General
Population: 880 Million*
- Enteryainment: Gyorgy Bessenyei (Hungarian drama), Choderlos de Laclos, Lessing (tragedy), Herder Origin of Speech, Mirabeau,
FS Sullivan
"Letters of Junis" controversy ends
Music includes Haydn "Farewell Symphony", Mozart, first German performance of Handel's "Messiah"
Flight and Kelly in London create first barrel organs
- Science: Leonhard Euler writes about physics topics
Daniel Rutherford and Joseph Priestly each discover nitrogen
- Deaths: Mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, Sculptor Johann Michael Feichtmayr,
Bromberg Canal linking Oder and Vistual started, First carriage traffic across Brenner Pass,
Africa
- Egypt: James Bruce traces Blue Nile to confluence with White Nile
Americas
- Guatemala: Quake kills 58,000
Asia
- India: Clive defends his administration in India before Commons – Warren hastings made Gocernor of Bengal
- Java: Eruption of Papandayan kills 3000 and top 5000 feet removed
Europe
- Denmark: Struensee the Danish dictator arrested and beheaded
- France: Inquisition abolished
- German States: Gottinger Hainbund the society of young patriotic German poets formed
- Great Britain: Royal Marriage Act passed to prevent undesirable royal marriages
Judge Willim Murray decides in Somerset case that a slave is free when he reaches England
- Poland: First partition of Poland-Lithuania by Prussia and Russia
Maria Theresa expresses opposition, but receives Galicia - Poland loses 1/4 of territory, but three Polish rulers unite
Pacific
- General: Captain Cook begins second voyage - eventually circumnavigating Antarctica