1774

Events

January–March

• January 21 – Mustafa III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, dies and is succeeded by his brother Abdul Hamid I.
• January 27
• * An angry crowd in Boston, Massachusetts seizes, tars, and feathers British customs collector and Loyalist John Malcolm, for striking a boy and a shoemaker, George Hewes, with his cane.
• * British industrialist John Wilkinson patents a method for boring cannon from the solid, subsequently utilised for accurate boring of steam engine cylinders.
• February 3 – The Privy Council of Great Britain, as advisors to King George III, votes for the King's abolition of free land grants of North American lands. Henceforward, land is to be sold at auction to the highest bidder.
• February 6 – The Parlement of Paris votes a sentence of civil degradation, depriving Pierre Beaumarchais of all rights and duties of citizenship.
• February 7 – The volunteer fire company of Trenton, New Jersey, predecessor to the paid Trenton Fire Department created in 1892, is founded. In 1905, at 131 years, it claims to be the oldest continuously serving department in the U.S.
• February 24 – The Province of Massachusetts Bay House of Representatives votes, 92 to 8, to impeach Superior Court Chief Justice Peter Oliver, but Provincial Governor Thomas Hutchinson refuses to allow the trial to proceed.
• March 10 – The Boston Journal makes the first reference to the "Stars and Stripes" flag to symbolize the American colonies, reporting that "The American ensign now sparkles a door which shall shortly flame from the skies."
• March 31 – Intolerable Acts: The British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston, Massachusetts, as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.

  April–June

• April 17 – The first avowedly Unitarian congregation, Essex Street Chapel, is founded in London by Theophilus Lindsey.
• April 19 – The premiere of Iphigénie en Aulide by Christoph Willibald Gluck sparks a huge controversy, almost a war, such as has not been seen in Paris since the Querelle des Bouffons.
• May 10 – Louis XVI becomes King of France, following the death of his grandfather, Louis XV.
• May 17 – The colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations issues the first call for an "Intercolonial Congress" that eventually is set up as the Continental Congress.
• May 19 – Shakers Ann Lee and eight followers sail from Liverpool, England for colonial America.
• June 2 – Intolerable Acts: A new Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide better housing for British soldiers upon demand, is passed.
• June 16–17 – English explorer James Cook becomes the first European to sight Palmerston Island in the South Pacific Ocean.
• June 20 – Russo-Turkish War : Battle of Kozludzha – The Imperial Russian Army, led by Alexander Suvorov, routs numerically superior Ottoman Empire forces.
• June 22 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Quebec Act, setting out rules of governance for the colony of Quebec in British North America, enlarging its territory as far south as the Ohio River and west to the Mississippi River, in the area now occupied by the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio and granting freedom of religion for Roman Catholics.

  July–September

• July 21 – Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with Russian victory, ending six years of war. The treaty gives Russia the right to intervene in Ottoman politics, to protect its Christian subjects.
• August 1 – The element oxygen is discovered for the third time by Joseph Priestley, who publishes the fact in 1775, and so names the element.
• August 6 – Ann Lee and the Shakers arrive in America and settle in New York.
• September 1 – Powder Alarm: Thomas Gage, royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, orders British soldiers to remove gunpowder from a magazine, causing Patriots to prepare for war.
• September 4 – English explorer James Cook becomes the first European to sight the island of New Caledonia in Melanesia.
• September 5 – The First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia.
• September 15 – Yemelyan Pugachev, leader of Pugachev's Rebellion against Russia by the Yaik Cossacks, is betrayed by his own men after returning to Yaitsk.
• September 21 – George Mason and George Washington found the Fairfax County Militia Association, a military unit independent of British control.
• September 29 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's semi-autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther is published anonymously in Leipzig, Germany; it is influential in the Sturm und Drang movement and Romanticism.

  October–December

• October 10
• * Dunmore's War – Battle of Point Pleasant: Cornstalk is forced to make peace with Dunmore at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, ceding Shawnee land claims south of the Ohio to Virginia.
• * English explorer James Cook becomes the first European to sight Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, uninhabited at this date.
• October 14 – The Continental Congress in America adopts the Declaration of Rights and Resolves, with 10 principles.
• October 20 – The First Continental Congress passes the Continental Association, a colony-wide boycotting of British goods. Theater performances in the American colonies are also halted, on the Congress's recommendation that the member colonies "discountenance and discourage all horse racing and all kinds of gaming, cock fighting, exhibitions of shows, plays, and other expensive diversions and entertainments."
• October 21 – The word Liberty is first displayed on a flag raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts, in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
• October 25 – The Edenton Tea Party takes place in North Carolina, marking the first major gathering of women in support of the American cause.
• October 26 – The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia.
• November 4 – The Maryland Jockey Club follows a recommendation of the Continental Congress and cancels its race schedule. The decision sets a precedent for other jockey clubs in the colonies, and no major races are held until the end of the American Revolution.
• November 10 – 1774 British general election: Voting for the House of Commons concludes in Great Britain, and Lord North retains the office of Prime Minister as his Tory coalition wins 343 of the 558 seats. Henry Seymour Conway's Whig Party wins the other 215 seats.
• November 15 – The government of the Republic of Venice allows adventurer and ladies' man Giacomo Casanova to return home after a 17-year absence.
• November 20 – Daniel Boone retires from the Virginia colonial militia in order to devote his full time to establishing a settlement in Kentucky.
• November 25 – Salawat Yulayev, the leader of the Bashkirs rebellion against the Russian government, is captured, bringing an end to the insurrection.
• November 26 – English chemist Joseph Priestley becomes the first person to discover and identify sulfur dioxide.
• November 27 – Spanish Navy Captain Domingo de Bonechea arrives at Tahiti in the ship Aguila and tries unsuccessfully to claim it for Spain and to convert the Tahitians to the Roman Catholic faith.
• November 30
• *Parliament adjourns in Great Britain, but declines to authorize any action against the rebellious American colonies, despite an address the day before by King George III and Prime Minister North.
• *Thomas Paine, a native of England, arrives in America at the age 37 and soon becomes an influential advocate for the colonies' independence.
• December 1 – A boycott called by the Continental Congress goes into effect, as participating merchants and supporters cease the importation or consumption of products from Great Britain, Ireland or the British West Indies.
• December 6 – Archduchess Maria Theresa, the ruler of Austria, Hungary and Croatia, signs the General School Ordinance providing for education for both males and females and setting compulsory education for children aged six through 12.
• December 9 – The two month long Siege of Melilla begins as armies led by the Sultan of Morocco, Mohammed ben Abdallah, attack the North African Spanish colony of Melilla.
• December 23 – King Louis XVI of France issues a declaration that, for the first time, protects "the free commerce of meat during Lent" to support the needs of "the poor whose infirmity requires them to eat meat."

  Date unknown

• To avoid severe flooding, Martinsborough, North Carolina is moved to higher ground west. The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Martinsborough as the new seat of Pitt County, 3 years after its founding.
• German cobbler Johann Birkenstock creates the first Birkenstock sandals.
• A revision of the laws of cricket introduces a leg before wicket rule.

  Births

January

• January 1
• * Lancelot Baugh Allen, Master of Dulwich College
• * André Marie Constant Duméril, French zoologist
• * Pietro Giordani, Italian writer
• * James Johnson, U.S. Representative from Kentucky
• * William Piper, American politician
• January 2 - Thomas Lynn, British soldier
• January 3 - Juan Aldama, Jugador de Beisbole
• January 4
• * Volant Vashon Ballard, Royal Navy admiral
• * Edward Dubois, English wit and man of letters
• * William M. Richardson, American jurist and politician
• January 5 - George Chinnery, British artist
• January 6
• * Ole Elias Holck, officer, father of the Constitution of Norway, member of Stortinget
• * James McCall, American politician
• January 7
• * Anna Bunina, Russian poet
• * Samuel D. Purviance, American politician
• January 8 - John Gibbons, English amateur cricketer
• January 10
• * Augustin de Macarty, American politician
• * Jean-Baptiste Muiron, French Army officer
• * William Stewart, British military officer
• January 11
• * Antoine Drouot, French general
• * Charles Henry Schwanfelder, British artist
• * Tryphosa Jane Wallis, English actress
• January 12 - William Cahoon, American politician
• January 14 - Benjamin Aislabie, cricketer
• January 16 - Daniel Evans, Welsh Independent minister
• January 17
• * Marie-Thérèse Figueur, French writer
• * Maria Theresa Kemble, British actress
• * Georg Wilhelm Franz Wenderoth, German botanist
• January 18
• * Moses I. Cantine, American politician
• * James Millingen, British archaeologist
• January 19
• * Edward Protheroe, British politician
• * Samuel Campbell Rowley, naval officer and politician
• January 20 - Charles George Beauclerk, British Member of Parliament
• January 21 - William Kenrick, English lawyer and politician
• January 22 - Francesco Fuoco, Italian philologist, economist and Catholic priest
• January 23 - Richard Southgate, American politician
• January 24
• * Carl Abraham Arfwedson, Swedish silk merchant
• * Arnold Timothée de Lasaulx, Belgian politician
• January 25 - Jules-Paul Pasquier, French jurist
• January 29
• * Olinthus Gregory, British astronomer
• * Sir Robert Shaw, 1st Baronet, British politician
• January 30 - Samuel Butler, English classical scholar and schoolmaster
• January 31
• * William Blake, British economist;
• * William George Maton, English physician
• * Thomas Veazey, American politician
• * Phineas Waller, Pennsylvanian farmer and landowner