Directory

1797 CE

French Revolutionary Wars – Battle of Cape St. Vincent: The British Royal Navy under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats a larger Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Battle of Parramatta: Resistance leader Pemulwuy leads a group of aboriginal warriors, estimated to be at least 100, in an attack on a government farm at Toongabbie in Sydney, Australia. 1797 Rugby School rebellion: The students at Rugby School in England rebel against the headmaster, Henry Ingles, after he decrees that the damage to a tradesman's windows should be paid for by the students.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 3 – The Treaty of Tripoli, a peace treaty between the United States and Ottoman Tripolitania, is signed at Algiers (see also 1796).source
  • January 7 – The parliament of the Cisalpine Republic adopts the Italian green-white-red tricolour as their official flag (this is considered the birth of the flag of Italy).source
  • January 26 – The Treaty of the Third Partition of Poland is signed in St. Petersburg by the Russian Empire, Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia.source
  • February 19 – Treaty of Tolentino: Pope Pius VI signs a peace treaty with Revolutionary France. He is forced to deliver works of art, treasures, territory, the Comtat Venaissin, and 30 million francs.source
  • June 29 – Napoleon Bonaparte decrees the birth of the Cisalpine Republic; he appoints ministers and establishes the first constitution.source
  • July 9 – U.S. Senator William Blount becomes the first federal legislator to be expelled from office, as his fellow Senators vote 25 to 1 to block him from his seat during an investigation against him on charges of criminal conspiracy.source
  • October 17 – The Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.source
  • The secret Lautaro Lodge as the Logia de los Caballeros Racionales ("Lodge of Rational Knights") is founded, perhaps in Cádiz; membership will include many leaders of the Spanish American wars of independence such as Francisco de Miranda, Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 13 – Action of 13 January 1797, part of the War of the First Coalition: Two British Royal Navy frigates, HMS Indefatigable and HMS Amazon, drive the French 74-gun ship of the line Droits de l'Homme aground on the coast of Brittany, resulting in over 900 deaths.source
  • January 14 – War of the First Coalition – Battle of Rivoli: French forces under General Napoleon Bonaparte defeat an Austrian army of 28,000 men, under Feldzeugmeister József Alvinczi, near Rivoli (modern-day Italy), ending Austria's fourth and final attempt to relieve the fortress city of Mantua.source
  • January 15–16 – War of the First Coalition – Battle of La Favorita: French forces (28,000 men) under Napoleon Bonaparte stop the Austrian push to relieve Mantua. The garrison under Field Marshal Dagobert von Wurmser is deprived of food and reinforcements. The next day, Napoleon orders the city to be surrounded and sends French troops under General Pierre Augereau to blockade the approaches from Legnago.source
  • February 2 – Siege of Mantua: Field marshal Dagobert von Wurmser surrenders the fortress city to the French; only 16,000 men of the garrison are capable of marching out as prisoners of war.source
  • February 3 – Battle of Faenza: A French corps (9,000 men) under General Claude-Victor Perrin defeats the forces from the Papal States, at Castel Bolognese near Faenza, Italy.source
  • February 14 – French Revolutionary Wars – Battle of Cape St. Vincent: The British Royal Navy under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats a larger Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.source
  • February 18 – Invasion of Trinidad: Spanish Governor José María Chacón peacefully surrenders the colony of Trinidad to a British naval force, commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby.source
  • February 22 – The last invasion of Britain begins: French forces, under the command of American Colonel William Tate, land near Fishguard, Wales.source
  • February 25 – William Tate surrenders to the British at Fishguard.source
  • March 16 – Battle of Valvasone: The Austrian army, led by Archduke Charles, fights a rearguard action at the crossing of the Tagliamento River, but is defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte at Valvasone.source
  • March 21 – Battle of Parramatta: Resistance leader Pemulwuy leads a group of aboriginal warriors, estimated to be at least 100, in an attack on a government farm at Toongabbie in Sydney, Australia.source
  • April 16 – The Spithead and Nore mutinies break out in the British Royal Navy.source
  • April 17 – Veronese Easter: Citizens of Verona, Italy, began an unsuccessful eight-day rebellion against the French occupying forces.source
  • April 17 – Battle of San Juan: Sir Ralph Abercromby unsuccessfully invades San Juan, Puerto Rico in what will be one of the largest British attacks on Spanish territories in the western hemisphere, and one of the worst defeats of the British Royal Navy for years to come.source
  • April 18 – Armistice of Leoben: On behalf of the French Republic, a delegation under Napoleon Bonaparte signs a peace treaty with the Holy Roman Empire at Leoben.source
  • May 12 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Venice, ending the city and Republic of Venice's 1,100 years of independence. The last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, steps down. The Venetian Ghetto is thrown open.source
  • June 28 – French troops disembark in Corfu, beginning the First period of French rule in the Ionian Islands.source
  • July 13 – Gual and España conspiracy against Spanish rule in Colonial Venezuela is exposed.source
  • July 24 – Horatio Nelson is wounded at the Battle of Santa Cruz, losing an arm.source
  • August 29 – Massacre of Tranent: British troops attack protestors against enforced recruitment into the militia at Tranent, Scotland, killing 11 and injuring 8.source
  • September 5 – France's new government decrees that citizens who left the country without authorization are subject to the death penalty if they return.source
  • October 11 – Battle of Camperdown: the British Royal Navy defeats the fleet of the Batavian Republic off the coast of Holland.source
  • November – 1797 Rugby School rebellion: The students at Rugby School in England rebel against the headmaster, Henry Ingles, after he decrees that the damage to a tradesman's windows should be paid for by the students.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • March 5 – Protestant missionaries from the London Missionary Society land in Tahiti, from the Duff (celebrated as Missionary Day in French Polynesia).source
  • October 21 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli; the ship will remain in commission in the 21st century.source

Religion & Belief

  • September 4 – The Coup of 18 Fructidor is carried out in France as three of the five members of The Directory, France's executive council, arrested royalist members of the Council of Five Hundred, the national legislature, and discard the results of the spring elections.source

Economy & Finance

  • February 26 – Bank Restriction Act removes the requirement for the Bank of England (the national bank of Great Britain) to convert banknotes into gold – Restriction period lasts until 1821. The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound notes (pound notes discontinued March 11, 1988).source
  • September 30 – Dominique-Vincent Ramel-Nogaret, French finance minister, repudiates two thirds of France's debt.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • May 10 – The first ship of the United States Navy, the frigate USS United States, is commissioned.source

Science & Discovery

  • October 22 – André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first parachute descent, at Parc Monceau, Paris; he uses a silk parachute to descend approximately 3,000 ft m from a hot air balloon.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • November 16 – (or November 23?) – British Royal Navy frigate is wrecked on the approaches to Halifax, Nova Scotia; of the 240 on board, all but 12 are lost.source

Climate & Environment

  • February 4 – The Riobamba earthquake in Ecuador, estimated magnitude 8.3, causes up to 40,000 casualties.source

Culture & Society

  • February 12 – "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" is first performed, with the music composed in January by Joseph Haydn, and it also becomes the tune of the Deutschlandlied, the German national anthem (Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, later Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit).source
  • March 13 – Médée, an opera by Luigi Cherubini, is premiered in Paris.source
  • May 30 – English abolitionist William Wilberforce marries Barbara Ann Spooner about six weeks after their first meeting.source
  • November 16 – The Prussian heir apparent, Frederick William, becomes King of Prussia as Fredrick William III.source
  • Joseph-Louis Lagrange publishes his treatise on differential calculus, entitled Théorie des fonctions analytiques.source
  • Shinyukan Cram School (進修館) founded by Masataka Okudaira (奥平昌孝) in Nakatsu, Buzen Province (now Oita Prefecture), Kyushu Island, as predecessor of Keio-Gijyuku University in Japan.source

Births

  • January 22 – Archduchess Maria Leopoldina of Austria, Empress consort of Brazil (d. 1826)source
  • March 6 – Gerrit Smith, American social reformer (d. 1874)source
  • March 10 – George Julius Poulett Scrope, English geologist, political economist and magistrate (d. 1876)source
  • April 15 – Adolphe Thiers, President of France and Prime Minister of France (d. 1877)source
  • April 18 – Richard Ryan, British biographer of Irish descent (d. 1849)source
  • May 2 – Abraham Pineo Gesner, Canadian geologist and inventor (d. 1864)source
  • June 24 – John Hughes, Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States (d. 1864)source
  • October 14 – Ida Laura Pfeiffer, Austrian traveler and travel book author (d. 1858)source
  • October 23 – Jan Jacob Rochussen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (d. 1871)source
  • November 15 – Thurlow Weed, New York newspaper publisher, Whig and Republican politician (d. 1882)source
  • November 29 – Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer (d. 1848)source
  • December 13 – Heinrich Heine, German poet (d. 1856)source
  • December 27 – Mirza Beg Asadullah Khan (Mirza Ghalib), Indian poet (d.1868)source
  • December 27 – Charles Hodge, Presbyterian theologian, principal of Princeton Theological Seminary (1851-1878) (d. 1878)source

Deaths

  • January 13 – Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel-Bevern, queen consort of Prussia (b. 1715)source
  • January 30 – John Glover, American military general, fisherman and merchant (b. 1732)source
  • February 22 – Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, German officer and adventurer (b. 1720)source
  • March 7 – John Gabriel Stedman, British–Dutch colonial soldier and author (b. 1744)source
  • March 31 – Olaudah Equiano, Nigerian ex-slave, abolitionist (b. c. 1746)source
  • July 9 – Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher (b. 1723)source
  • July 25 – Richard Bowen, officer of the Royal Navy during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars (b. 1761)source
  • August 3 – August 3 – Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst, British soldier and conqueror of Quebec (b. 1717)source
  • August 22 – Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Alsatian-born Austrian general (b. 1724)source
  • August 29 – Joseph Wright of Derby, English landscape and portrait painter (b. 1734)source
  • September 10 – Mary Wollstonecraft, English feminist author (b. 1759)source
  • September 19 – Samuel Enderby, English whale oil merchant known for sponsoring Arctic exploration (b. 1719)source
  • October 9 – Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian rabbi (b. 1720)source
  • October 10 – Carter Braxton, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, merchant, planter, Virginia politician (b. 1736)source