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.

Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1698 – 15 January 1775) was an Italian composer, organist, choirmaster and teacher. He counted Gluck among his students, and was highly regarded by younger composers including Johann Christian Bach. It has also been noted that many stylizations in Joseph Haydn's compositions are similar to those of Sammartini, although Haydn denied any such influence. Sammartini is especially associated with the formation of the concert symphony through both the shift from a brief opera-overture style and the introduction of a new seriousness and use of thematic development that prefigure Haydn and Mozart. Some of his works are described as galant, a style associated with Enlightenment ideals, while "the prevailing impression left by Sammartini's work... [is that] he contributed greatly to the development of a Classical style that achieved its moment of greatest clarity precisely when his long, active life was approaching its end".

He is often confused with his brother, Giuseppe, a composer with a similarly prolific output (and the same first initial).

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.

Sir Roger Arthur Carver Norrington, CBE (born 16 March 1934) is a British conductor. He is the son of Sir Arthur Norrington and his brother is Humphrey Thomas Norrington.

Norrington studied at the Dragon School, Westminster School, Clare College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music under Adrian Boult among others. Norrington worked as a tenor through the 1960s, and in 1962 founded the Schütz Choir (later the Schütz Choir of London).

From 1969 to 1984, Norrington was music director of Kent Opera. In 1978, he founded the London Classical Players and remained their musical director until 1997. From 1985 to 1989, he was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. He is also president of the London Philharmonic Choir. In the USA, from 1990 to 1994, he was music director of the Orchestra of St. Luke's. In Europe, he was principal conductor of the Camerata Salzburg from 1997 to 2006. He served as principal conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1998 to 2011. He was Artistic Advisor of the Handel and Haydn Society from 2006 to 2009. In January 2010, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra announced the appointment of Norrington as its next principal conductor, as of the 2011-2012 season, with an initial contract of 3 years.