1782

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1782 (MDCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Julian calendar, the 1782nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 782nd year of the 2nd millennium, the 82nd year of the 18th century, and the 3rd year of the 1780s decade. As of the start of 1782, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

February 5: Gnadenhutten massacre

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 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'état 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.
• April 21 – A Lak Mueang (city pillar) is erected on Rattanakosin Island, located on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River, by order of King Rama I, an act considered the founding of the capital city of Bangkok.
• 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.^[1][2]
• 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 – Raid on Lunenburg: American privateers attack the British settlement at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
• July 16 – Première of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
• 16 July – 29 August – Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad, Germany - one of history's most important ever secret society congresses. High-degree Masons from the whole of Europe spent six weeks or so deliberating the fate of the rite of Strict Observance and hierarchy of the governing bodies of world freemasonry at the Hanau-Wilhelmsbad spa. Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad by Terry Melanson
• 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).
  • Étienne Maurice Falconet's Bronze Horseman statue of Tsar Peter the Great is unveiled in Saint Petersburg.
• 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).
• December 12 – American Revolutionary War: Action of 12 December 1782: A naval engagement off Ferrol, Spain, in which the British ship HMS Mediator commanded by James Luttrell successfully attacks a convoy of French and American ships attempting to supply the United States.
• December 14 – The Montgolfier brothers first test fly a hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly 2 km (1.2 mi).^[3]

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 Kīwalaʻō.
• Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova is the first woman in the world to direct a scientific academy, the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• 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 in Russia has 300,000 inhabitants.

Births

• January 5 – Robert Morrison, Scottish Protestant missionary to China (d. 1834)
• February 15 – William Miller, American preacher (d. 1849)
• January 18 – Daniel Webster, American statesman (d. 1852)
• March 4 – Johann Rudolf Wyss, Swiss writer (d. 1830)
• March 13 – Sir Robert Bateson, 1st Baronet, Irish nobility (d. 1863)
• March 18 – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (d. 1850)
• April 7 – Marie-Anne Libert, Belgian botanist (d. 1865)
• April 10 – María Antonia Santos Plata, Neogranadine rebel leader and heroine (d. 1819)
• April 21 – Friedrich Fröbel, German pedagogue (d. 1852)
• July 3 – Pierre Berthier, French geologist (d. 1861)
• July 26 – John Field, Irish composer (d. 1837)

Daoguang Emperor

• September 16 – Daoguang Emperor, Chinese emperor (d. 1850)
• September 25 – Charles Maturin, Irish writer (d. 1824)
• October 27 – Nicolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1840)
• November 1 – Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1859)
• December 5 – Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States (d. 1862)

date unknown

• Charlotte Dacre, English author (d. 1842)

Deaths

• January 2 – Johann Christian Bach, German composer (b. 1735)
• January 4 – Ange-Jacques Gabriel, French architect (b. 1698)
• February 9 – Giuseppe Luigi Assemani, Syrian orientalist (b. 1710)
• February 10 – Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, German theologian (b. 1702)
• March 17 – Daniel Bernoulli, Dutch-born mathematical physicist (b. 1700)
• April 7 – Taksin, King of Thonburi (Thailand) (b. 1734)
• April 13 – Metastasio, Italian poet and librettist (b. 1698)
• April 17 – Baal Shem of London, Kabbalist (b. 1708)
• April 22 – Anne Bonny, Irish-born pirate in the Caribbean (b. 1702)
• April 28 – William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, English politician (b. 1710)
• May 8 – Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, Portuguese prime minister (b. 1699)
• May 15 – Richard Wilson, Welsh painter (b. 1714)
• May 16 – Daniel Solander, Swedish botanist (b. 1736)
• May 20 – William Emerson, English mathematician (b. 1701)
• June 11 – William Crawford, American soldier and surveyor, tortured and burned at the stake by Native Americans (b. 1732)
• June 18 – John Wood, the Younger, English architect (b. 1728)
• July 1 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1730)
• July 15 – Farinelli, Italian castrato (b. 1705)
• August 31 – George Croghan, American colonist
• September 5 – Bartolina Sisa, Bolivian indigenous Aymara heroine and rebel leader.
• September 6
  • Gregoria Apaza, Bolivian indigenous leader (b. 1751)
  • Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, wife of Thomas Jefferson (b. 1748)
• October 2 – Charles Lee, general of the Continental Army during the American War of Independence (b. 1732)
• December 7 – Hyder Ali, Indian general and Sultan of Mysore
• December 27 – Henry Home, Lord Kames, Scottish advocate and philosopher (b. 1697)
• unknown date – Christine Kirch, German astronomer (b. 1696)
• Elisabeth Christina von Linné, Swedish botanist (b. 1743)

References

Further reading

• John Blair; J. Willoughby Rosse (1856). "1782". Blair's Chronological Tables. London: H.G. Bohn – via Hathi Trust.