Directory

1791 CE

May 8 – The first American ships reach Japan, brigantine Lady Washington captained by John Kendrick of Boston, and the brig Grace. The Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth proclaims the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first modern codified constitution in Europe. Mission Santa Cruz is founded by Basque Franciscan Father Fermín Lasuén, becoming the 12th mission in the California mission chain.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 25 – The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.source
  • February 21 – The United States opens diplomatic relations with Portugal.source
  • March 4 – Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.source
  • March – French Revolution: In France, the National Constituent Assembly accepts the recommendation of its Commission of Weights and Measures that the nation should adopt the metric system.source
  • April 21 – The first of forty boundary markers of the original District of Columbia, delineating the borders of the new District in the United States is laid at Jones Point Light in Alexandria, Virginia.source
  • May 3 – The Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth proclaims the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first modern codified constitution in Europe.source
  • August 4 – The Treaty of Sistova is signed, ending the Ottoman–Habsburg wars.source
  • August 7 – George Hammond is appointed as Great Britain's first minister to the United States.source
  • August 27 – Declaration of Pillnitz: A proclamation by Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, affirms their wish to "put the King of France in a state to strengthen the bases of monarchic government."source
  • September 9 – The capital of the United States, Washington, D.C., is named after the incumbent 1st President George Washington.source
  • September 13 – French Revolution: King Louis XVI accepts the final version of the completed constitution.source
  • September 28 – French Revolution: The law on Jewish emancipation is promulgated in France, the first such legislation in modern Europe.source
  • October 1 – French Revolution: The Legislative Assembly (France) convenes.source
  • October 19 – The Treaty of Drottningholm is signed between the Russian Empire and Sweden establishing an alliance between the two.source
  • December 15 – Ratification by the states of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution is completed, creating the United States Bill of Rights. Two additional amendments remain pending, and one of these is finally ratified in 1992, becoming the Twenty-seventh Amendment.source
  • December 23 – The Pale of Settlement is established by ukase of Catherine the Great, specifying those areas of the Russian Empire in which Jews are permitted permanent residency.source
  • The abolition of guilds is enacted.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 2 – Northwest Indian War: Big Bottom Massacre – The war begins in the Ohio Country, with this massacre.source
  • June 20 – French Revolution: Flight to Varennes – The French Royal Family is captured when they try to flee in disguise.source
  • July 14–17 – Priestley Riots against Dissenters in Birmingham, England.source
  • July 17 – French Revolution: The Champ de Mars massacre occurs in Paris.source
  • August 21 – Haitian Revolution: A slave rebellion breaks out in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.source
  • August 27 – Third Anglo-Mysore War: Battle of Tellicherry – Off the south-west coast of India, a British Royal Navy patrol forces a French convoy bound for Mysore to surrender.source
  • November 4 – St. Clair's Defeat, the worst loss suffered by the United States Army in fighting against American Indians, takes place in modern-day Mercer County, Ohio. Miami fighters led by Chief Mihsihkinaahkwa (Little Turtle) and by Shawnee warriors commanded by War Chief Weyapiersenwah (Blue Jacket) rout the forces of General Arthur St. Clair and kill 630 U.S. soldiers, along with hundreds of civilians.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • April 29–May 8 – The first American ships reach Japan, brigantine Lady Washington captained by John Kendrick of Boston, and the brig Grace.source
  • A mechanical semaphore line for rapid long-distance communication is demonstrated by Claude Chappe in Paris.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 12 – Holy Roman troops reenter Liège, heralding the end of the Liège Revolution, and the restoration of its Prince-Bishops.source
  • July 11 – The ashes of Voltaire are transferred to the Panthéon in Paris.source
  • September 5 – Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen is written by activist Olympe de Gouges in response to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.source
  • September 14 – French Revolution: The Papal States lose Avignon to Revolutionary France.source
  • September 25 – Mission Santa Cruz is founded by Basque Franciscan Father Fermín Lasuén, becoming the 12th mission in the California mission chain.source
  • October 9 – Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad is founded by Father Fermín Lasuén, becoming the 13th mission in the California mission chain.source

Economy & Finance

  • February 8 – The Bank of the United States, based in Philadelphia, is incorporated by the federal government with a 20-year charter and started with $10,000,000 capital.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • August 6 – The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (Prussia) is finished.source
  • August 26 – John Fitch is granted a patent for the steamboat in the United States.source
  • Camembert cheese reputedly first made by Marie Harel, a farmer from Normandy.source

Culture & Society

  • January 1 – Austrian composer Joseph Haydn arrives in England, to perform a series of concerts.source
  • March 13 – Thomas Paine's chief work Rights of Man (first part) is published in London.source
  • June 21 – The Ordnance Survey is founded in Great Britain for the production of maps.source
  • July 8 – Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, on his visit to England, is awarded an honorary doctorate of music at the University of Oxford.source
  • September 5 – An ordinance is written barring the game of baseball within 80 yards of the Meeting House in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the first known reference to the game of baseball in North America.source
  • September 6 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera seria, La clemenza di Tito, premières at the Estates Theatre in Prague with Mozart conducting to mark the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia.source
  • September 12 – The first serious secondary education school open to girls in Denmark, the Døtreskolen af 1791, is founded in Copenhagen.source
  • September 30 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's singspiel opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) premières at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna with Mozart conducting.source
  • October 28 – French Revolution: The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen is published in France.source
  • December 4 – The first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published in London.source
  • The Dar Hassan Pacha (palace) in the Casbah of Algiers is completed.source
  • The School for the Indigent Blind, the oldest continuously operating specialist school of its kind in the world, is founded in Liverpool, England, by blind ex-merchant seaman, writer and abolitionist Edward Rushton.source
  • The first printed manuscript of Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, one of the Classic Chinese Novels, begins publication posthumously.source

Births

  • January 15 – Franz Grillparzer, Austrian writer (d. 1872)source
  • January 28 – Ferdinand Hérold, French composer (d. 1833)source
  • February 12 – Peter Cooper, American industrialist, inventor and philanthropist (d. 1883)source
  • February 15 – Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, German Protestant theologian, pastor and radical (suicide 1837)source
  • February 21 – Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)source
  • March 20 – Marie Ellenrieder, German painter (d. 1863)source
  • April 3 – Anne Lister, English landowner, diarist, mountaineer and traveller, "the first modern lesbian" (d. 1840)source
  • April 23 – James Buchanan, American lawyer, politician, and 15th President of the United States. (d. 1868)source
  • July 26 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer, pianist (d. 1844)source
  • September 5 – Giacomo Meyerbeer, German composer (d. 1864)source
  • September 21 – István Széchenyi, Hungarian politician, writer (d. 1860)source
  • September 23 – Theodor Körner, German author, soldier (d. 1813)source
  • September 26 – Théodore Géricault, French painter (d. 1824)source
  • October 29 – John Elliotson, British physician (d. 1868)source

Deaths

  • March 10 – William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford (1722–1791), England (b. 1722)source
  • April 2 – Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, French revolutionary leader (b. 1749)source
  • April 19 – Richard Price, Welsh philosopher (b. 1723)source
  • April 24 – Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (b. 1726)source
  • May 9 – Francis Hopkinson, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (b. 1737)source
  • June 5 – Frederick Haldimand, Swiss-born British colonial governor (b. 1718)source
  • June 10 – Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, French admiral (b. 1720)source
  • June 17 – Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, English Methodist leader (b. 1707)source
  • June 30 – Jean-Baptiste Descamps, Flemish painter and art historian (b. 1714)source
  • July 25 – Isaac Low, American delegate to the Continental Congress (b. 1735)source
  • August 22 – Johann David Michaelis, German biblical scholar and teacher (b. 1717)source
  • October 16 – Grigory Potemkin, Russian military leader, statesman, nobleman and favourite of Catherine the Great (b. 1739)source
  • December 5 – Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies early this morning aged 35 at his home in Vienna, having been bedridden since November 20 with a serious illness, perhaps acute rheumatic fever. On a mild and misty December 7, following a funeral service in St. Stephen's Cathedral, he is buried in a common unmarked grave (as customary at this time) in St. Marx Cemetery in the presence of Salieri, Süssmayr, van Swieten (his patron) and two other musicians.source
  • December 19 – Jean-François de Neufforge, Flemish architect and engraver (b. 1714)source