Year 1786 (MDCCLXXXVI) 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.

Sergei Mikhailovich Nakariakov (Russian: Сергей Михайлович Накаряков; born May 10, 1977 in Gorky) is a Russian virtuoso trumpeter who came to prominence in the late 1990s. He released his first CD recording (including works by Ravel, Gershwin and Arban's The Carnival of Venice) in 1992 at the age of 15.

Sergei Nakariakov has recorded works by composers such as Joseph Haydn, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, J. B. Neruda, Mozart, Telemann, Felix Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky. He has recorded with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolff, and the Philharmonia conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy among many others. In 2004 he was portrayed in Jan Schmidt-Garre's film No More Wunderkind.

Nakariakov's recordings include:

Nakariakov also has made several recordings performing on the flugelhorn. In his album Concertos for Trumpet in 1999, Nakariakov plays music transcribed for the trumpet from violin, viola, and cello concertos. He plays the flugelhorn for the famous Cello Concerto No. 1 by Haydn. In his album No Limit in 2000, Nakariakov plays Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, originally for cello and orchestra, in a transcription for the flugelhorn. Nakariakov plays on a specially customized flugelhorn made by Antoine Courtois that has 4 valves, which allows him to play lower than normal flugelhorns.

Frederick II (German: Friedrich II.; 24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) was a King in Prussia (1740–1772) and a King of Prussia (1772–1786) from the Hohenzollern dynasty. In his role as a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he was also Elector of Brandenburg. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel. He became known as Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große) and was named Der Alte Fritz ("Old Fritz").

Interested primarily in music and philosophy and not the arts of war during his youth, Frederick unsuccessfully attempted to flee from his authoritarian father, Frederick William I, with childhood friend Hans Hermann von Katte, whose execution he was forced to watch after they were captured. Upon ascending to the Prussian throne, he attacked Austria and claimed Silesia during the Silesian Wars, winning military acclaim for himself and Prussia. Near the end of his life, Frederick physically connected most of his realm by conquering Polish territories in the First Partition of Poland.

Antonio Salieri (18 August 1750 – 7 May 1825) was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy.

Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protege of Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to develop and shape many of the features of operatic compositional vocabulary and his music was a powerful influence on contemporary composers.

Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Hapsburg court, a post he held from 1774 to 1792, Salieri dominated Italian language opera in Vienna. During his career he also spent time writing works for opera houses in Venice, Rome, and Paris. His dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe during his lifetime. As the Austrian imperial Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for music at the court chapel and attached school. Even as his works dropped from performance, and he wrote no new operas after 1804, he still remained one of the most important and sought after teachers of his generation and his influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna's musical life. Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Liszt were among the most famous of his pupils.

John Trumbull (June 6, 1756 – November 10, 1843) was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War and was notable for his historical paintings. His Declaration of Independence was used on the reverse of the two-dollar bill.

Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1756, to Jonathan Trumbull, who was Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784, and his wife Faith {Robinson} Trumbull. He entered the 1771 junior class at Harvard University at age fifteen and graduated in 1773. Due to a childhood accident, Trumbull lost use of one eye, which may have influenced his detailed painting style.

As a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, Trumbull rendered a particular service at Boston by sketching plans of the British works, and witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was appointed second personal aide to General George Washington, and in June 1776, deputy adjutant-general to General Horatio Gates. He resigned from the army in 1777.

In 1780 he traveled to London, where he studied under Benjamin West. At his suggestion, Trumbull painted small pictures of the War of Independence and miniature portraits, of which he produced about 250 in his lifetime.