1796

Year 1796 (MDCCXCVI) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1796

January - June

* January 16 - The first Dutch (and general) elections are held for the National Assembly of the Batavian Republic (the next Dutch general elections are held in 1888).
* February 1 - The capital of Upper Canada is moved from Newark to York.
* February 9 - The Qianlong Emperor abdicates at age 84 to make way for his son, the Jiaqing Emperor.
* March 9 - Widow Joséphine de Beauharnais marries General Napoléon Bonaparte.

* March 30 - Carl Gauss obtains conditions for the constructibility by ruler and compass of regular polygons, and is able to announce that the regular 17-gon is constructible by ruler and compasses.
* April 2 - The only night of the would-be Shakespearean play "Vortigern and Rowena" (actually written by William Henry Ireland) ends in the audience's laughter.
* April 12 - War of the First Coalition - Battle of Montenotte: Napoleon Bonaparte gains his first victory as an army commander.
* April 27 - Case of the Lyons Mail: During the night of April 27, 5 highwaymen attack the mail between Paris and Lyon, kill the postmen, and steal the funds sent to the armies in Italy.
* May 10
**Persian Expedition of 1796: Russian troops storm Derbent.
**War of the First Coalition - Battle of Lodi: General Napoleon Bonaparte defeats Austrian rearguard in forcing a crossing of the bridge over the River Adda in Italy. The Austrians lose some 2,000 men, 14 guns, and 30 ammunition wagons.
* May 14 - Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox vaccination.
* May 15 - Napoleon's troops take Milan.
* May 20 - The last mock Garrat Elections are held in Surrey, England.
* June 1 - Tennessee is admitted as the 16th U.S. state.

July - December

* July 10 - Carl Friedrich Gauss discovers that every positive integer is representable as a sum of at most 3 triangular numbers.
* July 11 - The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under the terms of the Jay Treaty.
* July 14 - The de Portolá Expedition sets out from San Diego (now San Diego, California) to find the Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California).
* 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.
* September 17 - U.S. President George Washington issues his "Farewell Address", which warns against partisan politics and foreign entanglements.
* November: John Adams defeats Thomas Jefferson in the U.S. presidential election.
* November 4 - The Treaty of Tripoli (between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Tripoli (see also 1797).
* 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 10 - The de Portolá Expedition returns from its terminus point (now Menlo Park, California) to San Diego after failing to find Vizcaíno's Port of Monterey (now Monterey, California).
* November 17 - French Revolutionary Wars - Battle of Arcole: French forces defeat the Austrians in Italy.
* December 7 - The U.S. Electoral College meets to elect John Adams president.

Undated

* The Ron Santa Teresa distillery is established in Venezuela.
* The British government purchases a 40 acre (162,000 m²) site at Norman Cross (the first purposely built prisoner of war camp in Britain at that time).
* Mungo Park visits the Segu Kingdom.
* The British seize Ceylon from the Dutch.
* Annual British iron production reaches 125,000 tons.
* Spanish government lifts the restrictions against neutrals trading with the colonies, thus acknowledging Spain's inability to supply the colonies with needed goods and markets.

Ongoing events

* French Revolution (1789-1799)
* French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-First Coalition

Births

* January 25 - William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1852)
* February 22 - Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, Belgian mathematician (d. 1874)
* March 18 - Jakob Steiner, Swiss mathematician (d. 1863)
* May 1 - Junius Brutus Booth, English actor (d. 1852)
* May 4 - Horace Mann, American educator and abolitionist (d. 1859)
* June 14 - Nikolai Brashman, Russian mathematician of Czech origin (d. 1866)
* July 6 - Emperor Nicholas I of Russia (d. 1855)
* July 16 - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, French painter (d. 1875)
* July 23 - Franz Berwald, Swedish composer (d. 1868)
* August 15 - John Torrey, American botanist (d. 1873)
* August 25 - James Lick, American land speculator (d. 1876)
* September 19 - Hartley Coleridge, British poet (d. 1849)
* September 22 - Davi Canabarro, Gaúcho rebel revolutionary (d. 1867)
* September 25 - Antoine-Louis Barye, French sculptor (d. 1875)
* October 23 - Stefano Franscini, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1857)
* November 30 - Carl Loewe, German composer (d. 1869)
* December 19 - Breton de los Herreros Spanish playwright (d. 1873)
* December 27 - Mirza Ghalib, Poet of Urdu (d. 1869)

: "See also ."

Deaths

* January 13 - John H. D. Anderson, Scottish scientist and inventor (b. 1726)
* February 23 - Jean-Nicolas Stofflet, French royalist general (executed) (b. 1751)
* March 6 - Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, French writer (b. 1713)
* March 19 - Hugh Palliser, British naval officer and administrator (b. 1722)
* May 12 - Johann Peter Uz, German poet (b. 1720)
* May 29 - Carl Fredrik Pechlin, Swedish politician (b. 1720)
* June 11 - Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician (b. 1720)
* June 21 - Richard Gridley, American Revolutionary soldier (b. 1710)
* June 26 - David Rittenhouse, American astronomer, inventor, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, and public official. (b. 1732)
* June 30 - Abraham Yates, American Continental Congressman (b. 1724)
* July 16 - George Howard, British field marshal (b. 1718)
* July 21 - Robert Burns, Scottish poet (b. 1759)
* August 1 - Robert Pigot, British army officer (b. 1720)
* August 21 - John McKinly, American physician and President of Delaware (b. 1721)
* September 21 - François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, French revolutionary general (killed in battle) (b. 1769)
* October 7 - Thomas Reid, Scottish philosopher (b. 1710)
* November 6 - Catherine the Great of Russia (b. 1729)

: "See also ."

External links

* [http://www.historydata.com/chronologies/1796.html Chronology of 1796, mainly relating to Napoleon's campaign in Italy]