January–March •
January 1 – The first annual volume of
The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris, produced by British
Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne at the
Royal Observatory, Greenwich, gives navigators the means to find
longitude at sea, using tables of
lunar distance. •
January 9 –
William Tryon, governor of the
Royal Colony of North Carolina, signs a contract with architect
John Hawks to build
Tryon Palace, a lavish
Georgian style governor's mansion on the
New Bern waterfront. •
February 16 – On orders from head of state
Pasquale Paoli of the newly independent
Republic of Corsica, a contingent of about 200 Corsican soldiers begins an invasion of the small island of
Capraia off of the coast of northern Italy and territory of the
Republic of Genoa. By May 31, the island is conquered as its defenders surrender. •
February 19 – The
Earl of Shelburne, British
Secretary of State for the Southern Department (which has jurisdiction over Britain's American colonies) fires the unpopular Governor of
West Florida,
George Johnstone, and summons him back to
London. •
February 27 –
King Carlos III of Spain issues
a decree expelling the Jesuits from the dominions of the
Spanish Empire worldwide. •
March 13 – British
Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend, having already pushed through the unpopular
Townshend Acts to recoup war expenses from Britain's American colonies, presents a comprehensive plan for more taxes in a closed door session of the House of Commons, with most proposals passed within a month. •
March 14 –
Antonio de Ulloa, the
Colonial Governor of Spanish Louisiana (Luisiana), dispatches Captain Francisco Ríu y Morales up the
Mississippi River to establish two forts, one at
San Luis (now St. Louis, Missouri) and to set up a colony for displaced French-speaking
Acadians and protect shipping on the river. •
March 24 –
Spain acquires control of what are now called the
Falkland Islands from
France, compensating French Admiral
Louis Antoine de Bougainville for the money spent on the construction of the settlement at
Fort Saint Louis. The islands, named
les Îles Malouines by the French, are renamed
las Islas Malvinas by the Spanish, and Fort Saint Louis is renamed as
Puerto Soledad. In 1816,
Argentina declares independence from Spain and takes the Malvinas; and in 1833, Britain's
Royal Navy captures the islands from the Argentines and renames them the Falklands, and renames Puerto Soledad as Port Louis. •
March 31 – Enforcement begins of the February 27 decree by King Carlos III of Spain, ordering the
suppression of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in the colonies in Spanish America. Over the next few months approximately 2,200 Jesuit priests and missionaries are deported.
April–June •
April 2 –
Suppression of the Jesuits begins, in the
Spanish Empire and
Kingdom of Naples. •
April 7 – Troops of the Burmese
Konbaung dynasty sack the Siamese city of
Ayutthaya, ending the
Burmese–Siamese War (1765–67) after 15 months, and bringing the four-century-old
Ayutthaya Kingdom to an end. King
Ekkathat is found dead inside the city walls on April 9. •
May 3 – A fleet of ships from the
Republic of Genoa arrives at Capraia and sends 150 men ashore to drive out the Corsicans, but the outnumbered Genoese marines are "quickly cut to pieces". •
May 16 –
Ahmed al-Ghazzal, the emissary from Sultan
Mohammed ben Abdallah of
Morocco to the
Spanish Empire, makes a triumphant return to
Marrakesh with almost 300 Muslims who had been held captive in Spain, as well as sacred Islamic manuscripts that had been seized by the Spanish in 1612. The negotiation of the release had started with al-Ghazzal's meeting with Spain's King Carlos III on August 21, 1766. •
May 31 – The Genoese island of
Capraia is conquered by the Corsican Army after a ten-week campaign. he also sights
Mehetia.
July–September •
July 3 •
Pitcairn Island in the Pacific Ocean is sighted from HMS
Swallow, by 15-year-old
Midshipman Robert Pitcairn, on a British Royal Navy expeditionary voyage commanded by
Philip Carteret, the first definite European sighting. •
Norway's oldest newspaper still in print,
Adresseavisen, is first published. •
August 26 – Construction begins on
Tryon Palace in
New Bern, North Carolina. The construction proves more expensive than initially expected, leading the government to increase local taxes. This stirs resentment among some North Carolinians, and helps prolong the
War of the Regulation. •
September 29 – The Spanish Empire's
Governorate of the Río de la Plata and
Governorate of Paraguay begin the process of expulsion of the 456 members of the
Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) from southern South America, placing them on five ships bound for Spain.
October –December •
October 7 –
Frederick North, Lord North becomes the new British
Chancellor of the Exchequer after the sudden death of
Charles Townshend. •
October 9 – Surveying of the "
Mason–Dixon line", which will later become the traditional division between the northern and southern states of the United States, is completed by
Charles Mason and
Jeremiah Dixon after four years, initially to settle a boundary dispute between the colonies of
Delaware,
Pennsylvania and
Maryland. The survey party is halted at
Dunkard Creek when a chief of the
Mohawk Indians tells them that they are in Native American territory and that the Mohawks guiding the property "would not proceed one step further Westward"; the line, slightly west the
80th meridian west, is now part of the boundary between Pennsylvania and West Virginia. •
October 12 – At the
Foundling Hospital in
London,
Dr. William Watson becomes the first physician to conduct a controlled
clinical trial, selecting 32 boys and girls of similar age who have not yet had
smallpox. He divides them into three groups in order to test treatments before inoculation for smallpox, with one group receiving a mixture of
mercury and
jalap, another
senna glycoside, and the third getting no pre-treatment at all. •
October 17 –
Šćepan Mali, nicknamed "Stephen the Little", is selected as the legislature at
Podgorica to be the Tsar of
Montenegro, representing "a short but an important break in the succession of the Petrovic dynasty". •
October 24 – In France, several anti-Jewish regulations in place since October 12,
1661, are repealed by the King's Council that advises
Louis XV. While Jewish merchants are still prohibited from owning their own retail stores, they are allowed to sell merchandise on credit to gentile merchants at legal interest rates, to legally enforce debts, and to sell jewelry. •
October 28 – A boycott, of 38 types of goods imported from England, is resolved by
Boston merchants meeting at
Faneuil Hall as a response to the taxes imposed by Great Britain, and one of the first "Buy American" campaigns is started in order to encourage the purchase of items manufactured and produced in the 13 colonies. Copies of the agreement, to be signed by participating merchants, are circulated beyond the
Province of Massachusetts Bay to other colonial provinces in New England. •
November 1 – Scottish-born American merchant and shipowner
Andrew Sprowle of
Portsmouth, Virginia, establishes the
Gosport Shipyard on the western shore of the
Elizabeth River in the
Virginia Colony, on the site of what will eventually become the
Norfolk Naval Shipyard. •
November 3 –
King Ferdinand IV of the Spanish dominated
Kingdom of Naples follows Spain's lead and orders the expulsion of the Jesuits from Naples and has them marched northward to the Neapolitan border with the
Papal States. •
November 4 – Francisco de Paula Bucareli, the
Governor of Buenos Aires (at the time, a province within the Spanish Empire's
Viceroyalty of Peru), hosts the caciques who are the
Guarani chiefs of the 30
mission towns established by Jesuit missionaries, in an effort to gain Guarani peoples' support in the expulsion of the Jesuits. •
November 9 – At the new King's College medical school in New York City (later the
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons),
Dr. John Jones gives the first lecture by a surgical professor in North America. •
November 14 – The
Timucua Indian tribe, native to central Florida, becomes extinct with the death of the last speaker of the
Timucuan language, Juan Alonso Cabale. Eight years earlier, the last 95 surviving Timucuan people had been forcibly relocated by the Spanish colonial government to
Guanabacoa, a township in western
Cuba. •
November 19 – Under the coercion of Russian occupation armies, the legislature of Poland follows the wishes of Russian Minister
Nicholas Repnin and agrees to allow the kingdom to become a Russian
protectorate. •
November 20 – The new
American Colonies Act 1766, commonly called the "Declaratory Act", goes into effect, virtually providing for Great Britain's Parliament to govern lawmaking in 13 colonies and exacerbating tensions there. •
November 27 –
Oconostota and
Attakullakulla, Chiefs of the
Cherokee people in the Carolinas, depart from
Charleston, South Carolina on a ship voyage to
New York City, where they are welcomed by British colonial officials as a prelude to negotiations with Britain's Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Sir
William Johnson. •
November 29 – The Archduchess
Maria Theresa of Austria, in her capacity as
Queen of Hungary, issues an edict against the
Romani people (commonly called the
gypsies), prohibiting them from marrying and calling for gypsy children to be taken away by the government so that they can be brought up by Christian families, a proclamation that "produced little or no effect in comparison with the trouble involved". •
December 2 – Future Pennsylvania chief executive
John Dickinson begins publishing his revolutionary "
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" in the
Pennsylvania Chronicle. •
December 28 –
Phraya Taksin, a minor provincial official in
Siam (now Thailand), crowns himself as
King of Siam, establishing the Siamese
Thonburi Kingdom, taking the regnal name of Borommaracha IV and begins a 14-year reign of liberation and conquest; historically, he is known as "Taksin the Great". •
December 29 – Oconostota and Attakullakulla arrive at
Johnstown, New York where they, along with leaders of the Six Nations of the
Iroquois Confederacy (the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal nations) meet with Sir William Johnson to begin peace negotiations with the British Empire. == Births ==