1787
| 1787 in topic: |
| Subjects: Archaeology – Architecture – |
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| Leaders: State leaders – Colonial governors |
| Category: Establishments – Disestablishments |
| Births – Deaths – Works |
Year 1787 (MDCCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).
Events of 1787
January–June
- February 4 – Shays' Rebellion fails.
- February 28 – A charter is granted establishing the institution known today as the University of Pittsburgh.
- April 2 – A Charter of Justice is signed providing the authority for the establishment of the first New South Wales (ie Australian) Courts of Criminal and Civil Jurisdiction.
- May 13 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England with 11 ships packed with 1,000 convicts and their jailers to establish a penal colony in Australia.
- May 14 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates begin arriving to write a new Constitution for the United States.
- May 25 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, delegates begin to convene a Constitutional Convention intended to amend the Articles of Confederation. However, a new Constitution for the United States is eventually produced. George Washington presides over the Convention.
- May – Orangist troops attack Vreeswijk, Harmelen and Maarssen; civil war starts in the Netherlands.
- June 6 – Franklin College, named for Benjamin Franklin, opens in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It later merges with Marshall College to become Franklin and Marshall College.
- June 20 – Oliver Ellsworth moves at the Federal Convention that the government be called the United States.
- June 28 – Princess Wilhelmina of Orange, sister of Frederick, the king of Prussia, is captured by patriots and taken to Goejanverwellesluis, and not allowed to travel to the Hague.
July–December
- July 13 – The U.S. Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance establishing governing rules for the Northwest Territory. It also establishes procedures for the admission of new states and limits the expansion of slavery.
- July 15 – Lord's cricket ground is established and the MCC incorporated.
- August 27 – Launching a 45-foot (14 m) steam powered craft on the Delaware River, John Fitch demonstrates the first U.S. patent for his design.
- September 13 – Prussian troops enter the Netherlands. Within a few weeks 40,000 Patriots (out of a population of 2,000,000) go into exile in France (and learn from observation the ideals of the French Revolution).
- September 17 – The United States Constitution is adopted by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
- October 1 – Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792 – Battle of Kinburn: Alexander Suvorov, though sustaining a wound, routs the Turks.
- October 27 – The first of the Federalist Papers, a series of essays calling for ratification of the U.S. Constitution, is published in a New York paper.
- October 29 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte) premieres in the Estates Theatre in Prague.
- December 7 – Delaware ratifies the Constitution and becomes the first U.S. state.
- December 8 – Mission La Purisima Concepcion is founded by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén, becoming the 11 mission in the California mission chain.
- December 12 – Pennsylvania becomes the second U.S. state.
- December 18 – New Jersey becomes the third U.S. state.
Undated
- In Britain, Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp found the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade with support from John Wesley, Josiah Wedgwood and others.
- The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Waynesborough and designates it the county seat for Wayne County, North Carolina.
- The element Silicon is first identified by Antoine Lavoisier as a component of the Latin term silex or "Flints" (meaning "Hard Rocks").
Births
- January 1 – Manuel José Arce, Revolutionary General and first President of The Federal Republic of Central America. (d. 1847)
- February 10 – William Bradley, Britain's tallest man ever (d. 1820)
- March 7 – George Bethune English, American explorer and writer (d. 1828)
- March 11 – Ivan Nabokov, Russian General (d. 1852)
- March 17 – Edmund Kean, British actor (d. 1833)
- April 26 – Ludwig Uhland, German poet (d. 1862)
- June 28 – Sir Harry Smith, English soldier and military commander (d. 1860)
- November 7 – Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Serbian linguist and major reformer of the Serbian language (d. 1864)
- November 18 – Louis Daguerre, French artist and chemist (d. 1851)
- November 21 – Samuel Cunard, Canadian business, prominent Nova Scotian, founder of the Cunard Line (d. 1865)
- December 10 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, American educator (d. 1851)
- December 16 – Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist and dramatist (d. 1855)
Deaths
- February 13
- Rudjer Boscovich, Croatian scientist and diplomat (b. 1711)
- Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, French statesman and diplomat (b. 1717)
- April 1 – Floyer Sydenham, English classical scholar (b. 1710)
- April 2 – Thomas Gage, British general (b. 1719)
- May 10 – William Watson, English physician and scientist (b. 1715)
- May 28 – Leopold Mozart, Austrian composer (b. 1719)
- June 20 – Carl Friedrich Abel, German composer (b. 1723)
- July 4 – Charles de Rohan, prince de Soubise, Marshal of France (b. 1715)
- August 1 – Alphonsus Liguori, Italian founder of the Redemptionist order (b. 1696)
- October 7 – Henry Muhlenberg, German-born founder of the U.S. Lutheran Church (b. 1711)
- November 3 – Robert Lowth, English bishop and grammarian (b. 1710)
- November 15 – Christoph Willibald Gluck, German composer (b. 1714)
- December 18 – Francis William Drake, British admiral and Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1724)
- December 18 – Soame Jenyns, English writer (b. 1704)