at an Indian village that Mallorcan friar Juan Crespi, 47, renames Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (see Cabrillo, 1542). The party exchanges gifts with the local inhabitants, who speak Uto-Aztecan, and leaves the next morning, having experienced three earthquakes overnight; Friar Crespi notes in his diary that "this delightful place among the trees on the river [has] all the requisites of a large settlement" (see 1781). A Spanish scouting mission under Sgt. José Ortega discovers a bay north of Monterey and names it San Francisco Bay after St. Francis of Assisi (see Yerba Buena, 1776).
James Cook arrives at Tahiti after an 8-month voyage with a scientific group headed by botanist Joseph Banks, 26, and sets up an observatory (see 1768). A nobleman's son who has inherited a large fortune and virtually bankrolled the expedition, Banks has studied at Harrow, Eaton, and Oxford. Astronomers, artists, and botanists are in the ship's company, but Cook has only compasses, brass sextants, and a nautical almanac as navigational aids. He proceeds westward and spends 6 months charting the coasts of New Zealand, whose land he finds fertile and well suited to European colonization (see 1841; Australia, 1770).
Louis Antoine de Bougainville completes the first French expedition around the world.
France abolishes her East Company (Compagnie des Indes Orientales) established in 1644. It has failed to sustain itself financially, but some of the trading ports it established on the coast of India will remain in French hands until the middle of the 20th century.
The British East India Company opens stations in North Borneo.
Virginia's House of Burgesses issues resolutions May 16 rejecting Parliament's right to tax British colonists. The Virginia governor dissolves the House of Burgesses, but its members meet in private and agree not to import any dutiable goods.
Frankfurt-am-Main money lender and coin dealer Meyer Amschel Rothschild hangs a gold-lettered sign in front of his shop September 21 reading, "M. A. Rothschild, by appointment court factor to his serene highness Prince Wiliam of Hauau" (see 1764). Now 26, Rothschild next year will marry 17-year-old Gutele Schaper, who will bear his five sons (Amschel, Salomon, Nathan, Kalman [Karl], and Jacob) and five daughters (see 1801; Nathan, 1799).
Scotsman James Watt, 33, patents a steam engine that produces power far more efficiently than the Newcomen engine of 1705. A working model of that engine was sent to Watt for repair 5 or 6 years ago, and although he had no trouble restoring it to working order, he observed its defects, notably a waste of steam, hence the title of his patent, "A New Invented Method of Lessening the Consumption of Steam and Fuel in Fire Engines." His engine is much smaller than Newcomen's engine and because it has a flyball feedback governor that automatically controls the speed of the steam, it can produce the same amount of energy from one third as much coal. Mathematical instrument maker to the University of Glasgow, Watt had learned about latent heat from his chemist friend Joseph Black and hit upon the idea in May 1765 of employing a separate chamber, or condenser, to condense exhaust steam from the cylinder of his engine and thus increase the fuel efficiency of Newcomen's engine by a factor of four, making it practical to locate a steam engine anywhere and hauling the fuel to it rather than having to locate it close to a source of wood or coal. Watt became a surveyor 3 years ago and for the next 5 years will be so busy marking out routes for Scottish canals and roads that he will have no time to develop his steam engine (see 1774).
The steam-driven three-wheel gun tractor devised at the Paris Arsenal by French engineer Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot, 44, pioneers development of the automobile. Having studied steam-power improvements made by the English inventor Thomas Savery and by the physicist Denis Papin, Cugnot has found ways for steam power to move pistons without condensation: a rocking beam connects two 13-inch (33 cm), 1.75-cubic-foot (50-liter) pistons synchronized in such a way that when atmospheric pressure forces one of them up, high-pressure steam forces the other one down, and this reciprocating motion is transferred to the axle, producing a rotary motion that turns the wheels. Designed to haul heavy artillery pieces, Cugnot's tractor can carry four passengers at a speed of 2½ miles per hour but must stop every 100 feet or so to make steam (see Trevithick, 1801; energy [internal-combustion engine], 1807).
Benjamin Franklin charts the Gulf Stream, whose force is understood by most American navigators but is a mystery to many British sea captains (see Ponce de Léon, 1513); the British make slow progress trying to sail against the swift current, which flows northeastward off the North American coast between Cape Hatteras and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, but Franklin's mother, Abiah (née Folger), was born on Nantucket, and her kinsman, whaling captain Timothy Folger, has helped Franklin create the first chart of the current (see 1938).
A spinning frame patented by English inventor Richard Arkwright, 37, can produce cotton thread hard and firm enough for the warp of woven fabric (see spinning machine, 1738). Born at Preston to a poor family and trained as a barber and wig maker, Arkwright has roamed about the countryside buying girls' hair for wigs. His device is too large to be operated by hand, and after experimenting with horses it is decided to power it with a waterwheel. Called a water frame because it is powered by water, his invention is the first power-driven, automatic, continuous textile machine; it will lead to the employment of thousands of young women in British, European, and American cotton mills. Not only will it make Arkwright enormously rich, but it will also have a profound effect on Western society (see 1782; Hargreaves, 1770; commerce [Luddites], 1779).
Royal Society astronomers with Captain Cook in Tahiti make observations on the transit of Venus across the sun June 3 but fail to fulfill the Society's hopes that an accurate observation will enable astronomers to calculate Earth's distance from the sun (their measurements prove inexact). Pennsylvania astronomer David Rittenhouse makes accurate observations on the transit of Venus, using instruments he has built for the purpose and set up in an observatory he has built on his farm.
Domestic Medicine: or The Family Physician by Scottish practitioner William Buchan, 40, antagonizes the medical establishment by suggesting that it has created a self-serving monopoly. Chastising other doctors for surrounding their profession with a veil of mystery, Buchan counsels natural remedies, including self-treatment of sexually-transmitted diseases and other ills; his book will enjoy a place second only to the Bible in middle-class Scottish households.
Philadelphia-born New York physician Samuel Bard, 28, delivers an address in Trinity Church May 16 at the first graduation exercises (for two students) of the King's College Medical College, saying, "It is truly a reproach that a city like this should want a public hospital, one of the most useful and necessary charitable institutions that can be imagined." Son of Dr. John Bard, the younger Bard graduated from King's College in 1760, sailed for England to study medicine, was imprisoned for 5 months when his ship was captured by a French privateer, gained release through the intercession of his father's friend Benjamin Franklin, and obtained his medical degree at Edinburgh 4 years ago. He helped to establish the medical school at King's College (Columbia) in 1767, and he has his remarks published in a pamphlet entitled, "A Discourse upon the Duties of a Physician, with Some Sentiments on the Usefulness and Necessity of a Public Hospital" (see 1788).
Pope Clement XIII dies of an apoplectic stroke at Rome February 2 at age 75 on the eve of a special consistory convened to consider demands by envoys from Franced, Spain, and Naples that the Jesuit order be suppressed. Dead after a reign of nearly 11 years, he is succeeded May 19 by Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Cardinal Eanganelli, 63, who will reign until 1774 as Clement XIV.
Dartmouth College is founded by Congregationalists in the New Hampshire colony. A free school for Indians and whites founded by Windham, Connecticut-born preacher Eleazar Wheelock, 58, has failed, the colonial governor has offered him 36 square miles (a township) of land, his college starts with 30 students, he names it for the earl of Dartmouth, and he will establish the town of Hanover next year (see 1819).
Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage by London publisher and genealogist John Debrett appears in its first edition. Debrett will publish a Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1802 and a Baronetage of England in 1808 (see Burke, 1826).
Nonfiction: Commentaries on the Laws of England by jurist Sir William Blackstone appears in its fourth and final volume. "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," says Blackstone, and his Commentaries will be influential on lawmakers both in Britain and in America; Institutes of Moral Philosophy by Adam Ferguson; The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V by William Robertson, whose work will be translated into every major European language; Critical Forests, or Reflections on the Science and Art of the Beautiful (Kritische Wälder, oder Betrachtungen die Wissenschaft und Kunst des Schönen betreffend) and Journal of My Voyage in the Year 1769 (Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769) by German critic-theologian-philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder, 25, who came into close contact with Immanuel Kant while studying at Königsberg early in the decade, has taught at Riga since 1764, and set out in the summer on an ocean voyage to Nantes (he has completed the work at Paris in December).
Painting: Offering to Love by Jean Baptiste Greuze, who resigns from the Académie because it will not elevate him from genre painter to painter of history; Interview of Hector and Andromache by Angelica Kauffmann, who has become a fashionable London portrait painter and decorator. She is a member of the newly-founded Royal Academy of Art, headed by her mentor, Sir Joshua Reynolds.
England's first Shakespeare Festival opens at Stratford-upon-Avon. David Garrick, now 52, begins an annual revival of the bard's immortal plays that will continue for more than 2 centuries.
Theater: The Brothers by sentimentalist English playwright Richard Cumberland at London; Eloge de Molière by Sebastien Chamfort is given its first performance.
Opera: La finta Semplice 5/1 at Salzburg, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Bath's Royal Crescent is completed by architect-city planner John Wood, the Younger, who has executed designs left by his late father.
Monticello goes up in the Virginia colony for lawyer Thomas Jefferson, 26, who has designed a house inspired by the work of the 16th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio for a site four miles from his father's plantation at Shadwell. A member of the House of Burgesses, Jefferson gives his place the Italian name "little mountain" because it provides a 20-mile view of the Blue Ridge Mountains despite its modest elevation of just 600 feet (he will work on the house for the rest of his life).
The Bartlett pear has its beginnings in a pear originated by English schoolmaster John Stair of Reading Parish, whose fruit will be called in Britain the Stairs pear or the Williams (after a London nurseryman who may be unaware of its origin) (see 1798; Bartlett, 1817).
Father Serra plants the first wine grapes, oranges, figs, and olives to grow in California at the Mission of San Diego de Alcalá (see Mission grape, 1697).
Robert Bakewell of 1755 Leicester sheep fame develops cattle with deeper, wider bodies, shorter and thicker necks, and with more flesh over their hind quarters, ribs, loins, and backs. Bakewell works on his premise that "like produces like" and often inbreeds stock selected for bulky bodies set low on short legs.
The Great Famine of Bengal kills 10 million Indians, wiping out one third of the population in the worst famine recorded thus far in world history. The maharajah of Mysore, Haidar Ali, forces the British to sign a treaty of mutual assistance, but the East India Company increases its demands on Bengal's remaining 20 million people to insure "a reasonable profit."
Naturalist Joseph Banks writes in his diary of having eaten dog in Tahiti as head of the scientific expedition brought by James Cook. "Few were there of the nicest of us but allowed as South Sea dog was next to an English lamb." But Banks notes that English dogs would not be so good since the Tahitian dogs have been fed only vegetables and never meat.
Josiah Wedgwood opens a pottery works at Etruria, near Burslem (see 1763).
Gordon's gin is introduced by Scots-English distiller Alexander Gordon in the London suburb of Finsbury, where he has taken a house near the Clerk's Well in Gosswell Street behind Charter House Square and the Islington Road. Gordon's product will become the world's largest selling brand of gin.
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