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1766

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1766

Year 1766 (MDCCLXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–June

January 1 – Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Charles III and figurehead for Jacobitism.
January 14 – Christian VII becomes King of Denmark.
February 5 – An observer in Wilmington, North Carolina reports to the Edinburgh newspaper Caledonian Mercury that three ships were seized by British men-of-war on the charge of carrying official documents without stamps. The strict enforcement causes seven other ships to leave Wilmington for other ports.
February 18 – Meermin slave mutiny: captive Malagasy people seize a Dutch East India Company slave ship in the Indian Ocean.
February 20 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a British sloop outside of Wilmington, North Carolina seized 1 sloop sailing from Philadelphia and 1 sloop sailing from Saint Christopher on the charge of carrying official documents without stamps. In response, local residents threaten to burn a Royal Man-of-War attempting to deliver stamps to Wilmington, forcing the ship to return to the mouth of the Cape Fear River.
February 23 – Lorraine becomes French again on the death of Stanislaus I Leszczy ski, King of Poland.
February – Ferocious wolf attacks occur in France, such as the Beast of G vaudan or Wolves of P rigord.
March 5 – Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
March 18 – American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act which is very unpopular in the British colonies. The persuasion of Benjamin Franklin is considered partly responsible. The Declaratory Act asserts the right of Britain to bind the colonies in all other respects.

July–December

November 10 – The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).
November 27 – An observer in New York City, in the Province of New York reports to the Pennsylvania Gazette that a British Sloop of War is searching all vessels passing near Cape Lookout, North Carolina and that some vessels have been seized.
December 2 – Sweden introduces its Freedom of the Press Act, becoming the first country of the world to protect freedom of the press in the Constitution, and the first country in the world to grant a wide-ranging freedom of information.

Date unknown

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returns to Salzburg after touring Paris and London with his father.
The Burmese begin to invade the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya.
What is now England's oldest surviving Georgian theatre is constructed in Stockton-on-Tees.
Childsburgh, the Orange County, North Carolina county seat laid out as Corbin Town in 1754 and renamed in 1759, is renamed Hillsborough in honor of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough.