Events

• January 1 - First edition of The Times, previously The Daily Universal Register, was published.
• January 2 - Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 4th U.S. state.
• January 9 - Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 5th U.S. state.
• January 26 - Australia Day: First Fleet from Botany Bay[?] led by Arthur Phillip land in what would become Sydney, Australia. They would establish the first permanent European settlement on the continent.
• January 28 - The first penal colony is founded at Botany Bay[?], Australia.
• January 31 - Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Charles IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.
• February 1 - Isaac Briggs[?] and William Longstreet[?] patent the steamboat.
• February 6 - Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 6th U.S. state.
• March 21 - A fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans leaving most of the town in ruins.
• April 28 - Maryland ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 7th U.S. state.
• May 23 - South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 8th U.S. state.
• June 21 - New Hampshire ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 9th U.S. state.
• June 25 - Virginia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 10th U.S. state.
• July 26 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th U.S. state.
• Great Britain establishes the prison colony of New South Wales in Australia, the first European settlement there.

Births

• January 22 - George Gordon, Lord Byron,English poet (+ 1824)
• February 5 - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (+ 1850)
• February 22 - Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (+ 1860)
• March 10 - Joseph von Eichendorff[?], lyricist and narrator (+ 1857)

Deaths

• January 31 - Bonnie Prince Charlie, Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Charles III.
• December 22 - Percivall Pott, London surgeon