1789

Year 1789 (MDCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1789

• January 7 – 1789 United States presidential elections and House of Representatives elections are held.
• January 21 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts.
• January 23 – Georgetown University is founded in Washington, D.C., becoming the first Catholic college in the United States.

• February 4 – George Washington is unanimously elected the first President of the United States by the United States Electoral College.
• February 12 – Ethan Allen, Commander of the Green Mountain Boys during the capture of Ft. Ticonderoga and Vermont statesman, dies on his farm in Burlington, Vermont.
• March 4 – At Federal Hall in New York City, the 1st United States Congress meets and declares the new United States Constitution to be in effect.
• March 18 – The last burning at the stake takes place at Newgate when Catherine (or Christian) Murphy is executed for high treason coining.
• April 1 – At Federal Hall, the United States House of Representatives attains its first quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker of the House.
• April 7 – Selim III (1789–1807) succeeds Abd-ul-Hamid I (1773–1789) as Ottoman Sultan .
• April 28 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Fletcher Christian leads the mutiny on HMS Bounty against Captain William Bligh.
• April 30 – George Washington is inaugurated at Federal Hall in New York City, beginning his term as the first President of the United States.
• May 5 – In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 175 years.
• June 14 – Bounty mutiny survivors, including Captain William Bligh and 18 others, reach Timor after a nearly journey in an open boat.

• June 17 – In France, representatives of the Third Estate at the Estates-General declare themselves the National Assembly.
• June 20 – Tennis Court Oath is made in Versailles.
• June 23 – Louis XVI of France makes a conciliatory speech urging reforms to a joint session and orders the three estates to meet together.

July–December

• July – An estimated 150,000 of Paris's 600,000 people are without work.
• July 9
  • In Versailles, the National Assembly reconstitutes itself as the National Constituent Assembly and begins preparations for a French constitution.
  • The Theater War officially ends.
• July 10 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches Mackenzie River Delta.
• July 11 – The King of France fires popular Chief Minister Necker.
• July 12 – An angry Parisian crowd demonstrates against the King’s decision to dismiss Minister Necker.
• July 13 – The people begin to seize arms for the defense of Paris.
• July 14 – The French Revolution (1789–1799) begins: Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille and free seven prisoners. In rural areas, peasants attack noble manors.

: Storming of the Bastille.]]

• July 27 – The first U.S. federal government agency under the new Constitution, the Department of Foreign Affairs (later renamed the Department of State), is established.
• August 4 – In France, members of the Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.
• August 7 – The United States Department of War is established.
• August 17 – War Department created.
• August 26 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man is proclaimed in France.
• August 28 – William Herschel discovers Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.
• September 2 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.
• September 15 – Department of State
• September 22 – Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792 – Battle of Rymnik: Alexander Suvorov roundly defeats 100,000 Turks.
• September 24 – The Judiciary Act of 1789 establishes the federal judiciary and the United States Marshals Service.
• September 25 – The United States Congress proposes a set of 12 amendments for ratification by the states. Ratification for 10 of these proposals is completed on December 5, 1791, creating the United States Bill of Rights.
• September 29 – The U.S. Department of War establishes the nation's first regular army, with a strength of several hundred men.
• October – Some 7,000 women march from Paris to Versailles to demand action.
• November 6 – Pope Pius VI appoints John Carroll the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.
• November 20 – New Jersey ratifies the United States Bill of Rights, the first state to do so.
• November 21 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 12th U.S. state.
• November 26 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.
• December 11 – The University of North Carolina, the oldest public university in the United States, is founded.
• December 23 – A leaflet circulated in France accuses marquis de Favras of plotting to rescue the royal family.

Undated

• Thomas Jefferson returns from Europe, bringing the first macaroni machine to the United States.
• Influenced by Dr. Benjamin Rush's argument against the excessive use of alcohol, about 200 farmers in a Connecticut community form a temperance association.
• Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, decrees that all peasant labor obligations be converted into cash payments.
• Fort Washington is built in Cincinnati, Ohio, to protect early U.S. settlements in the Northwest Territory.

Ongoing

• Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)
• Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)

Births

,

• January 4 – Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (d. 1839)
• January 12 – Ettore Perrone di San Martino, prime minister of Sardinia (d. 1849)
• January 21 – William Machin Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (d. 1865)
• February 22 – René Edward De Russy, Brigadier General of the United States Army, Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, and military engineer (d. 1865)
• March 16 – Georg Ohm, German physicist (d. 1854)
• May 1 – George Fife Angas, Founder of South Australia (d. 1879)
• July 19 – John Martin, English painter (d. 1854)
• August 21 – Augustin Louis Cauchy, French mathematician (d. 1857)
• August 28 – Stephanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden (d. 1860)
• September 15 – James Fenimore Cooper, American writer (d. 1851)
• October 8 – William John Swainson an English naturalist and artist (d. 1855)
• December 15 – Edward B Dudley, North Carolina governor
• December 28 – Catharine Sedgwick, American writer (d. 1867)
• date unknown – Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq, Urdu poet (d. 1854)
• Friedrich List, German journalist (d. 1846)

Deaths

• January 1 – Fletcher Norton, 1st Baron Grantley, English politician (b. 1716)
• January 8 – Jack Broughton, English boxer (b. 1703)
• January 23 – Frances Brooke, English writer (b. 1724)
• February 19 – Nicholas Van Dyke, American lawyer and President of Delaware (b. 1738)
• April 7 – Abd-ul-Hamid I, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1725)
• April 7 – Petrus Camper, Dutch anatomist (b. 1722)
• April 26 – Count Petr Ivanovich Panin, Russian soldier (b. 1721)
• May 9 – Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, French artillery specialist (b. 1715)
• May 25 – Anders Dahl, Swedish botanist (b. 1751)
• June 4 – Prince Louis-Joseph of France, son of Louis XVI of France (tuberculosis) (b. 1781)
• July 13 – Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, French economist (b. 1715)
• July 14 – Jacques de Flesselles, French provost (assassinated) (b. 1721)
• July 15 – Jacques Duphly, French composer (b. 1715)
• July 22 – Joseph-François Foulon, French politician (executed) (b. 1715)
• October 27 – John Cook, American farmer and President of Delaware (b. 1730)
• December 3 – Claude Joseph Vernet, French painter (b. 1714)
• December 12 – John Ponsonby, Irish politician (b. 1713)
• December 23 – Charles-Michel de l'Épée, French philanthropist and developer of signed French (b. 1712)

References