| January 14 | Congress ratifies peace treaty between U.S. and England |
| January 20 | Hostilities cease in Revolutionary War |
| February 1 | William Herschel announces star Lambda Herculis as apex |
| February 3 | Spain recognizes U.S. independence |
| February 4 | Worst quake in 8 years kills some 50,000 (Calabria, Italy) |
| February 5 | Earthquakes ravage Calabria, killing 30,000 |
| February 5 | Sweden recognizes U.S. independence |
| March 5 | King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski grants rights to Jews of Kovno |
| April 3 | Sweden and U.S. sign a treaty of Amity and Commerce |
| April 8 | Catharina II of Russia annexes the Krim |
| April 9 | Tippu Sahib drives out English from Bednore India |
| May 4 | Herschel reports seeing a red glow near lunar crater Aristarchus |
| May 30 | Benjamin Tower of Philadelphia publishes 1st daily newspaper in U.S. |
| June 4 | Montgolfier brothers launch 1st hot-air balloon, unmanned |
| June 5 | Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier make 1st public balloon flight |
| June 8 | Laki Volcano in southern Iceland begins 8-month eruption |
| July 15 | 1st steamboat, Pyroscaphe, 1st run in France |
| July 24 | Georgia becomes a protectorate of tsarist Russia |
| July 29 | Skaptar Volcano on Iceland erupts killing about 9,000 |
| August 27 | 1st hydrogen balloon flight (unmanned); reaches 900 m altitude |
| September 3 | Treaty of Paris signed (ending U.S. Revolutionary War) |
| October 6 | Benjamin Hanks patents self-winding clock |
| October 15 | Jean Pilatre de Rozier makes captive-balloon ascent |
| November 1 | Continental Army dissolved; George Washington's "Farewell Address" |
| November 2 | General Washington bids farewell to his army |
| November 3 | Washington orders Continental Army disbanded |
| November 21 | Pilatre de Rozier and Marquis d'Arlandes make 1st free balloon flight |
| November 23 | Annapolis Maryland, becomes U.S. capital (until June 1784) |
| November 25 | Britain evacuates New York City, their last military position in US |
| December 1 | Charles and M N Roberts ascend 2,000' in hydrogen balloon |
| December 1 | J van North launches unmanned balloon |
| December 4 | General Washington bids officers farewell at Fraunce's Tavern, New York City |
| December 7 | Theatre Royal opens in Covent Garden, London |
| December 7 | William Pitt, Jr. (24) becomes British premier |
| December 9 | 1st execution at English Newgate-jail |
| December 18 | English king George III fires government of Portland |
| December 19 | English government of Pitt, Jr. forms |
| December 23 | Washington resigns as U.S. Army's commander-in-chief |
| December 31 | Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern states |
BrainyHistory
