1770

Year 1770 (MDCCLXX) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 11-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1770

January–June

• January 1 – Foundation of Fort George, Bombay laid by Colonel Keating, principal engineer, on the site of the former Dongri Fort.
• March 5 – Boston Massacre: Five Americans are shot by British troops in an event that helps start the American Revolutionary War 5 years later.
• April – James Cook drops anchor in a wide bay about 16 kilometres (10 mi) south of the present city of Sydney, Australia. Because the young botanist on board the ship, Joseph Banks discovers 30,000 specimens of plant life in the bay, 1,600 of them unknown to European science, James Cook calls the place Botany Bay.
• April 19 – British explorer Captain James Cook, and his crew aboard the Endeavour, become the first recorded Europeans to encounter the eastern coastline of the Australian continent.
• May 7 – Fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette arrives at the French court.
• May 16 – Marie Antoinette marries Louis-Auguste (who later becomes Louis XVI King of France).

July 5: Battle of Chesma, by Ivan Aivazovsky.

• May 16 – Fireworks lit by Eric Engelbrecht, at the wedding of the crown prince of France in Paris, cause a fire, killing 132 people.
• June - The Spanish governor of Buenos Aires sends five frigates to Port Egmont, landing some 1600 marines. The small British force present promptly surrenders.
• June 3 – Gasper de Portola and Father Junipero Serra establish Monterey, the presidio of Alta California territory for Spain from 1777–1822, United Mexican States 1824–1846, until the California Republic.

July–December

• July 1 – Lexell's Comet (D/1770 L1) passes the Earth at a distance of 2184129 km, the closest approach by a comet in recorded history.
• July 5 – Battle of Chesma and Battle of Larga: The Russian Empire defeats the Ottoman Empire in both battles.
• July 21 – Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 – Battle of Kagul: Russian commander Pyotr Rumyantsev routs 150,000 Turks.
• August 22 – James Cook claims the eastern coast of New Holland (Australia) for Great Britain.
• December 16 – The day that Ludwig van Beethoven was presumably born on.

Undated

• Falkland Crisis (1770)
• Joseph Priestley, British chemist, recommends the use of a rubber to remove pencil marks.
• Joseph Louis Lagrange proves Bachet's Conjecture.

Ongoing events

• Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774.
• War of the Regulation (1764–1771).
• Captain James Cook's first voyage (1768–1771).

Births

• February 21 – Georges Mouton, Marshal of France (d. 1838)
• March 2 – Louis Gabriel Suchet, Marshal of France (d. 1826)
• March 20 – Friedrich Hölderlin, German writer (d. 1843)
• April 7 – William Wordsworth, English poet (d. 1850)
• April 11 – George Canning, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1827)
• April 25 – Georg Sverdrup, Norwegian philologist (d. 1850)
• April 30 – David Thompson, English-Canadian explorer (d. 1857)
• May 10 – Louis Nicolas Davout, Marshal of France (d. 1823)
• May 15 – Ezekiel Hart, Canadian entrepreneur & politician (d. 1843)
• May 29 – Charles Adams, second son of President John Adams (1735–1826) (d. 1800)
• June 3 – Manuel Belgrano, Argentine politician and general in the Independence War (d. 1820)
• June 7 – Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1828)
• June 20 – Moses Waddel, American educator/minister and bestselling author (d. 1840)
• August 1 – William Clark, explorer, Governor of Missouri Territory, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs (d. 1838)
• August 3 – King Frederick William III of Prussia (d. 1840)
• August 27 – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher (d. 1831)
• December 15/16 – (baptized December 17) Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer (d. 1827)
• December 18 – Nicolas Joseph Maison, Marshal of France and Minister of War (d.1840)

Deaths

• January 7 – Carl Gustaf Tessin, Swedish politician (b. 1695)
• January 20 – Charles Yorke, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1722)
• February 26 – Giuseppe Tartini, Italian composer and violinist (b. 1692)
• March 5 – Crispus Attucks, African-American, first to die in the Boston Massacre (b. 1723)
• March 27 – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Venetian artist (b. 1696)
• April 25 – Jean-Antoine Nollet, French abbot and physicist (b. 1700)
• May 30 – François Boucher, French painter (b. 1703)
• June 23 – Mark Akenside, English poet and physician (b. 1721)
• July 27 – Robert Dinwiddie, British colonial Governor of Virginia (b. 1693)
• August 24 – Thomas Chatterton, English poet (b. 1752)
• September 30 – Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham, English politician and diplomat
• September 30 – George Whitefield, English-born Methodist leader (b. 1714)
• October 18 – John Manners, Marquess of Granby, British soldier (b. 1721)
• November 9 – John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll, Scottish politician
• November 13 – George Grenville, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1712)
• November 24 – Charles-Jean-François Hénault, French historian (b. 1685)
• December 5 – James Stirling, Scottish mathematician (b. 1692)
• October 14 – Benning Wentworth, colonial governor of New Hampshire (b. 1696)

Fictional

• The Doctor Who audio drama The Transit of Venus features the First Doctor meeting James Cook upon the discovery of Australia.