January–March •
January 9 – The North Carolina General Assembly authorizes nine commissioners to purchase of land for the 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, two
moons of Uranus. •
January 19 –
Mozart's
Symphony No. 38 is premièred in
Prague. •
February 2 –
Arthur St. Clair of
Pennsylvania is chosen as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation. •
February 4 –
Shays' Rebellion in
Massachusetts fails. •
February 21 – The Confederation Congress sends word to the 13 states that a convention will be held in Philadelphia on May 14 to revise the Articles of Confederation. •
March 17 – The
Bank of North America, the central bank of the United States government under the
Articles of Confederation, is re-incorporated after its charter had expired in 1786. •
March 28 – In the British House of Commons,
Henry Beaufoy files the first motion to repeal the
Test Act 1673, which restricts the rights of non-members of the Church of England.; Beaufoy's motion is rejected, and the Act is not repealed until 1829. •
March 30 –
Biblical theology becomes a separate discipline from biblical studies, as
Johann Philipp Gabler delivers his speech "On the proper distinction between biblical and dogmatic theology and the specific objectives of each" upon his inauguration as the professor of theology at the
University of Altdorf in Germany.
April–June •
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. •
April 25 – The
Customs and Excise Act 1787 receives
Royal assent. It replaced all customs duties, which included
poundage, by a system where individual
tariffs would be applied to importations. •
May 7 –
The New Church (Swedenborgian) is founded in England. •
May 13 – Captain
Arthur Phillip leaves
Portsmouth, England, with the 11 ships of the
First Fleet, carrying around 700 convicts and at least 300 crew and guards to establish a
penal colony in Australia. •
May 14 – In
Philadelphia, delegates begin arriving for a
Constitutional Convention.
Marylebone Cricket Club founded. •
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 King
Frederick William II of Prussia, is captured by
Dutch Republican
patriots, taken to
Goejanverwellesluis and not allowed to travel to
The Hague.
July–September •
July 13 – The
Congress of the Confederation enacts the
Northwest Ordinance, establishing governing rules for the
Northwest Territory (the future states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin). It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states, and limits the expansion of
slavery.
October–December •
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
The Independent Journal, a New York newspaper. •
October 29 –
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera
Don Giovanni (
libretto by
Lorenzo Da Ponte) premieres in the
Estates Theatre in
Prague. •
November 1 – The first secondary school open to girls in Sweden,
Societetsskolan, is founded in Gothenburg. •
November 21 –
Treaty of Versailles (1787) signed, forming an alliance between the
Kingdom of France and the Lord
Nguyễn Phúc Ánh, future Emperor of Vietnam. •
December 3 –
James Rumsey demonstrates his water-jet propelled boat on the
Potomac River. •
December 7 –
Delaware ratifies the Constitution, and becomes the first
U.S. state. •
December 8 –
La Purisima Mission is founded by Padre
Fermín Lasuén as the eleventh of the
Spanish missions in California. •
December 12 –
Pennsylvania becomes the second
U.S. state. •
December 18 –
New Jersey becomes the third
U.S. state. •
December 23 – Captain
William Bligh sets sail from England for
Tahiti, on . • The
North Carolina General Assembly incorporates
Waynesborough, and designates it the seat for
Wayne County, North Carolina. The town becomes extinct after 1865. •
Antoine Lavoisier is the first to suggest that
silica is an
oxide of a hitherto unknown metallic
chemical element, later isolated and named
silicon. • A fossil bone recovered from
Cretaceous strata at
Woodbury, New Jersey is discussed by the
American Philosophical Society in
Philadelphia. == Births ==