Directory

1772 CE

Johann Friedrich Struensee and Queen Caroline Matilda are arrested, leading to his execution and her banishment from Denmark. Somersett's Case: Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, delivers the decision that leads to the end of slavery in England. The first Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth begins. The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria becomes part of the crown lands of the Habsburg monarchy.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 17 – The First Partition of Poland is agreed to by Russia and Prussia, later including Austria.source
  • April 8 – Massachusetts legislator Samuel Adams persuades his colleagues to approve his plan for creating a Committee of Correspondence to begin a dialogue with the other American colonies concerning mutual problems with England.source
  • May 8 – The Watauga Association Compact is signed in what is now East Tennessee by a group of white settlers led by William Bean, creating the first non-colonial government body in British North America.source
  • June 22 – Somersett's Case: Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, delivers the decision that leads to the end of slavery in England.source
  • August 5 – The first Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth begins. The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria becomes part of the crown lands of the Habsburg monarchy.source
  • November 2 – American Revolutionary War: Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 10 – Shah Alam II, the Mughal Emperor of India, makes a triumphant return to Delhi 15 years after having been forced to flee.source
  • June 9 – Gaspee Affair: In an act of defiance against the British Navigation Acts, American patriots, led by Abraham Whipple, attack and burn the British customs schooner HMS Gaspee off of Rhode Island.source
  • June 23–28 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): First of two Russian occupations of Beirut, following a naval bombardment which began on June 18.source
  • August 21 – A coup d'état by King Gustav III is completed by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden, and making him an enlightened despot.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • February 12 – Breton-French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec discovers the uninhabited Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean.source
  • March 20 – Pedro Fages, the Spanish Governor of Alta California, and Juan Crespí, a Catholic priest, set off from the capital at Monterey with a party of 12 soldiers and begin the first European exploration of the lands around San Francisco Bay.source
  • July 13 – The second voyage of James Cook departs from Plymouth on Captain Cook's new ship, HMS Resolution and the companion ship HMS Adventure in an attempt to prove the existence of an uncharted continent even further south than New Zealand.source
  • October 28 – Basque-Spanish explorer Domingo de Bonechea, in the Aguila, sights Tauere atoll, which he names San Simon y Judas.source
  • December 14 – Second voyage of James Cook: The crew of finds that the ice floes encountered on their journey south are a source of fresh water, a "discovery... of utmost importance to the success of the voyage."source

Religion & Belief

  • September 1 – Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is founded in San Luis Obispo, California.source

Economy & Finance

  • June 10 – The crisis of 1772 is triggered when, following the flight of their partner Alexander Fordyce to France, the London banking house of Neal, James, Fordyce and Down (which has been speculating in East India Company stock) suspends payment. The resultant panic causes other banks to fail, extends to Scotland, Amsterdam and the Thirteen Colonies and threatens the East India Company with bankruptcy.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 8 – Biela's Comet is first discovered by French astronomer Jacques Leibax Montaigne, but not proven to be a periodic comet until 1826, when Wilhelm von Biela correctly identifies its return.source
  • Scottish scientist Daniel Rutherford discovers nitrogen gas, isolating it from air.source

Health & Medicine

  • December 14 – Russian government offices reopen at Moscow and Saint Petersburg after being closed for 15 months because of an epidemic of bubonic plague.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 17 – Johann Friedrich Struensee and Queen Caroline Matilda are arrested, leading to his execution and her banishment from Denmark.source
  • February 12 – The Virginia Assembly amends an act to describe the punishments for the practice of gouging.source
  • Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, demands that all bodies remain unburied for three days to ensure that death has actually taken place.source

Climate & Environment

  • August 12 – The volcano Mount Papandayan in West Java erupts and partially collapses, the debris avalanche killing several thousand.source

Culture & Society

  • April 13 – Warren Hastings begins his service for the British East India Company as Governor of Bengal, arriving at the company's headquarters at Fort William, outside of Calcutta, and including what are now parts of northeast India and Bangladesh. Hastings serves for two years, then later becomes Governor-General of India.source

Births

  • January 20 – Angélique Brûlon, French soldier, first female Knight of the French Legion of Honour (d. 1859)source
  • January 30 – Godfrey Higgins, British archaeologist (d. 1833)source
  • February 24 – William H. Crawford, American politician, judge (d. 1834)source
  • March 10 – Friedrich von Schlegel, German poet (d. 1829)source
  • April 4 – Nachman of Breslov, Hasidic rabbi and founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement (d. 1810)source
  • April 7 – Charles Fourier, French philosopher (d. 1837)source
  • April 18 – David Ricardo, British economist (d. 1823)source
  • May 2 – Novalis, German poet (d. 1801)source
  • May 20 – William Congreve, British rocket pioneer (d. 1828)source
  • July 11 – John Rodgers, American naval officer (d. 1838)source
  • August 2 – Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien (d. 1804)source
  • September 27 – Martha Jefferson Randolph, Acting First Lady of the United States (1801–1809) (d. 1836)source
  • October 21 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and philosopher (d. 1834)source
  • November 8 – William Wirt, 9th United States Attorney General (d. 1834)source

Deaths

  • February 8 – Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, Princess of Wales (b. 1719)source
  • February 18 – Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, Danish statesman (b. 1712)source
  • March 29 – Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish philosopher and mathematician (b. 1688)source
  • April 28 – Johann Friedrich Struensee, Danish royal physician and de facto regent, executed (b. 1737)source
  • June 18 – Gerard van Swieten, Dutch-born Austrian physician (b. 1700)source
  • June 22 – François-Vincent Toussaint, French writer most famous for Les Mœurs (The Manners) (b. 1715)source
  • September 30 – James Brindley, English canal builder (b. 1716)source
  • October 7 – John Woolman, American Quaker preacher, abolitionist (b. 1720)source
  • October 8 – Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, French violinist, composer (b. 1711)source
  • October 16 – Ahmad Shah Durrani, Afghan founder of the Durrani Empire (cancer) (b. 1724)source
  • November 10 – Pedro Antonio Joaquim Correa da Serra Garção, Portuguese poet (b. 1724)source
  • November 18 – Madhavrao I, ruler of India (b. 1745)source
  • November 19 – William Nelson, American colonial governor of Virginia (b. 1711)source
  • December 4 – Dov Ber of Mezeritch, the Great Maggid, a preacher and founder of Hasidism.source