1796

Years: 1793 1794 1795 - 1796 - 1797 1798 1799
Decades: 1760s 1770s 1780s - 1790s - 1800s 1810s 1820s
Centuries: 17th century - 18th century - 19th century

1796 was a leap year starting on Friday. (see link for calendar)

Contents

Events

February 1 - The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York
March 9 - Widow Joséphine de Beauharnais marries General Napoléon Bonaparte.
March 30 - Carl Gauss obtained conditions for the constructibility by ruler and compass of regular polygons and was able to announce that the regular 17-gon was constructible by ruler and compasses.
April 2 - The only night of would-be Shakespearean play of Vortigern and Rowena (actually written by William Henry Ireland)
May 10 - First Coalition: Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte wins a decisive victory against Austrian forces at Lodi bridge over the River Adda in Italy. The Austrians lose some 2,000 men.
May 14 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.
May 15 - Napoleon's troops take Milan
June 1 - Tennessee is admitted as the 16th U.S. state.
July 11 - The U.S. takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.
July 22 - Surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company name an area in Ohio "Cleveland" after Gen. Moses Cleaveland, the superintendent of the surveying party.
September 8 - French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano - French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano.
November: John Adams defeats Thomas Jefferson in U.S. presidential election
November 4 - The Treaty of Tripoli (between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Tripoli (see also 1797)
November 17 November 6 Old Style - Catherine II of Russia called Catherine "The Great" dies and is succeeded by her son Paul I of Russia. His wife Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg becomes Empress consort.
November 17 - French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Arcole - French forces defeat the Austrians in Italy.
December 7 - U.S. Electoral College meets to elect John Adams president

British government purchase a 40 acre (162,000 m²) site at Norman Cross the first purposely built prisoner of war camp in England at that time.
Mungo Park visits Segu kingdom
The Qianlong Emperor abdicates at age 84 to make way for his son, the Jiaqing Emperor.
The British seize Ceylon from the Dutch.

Ongoing events

Births

January 25 - William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1852)
February 22 - Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, Belgian mathematician (d. 1874)
May 1 - Junius Brutus Booth, English actor (d. 1852)
May 4 - Horace Mann, American educator and abolitionist (d. 1859)
July 6 - Emperor Nicholas I of Russia
July 23 - Franz Berwald, composer
August 15 - John Torrey, American botanist
August 25 - James Lick, California land baron (d. 1876)
September 19 - Hartley Coleridge, British poet
October 23 - Stefano Franscini, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1857)
November 30 - Carl Loewe, composer

Deaths

February 23 - Jean-Nicolas Stofflet, French Revolution figure
July 21 - Robert Burns, Scots poet
September 21 - François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, French General (b. 1769)
November 6 - Catherine the Great of Russia

Categories: 1796