Year 1775 (MDCCLXXV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.

The American Revolution begins this year, with the first military engagement being the April 19 Battles of Lexington and Concord on the day after Paul Revere's now-legendary ride. The Second Continental Congress takes various steps toward organizing an American government, appointing George Washington commander-in-chief (June 14), Benjamin Franklin postmaster general (July 26) and creating a Continental Navy (October 13) and a Marine force (November 10) as landing troops for it, but as yet the 13 colonies have not declared independence, and both the British (June 12) and American (July 15) governments make laws. On July 6, Congress issues the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms and on August 23, King George III of England declares the American colonies in rebellion, announcing it to parliament on November 10. On June 17, two months into the colonial siege of Boston, at the Battle of Bunker Hill, just north of Boston, British forces are victorious, but only after suffering severe casualties and after Colonial forces run out of ammunition, Fort Ticonderoga is taken by American forces in New York Colony's northern frontier, and American forces unsuccessfully invade Canada, with an attack on Montreal defeated by British forces on November 13 and an attack on Quebec repulsed December 31.

Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism and biting social commentary has gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. Her artistic apprenticeship lasted from her teenage years into her thirties. During this period, she experimented with various literary forms, including the epistolary novel which she tried then abandoned, and wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.

Philip Treacy OBE (born 26 May 1967, Ballinasloe, County Galway) is an Irish milliner.

Born in Ahascragh,in the West of Ireland, he lived with his parents, seven brothers and sister across the road from the village church. He moved to Dublin in 1985 to study fashion at the National College of Art & Design, where he made hats “as a hobby” to go with outfits he designed.

In 1988 he won a place on the MA fashion design course at the Royal College of Art in London, and in 1989 he took one of his hats to Michael Roberts, fashion editor of Tatler magazine, and his style editor, Isabella Blow.

In 1990 Treacy graduated from the Royal College of Art with first class honours and set up a workshop in the basement of Isabella and Detmar Blow's house on Elizabeth Street, Belgravia.

He has designed hats for Alexander McQueen's white Haute Couture collection at Givenchy in Paris, for Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, and for Valentino, Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan. He was awarded the title of British Accessory Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards on five occasions during the early 1990s. The late Isabella Blow, style editor of Tatler, helped Treacy launch himself as a well known milliner and wore many of his hats.

João Domingos Bomtempo (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈɐ̃w̃ duˈmĩɡuʃ bõˈtẽpu]; Lisbon, December 28, 1775 — Lisbon, August 18, 1842) was a Portuguese classical pianist, composer and pedagogue.

Bomtempo was the son of an Italian musician in the Portuguese court orchestra, and studied at the Music Seminary of the Patriarchal See in Lisbon. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he was not interested in opera and, in 1801, instead of going to Italy, he traveled to Paris, starting a career as a virtuoso pianist. He moved to London in 1810 and became acquainted with liberal circles. In 1822 he returned to Lisbon, founding a Philharmonic Society to promote public concerts of contemporary music. After the Portuguese civil war between liberals and absolutists, Bomtempo became a music teacher of Queen Maria II of Portugal and first Director of the National Conservatory, created in 1835 to replace the old Patriarchal Seminary, which had been abolished by the liberal régime.

Bomtempo composed a vast amount of concertos (newly published by Soundpost.org), sonatas, variations and fantasies for the piano. His two known symphonies are the first to be produced by a Portuguese composer. Bomtempo's masterpiece is his Requiem in memory of Luís de Camões.