1785

This article is about the year 1785. For the number, see 1785 (number).

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	17th century – 18th century – 19th century
Decades:	1750s  1760s  1770s  – 1780s –  1790s  1800s  1810s
Years:	1782 1783 1784 – 1785 – 1786 1787 1788

1785 by topic:

Arts and Sciences

Archaeology – Architecture – Art – Literature (Poetry) – Music – Science

Countries

Austria – Canada –Denmark – France – Great Britain – Ireland – Norway – Russia – Scotland –Sweden – United States

Lists of leaders

Colonial governors – State leaders

Birth and death categories

Births – Deaths

Establishments and disestablishments categories

Establishments – Disestablishments

Works category

Works

1785 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1785 MDCCLXXXV
Ab urbe condita	2538
Armenian calendar	1234 ԹՎ ՌՄԼԴ
Assyrian calendar	6535
Bengali calendar	1192
Berber calendar	2735
British Regnal year	25 Geo. 3 – 26 Geo. 3
Buddhist calendar	2329
Burmese calendar	1147
Byzantine calendar	7293–7294
Chinese calendar	甲辰年 (Wood Dragon) 4481 or 4421     — to — 乙巳年 (Wood Snake) 4482 or 4422
Coptic calendar	1501–1502
Discordian calendar	2951
Ethiopian calendar	1777–1778
Hebrew calendar	5545–5546
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1841–1842
- Shaka Samvat	1706–1707
- Kali Yuga	4885–4886
Holocene calendar	11785
Igbo calendar	785–786
Iranian calendar	1163–1164
Islamic calendar	1199–1200
Japanese calendar	Tenmei 5 (天明５年)
Javanese calendar	1711–1712
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 11 days
Korean calendar	4118
Minguo calendar	127 before ROC 民前127年
Nanakshahi calendar	317
Thai solar calendar	2327–2328

1785 (MDCCLXXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday (dominical letter E) of the Julian calendar, the 1785th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 785th year of the 2nd millennium, the 85th year of the 18th century, and the 6th year of the 1780s decade. As of the start of 1785, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

January–June

• January 1 – The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.
• January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.
• January 20 – Invading Siamese forces, attempting to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong river by the Tây Sơn in the Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút.
• January 27 – The University of Georgia is founded in Athens, Georgia (United States).
• May 10 – A hot air balloon crashes in Tullamore, Ireland, causing a fire that burns down about 100 houses, making it the world's first aviation disaster (by 36 days).
• June 3 – Continental Navy disbanded.
• June 15 – After several attempts, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and his companion, Pierre Romain, set off in a balloon from Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the balloon suddenly deflates (without the envelope catching fire) and crashes near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais, killing both men, making it the first fatal aviation disaster.

July–December

• July 6 – The dollar is unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States.
• July 16 – The Piper-Heidsieck Champagne house is founded by Florens-Louis Heidsieck in Reims, France.
• August 1 – The fleet of French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse leaves Paris for the circumnavigation of the globe.
• August 15 – Cardinal de Rohan is arrested in Paris; the Necklace Affair comes into the open.
• November – A drought occurs in Haiti.
• November 28 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation.

Date unknown

• The University of New Brunswick is founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
• Coal gas is first used for illumination.
• Louis XVI of France signs to a law that a handkerchief must be square.
• The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.
• Belfast Academy (later Belfast Royal Academy) is founded by Rev. Dr James Crombie in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi publishes Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza, and starts the Pantheism controversy.
• Napoleon Bonaparte becomes a lieutenant in the French artillery.
• Music: Mozart's "Haydn" String Quartets are published, as is his collaboration with Salieri and Cornetti, Per la ricuperata salute di Ofelia.

Births

Jacob Grimm

• January 4
  • Jacob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist, and writer (d. 1863)
  • Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831)
• January 15 – William Prout English chemist, physician, and natural theologian (d. 1850)
• January 20 – Theodor Grotthuss, German-Lithuanian chemist (d. 1822)
• February 8 – Martín Miguel de Güemes Argentine military leader (d. 1821)
• February 10 – Claude-Louis Navier, French engineer and physicist (d. 1836)
• February 26 – Anna Sundström, Swedish chemist (d. 1871)
• March 11 – Eleonore Prochaska, German heroine soldier (d. 1805)
• March 17 – Ellen Hutchins, Irish botanist (d. 1815)
• March 27 – Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)
• April 4 – Bettina von Arnim, German poet (d. 1859)
• April 26 – John James Audubon, French-American naturalist and illustrator (d. 1851)
• April 29 – Karl Drais, German Inventor, created a precursor to the bicycle (d. 1851)
• May 18 – John Wilson, Scottish writer (d. 1854)
• May 20 – Marcellin Champagnat, Saint (d. 1840)
• May 22 – John Hindmarsh, English naval officer and the first Governor of South Australia (d. 1860)
• July 6 – William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (d. 1865)
• July 20 – Mahmud II, Ottoman sultan (d. 1839)
• August 15 – Thomas de Quincey, English writer (d. 1859)
• August 23 – Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (d. 1819)
• September 27 – David Walker, Abolitionist (d. 1830)
• October 15 – José Miguel Carrera, Chilean general and founding father (d. 1821)
• October 18 – Thomas Love Peacock, English satirist (d. 1866)
• October 20 – George Ormerod, English historian and antiquarian (d. 1873)
• November 18 – David Wilkie, Scottish artist (d. 1841)
• December 17 – Dorothea Lieven, Latvian diplomat and politically active princess (d. 1857)
• December 23 – Christian Gobrecht, designer of the "Liberty Seated" coins (d. 1844)

Deaths

• January 3 – Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (b. 1706)
• January 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classical scholar and critic (b. 1713)
• January 23 – Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. 1717)
• February 26 – Barbara Erni, Liechtenstein confidence trickster (b. 1743)
• April 14 – William Whitehead, English writer (b. 1715)
• May 8
  • Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, French statesman (b. 1719)
  • Pietro Longhi, Venetian painter (b. 1701)
• June 2 – Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician (b. 1713)
• June 30 – James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (b. 1696)
• August 17 – Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)
• August 26 – George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier and politician (b. 1716)
• August 28 – Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (b. 1714)
• October 4 – David Brearley, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1703)
• November 18 – Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, French soldier and writer (b. 1725)
• November 19 – Bernard de Bury, French composer (b. 1720)
• November 25 – Richard Glover, English poet (b. 1712)
• December 6 – Kitty Clive, English actress and playwright (b. 1711)
• December 29 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian author (b. 1742)
• date unknown – Faustina Pignatelli, Italian mathematician (b. 1705)

Further reading

• John Blair; J. Willoughby Rosse (1856). "1785". Blair's Chronological Tables. London: H.G. Bohn – via Hathi Trust.