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Year '1774' ('
MDCCLXXIV') was a
common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the
Gregorian calendar (or a
common year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day slower
Julian calendar).
Events of 1774
January - June
★
January 21 -
Mustafa III,
Sultan of the
Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his brother
Abd-ul-Hamid I.
★
March 31 -
Intolerable Acts: The
British Parliament passes the
Boston Port Act, closing the port of
Boston, Massachusetts as punishment for the
Boston Tea Party.
★
May 10 -
Louis XVI becomes King of
France.
★
June 2 -
Intolerable Acts: A new
Quartering Act, requiring
American colonists to provide better housing for
British soldiers upon demand, is passed.
★
June 11 -
Jews in
Algiers escape the attack of the
Spanish army.
July - December
★
July 21 -
Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774:
Russia and the
Ottoman Empire sign the
Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ending six years of
war. The treaty does give
Russia the right to intervene in
Ottoman politics to protect its
Christian subjects.
★
1 August - The element
oxygen is discovered for the third (and last) time—the second quantitatively following the somewhat earlier work of
Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1771-1772)— by
Joseph Priestley who publishes the fact in
1775 and so named the element and usually gets all the credit.
★
September 5 - the
First Continental Congress assembles in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
★
September 21 -
George Mason and
George Washington found the
Fairfax County Militia Association, a military unit independent of British control.
★
October 14 - Document Congress in America Adpoted-Decloration and Resolves.
★
October 21 - First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in
Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in
Colonial America.
Undated
★ The British pass the
Quebec Act setting out rules of governance for the colony of
Quebec in British
North America.
★ To avoid severe flooding,
Martinsborough,
North Carolina is moved to higher ground three miles west. The
North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Martinsborough as the new county seat of
Pitt County, three years after its founding.
★ German cobbler
Johann Birkenstock creates the first
Birkenstock sandals.
Births
★
February 11 -
Hans Jarta, Swedish political activist and administrator (d.
1847)
★
February 24 -
Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge (d.
1850)
★
March 9 -
Mayhew Folger, whaler, captain of ''
Topaz'' (ship), rediscovered
Pitcairn Islands in
1808 (d.
1828)
★
March 16 - Captain
Matthew Flinders, English explorer (d.
1814)
★
July 20 -
Auguste Marmont, French marshal (d.
1852)
★
August 12 -
Robert Southey, English poet and biographer (d.
1843)
★
August 28 -
Elizabeth Ann Seton, co-founder of
Mount Saint Mary's University, founder of the
Sisters of Charity (d.
1821)
★
September 5 -
Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (d.
1840)
★
September 26 -
Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), nurseryman/missionary planted
apple-tree nurseries in
Ohio,
Indiana, and
Illinois (d.
1847)
★ ''date unknown'' -
Sergei Nikolayevich Glinka -
Russian author, brother of
Fedor Nikolaevich Glinka (d.
1847)
: ''See also .''
Deaths
★
January 21 -
Mustafa III,
Ottoman Sultan (b.
1717)
★
February 4 -
Charles Marie de La Condamine, French mathematician and geographer (b.
1701)
★
April 4 -
Oliver Goldsmith, English writer (b.
1730)
★
May 4 -
Anthony Ulrich II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (b.
1714)
★
May 10 - King
Louis XV of France (b.
1710)
★
July 1 -
Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, English statesman (b.
1705)
★
July 11 -
Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, Irish-born New York pioneer
★
July 14 -
James O'Hara, 2nd Baron Tyrawley and Kilmaine, British field marshal (b.
1682)
★
August 11 -
Tiphaigne de la Roche, French writer (b.
1722)
★
August 14 -
Johann Jakob Reiske, German scholar and physician (b.
1716)
★
August 25 -
Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer (b.
1714)
★
September 22 -
Pope Clement XIV (b.
1705)
★
September 25 -
John Bradstreet, Canadian-born soldier (b.
1714)
★
October 23 -
Michel Benoist, French Jesuit missionary and scientist (b.
1715)
★
November 22 -
Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, British general and statesman (b.
1725)
★
December 2 -
Johann Friedrich Agricola, German composer (b.
1720)
★
December 16 -
François Quesnay, French economist (b.
1694)
: ''See also .''