1799

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1799 (MDCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Julian calendar, the 1799th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 799th year of the 2nd millennium, the 99th year of the 18th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1790s decade. As of the start of 1799, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

January–June

• January 9 – English Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain's war effort in the Napoleonic Wars.
• February 28 – Action of 28 February 1799 (French Revolutionary Wars) British Royal Navy frigate HMS Sybille defeats the French frigate Forte off the mouth of the Hooghly River in the Bay of Bengal, but both captains are killed.
• March 1 – Federalist James Ross becomes President pro tempore of the United States Senate.
• March 3 – The Russo-Ottoman siege of Corfu ends with the surrender of the French garrison.^[1]
• March 7 – Napoleon captures Jaffa in Palestine and his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.
• March 29 – New York passes a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state.
• May 4 – Battle of Seringapatam: Tipu Sultan is defeated and killed by the British; captivity of Mangalorean Catholics at Seringapatam ends.
• May 21 – Siege of Acre ends after two months: Napoleon's attempt to widen his Middle Eastern campaign into Syria is frustrated by Ottoman forces, and he withdraws to Egypt.
• May 27 – Battle of Winterthur: Habsburg forces secure control of north-east Switzerland from the French Army of the Danube.
• June 18 – Action of 18 June 1799 (French Revolutionary Wars): a French frigate squadron under Rear-admiral Perrée is captured by the British fleet under Lord Keith off Toulon.

July–December

The Rosetta Stone

• July 7 – Ranjit Singh's men take their positions outside Lahore.
• July 12 – Ranjit Singh captures Lahore from the Bhangi Misl, a key step in establishing the Sikh Empire and becoming Maharaja of the Punjab.
• July 15 – In the Egyptian port city of Rosetta, French Captain Pierre Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone.
• July 25 – At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon defeats 10,000 Ottoman Mamluk troops under Mustafa Pasha.
• August 27 – War of the Second Coalition: Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland – Britain and Russia send an expedition to the Batavian Republic.
• August 30 – Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland: Vlieter Incident: A squadron of the Batavian Republic's navy, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, surrenders to the British Royal Navy under Sir Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Charles Mitchell near Wieringen without joining action.
• October 6 – Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland: Battle of Castricum – Franco-Dutch forces defeat the Russo-British expedition force.
• October 9 – HMS Lutine (a famous treasure wreck) is sunk in the West Frisian Islands.
• October 12 – Jeanne Geneviève Labrosse becomes the first woman to jump from a balloon with a parachute, from an altitude of 900 meters.
• October 16 – Action of 16 October 1799: A Spanish treasure convoy worth more than £54,000,000 is captured by the British Royal Navy off Vigo.
• October 18 – Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland: Anglo-Russian expedition forces surrender in North Holland.
• November 9 (Coup of 18 Brumaire) – Napoleon overthrows the French Directory in a coup d'état.
• November 10 (19 Brumaire) – A remnant of the Council of Ancients in France abolishes the Constitution of the Year III, and ordains the French Consulate with Napoleon as First Consul with the Constitution of the Year VIII.
• December 14 – George Washington, the first President of the United States, dies at Mount Vernon, Virginia.
• December 31 – The Dutch East India Company's charter is allowed to expire by the Batavian Republic.

Date unknown

• The Place Royale in Paris is renamed Place des Vosges when the Department of Vosges becomes the first to pay new Revolutionary taxes.
• Eli Whitney, holding a 1798 United States government contract for the manufacture of muskets, is introduced by Oliver Wolcott, Jr. to the concept of interchangeable parts, an origin of the American system of manufacturing.^[2]
• 12-year-old Conrad John Reed finds what he describes as a "heavy yellow rock" along Little Meadow Creek in Cabarrus County, North Carolina and makes it a doorstop in his home. Conrad's father John Reed learns that the rock is actually gold in 1802, initiating the first gold rush in the United States.
• The assassination of the 14th Tu'i Kanokupolu, Tukuʻaho, plunges Tonga into half a century of civil war.
• The Nawab (provincial governor) of Oudh in northern India sends to George III of England the Padshah Nama, an official history of the reign of Shah Jahan.
• William Cockerill begins building cotton-spinning equipment in Belgium.
• The small town of Tignish, Prince Edward Island, Canada is founded.

Births

January–June

Carl Adolph von Basedow

Honoré de Balzac

Alexander Pushkin

• January 6 – Jedediah Smith, an American fur trapper and explorer (d. 1831)
• January 12 – Priscilla Susan Bury, British botanist (d. 1872)
• January 23 – Alois Negrelli, Tyrolean engineer and railroad pioneer active in the Austrian Empire (1858)
• January 31 – Rodolphe Töpffer, a Swiss teacher, author, and artist (d. 1846)
• February 4 – Almeida Garrett, a Portuguese writer (d. 1854)
• February 11 – Basil Moreau, the founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross (d. 1873)
• February 14 – Walenty Wańkowicz, a Polish painter (d. 1842)
• February 27 – Edward Belcher, British admiral (d. 1877)
• March 8 – Simon Cameron, an American politician (d. 1889)
• March 16 – Anna Atkins, British botanist (d. 1871)
• March 20 – Karl August Nicander, a Swedish poet (d. 1839)
• March 22 – Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, a German astronomer (d. 1875)
• March 28 – Karl Adolph von Basedow, a German physician, noted for reporting the symptoms of Graves–Basedow disease (d. 1854)
• March 29 – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1869)
• April 12 – Henri Druey, a Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1855)
• April 17 – Eliza Acton, an English poet and cookery writer (d. 1859)
• May 13 – Catherine Gore, an English author (d. 1861)
• May 20 – Honoré de Balzac, a French author (d. 1850)
• May 21 – Mary Anning, a British paleontologist (d. 1847)
• May 25 – Alexei Lvov, a Russian composer (d. 1870)
• June 6 – Alexander Pushkin, a Russian author (d. 1837)
• June 18 – Prosper Ménière, a French physician (d. 1862)
• June 25 – David Douglas, a Scottish-born botanist (d. 1834)

July–December

• July 4 – King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (d. 1859)
• August 12 – Patrick MacDowell, an Irish sculptor (d. 1870)
• September 8 – James Bowman Lindsay, a Scottish inventor (d. 1862)
• September 10 – George Willison Adams, an American abolitionist (d. 1879)
• October 1 – John Brown Russwurm, an American abolitionist (d. 1851)
• October 18 – Christian Friedrich Schönbein, a German chemist (d. 1868)
• October 26 – Margaret Agnes Bunn, British actress (d. 1883)
• November 1 – Thomas Baldwin Marsh, an American religious leader (d. 1866)
• November 29 – Amos Bronson Alcott, the father of the novelist Louisa May Alcott (d. 1888)
• December 3 – Peggy Eaton, wife of Secretary of State John Eaton. She was the central character of the Petticoat affair. (d. 1879)

Date unknown

• James Townsend Saward, an English barrister and forger
• Domnița Rallou Caragea, Greek princess and independence activist (d. 1870)

Deaths

January–June

Qianlong

• January 9 – Maria Gaetana Agnesi, an Italian mathematician (b. 1718)
• January 22 – Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, a Swiss aristocrat and alpinist (b. 1740)
• February 6 – Étienne-Louis Boullée, a French architect (b. 1728)
• February 7 – Qianlong Emperor of China (b. 1711)
• February 12 – Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian biologist and physiologist (b. 1729)
• February 16 – Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria (b. 1724)
• February 19 – Jean-Charles de Borda, a French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor (b. 1733)
• February 22 – Heshen, a Manchu official under Qianlong (b. 1750)
• February 24 – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, a German scientist, satirist, and Anglophile (b. 1742)
• March 17 – Sir Charles Thompson, 1st Baronet, British admiral and politician (b. ca. 1740)
• March 28 – Etta Palm d'Aelders, Dutch-French feminist (b. 1743)
• April 6 – Alexander Bezborodko, the Grand Chancellor of Russia and the architect of Catherine the Great's foreign policy (b. 1747)
• May 2 – Guemes Padilla Horcasitas, the Viceroy of New Spain (b. 1740)
• May 4 – Tipu Sultan, an Indian ruler (b. 1750)
• May 18 – Pierre Beaumarchais, a French writer (b. 1732)
• May 26 – James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, a Scottish jurist (b. 1714)
• May 31 – Pierre Charles Le Monnier, a French astronomer (b. 1715)
• June 6 – Patrick Henry, an American revolutionary politician and a Governor of Virginia (b. 1736)
• June 10 – Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a French musician born on Guadeloupe (b. 1745)
• June 30 – Francesco Caracciolo, a Neapolitan admiral and revolutionist (b. 1752)

July–December

• July 7 – William Curtis, an English botanist and entomologist (b. 1746)

Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier

• August 2 – Jacques Étienne Montgolfier, a French inventor of the hot-air balloon and a balloonist (b. 1744)
• August 4 – John Bacon, a British sculptor (b. 1740)
• August 5 – Richard Howe, a British admiral (b. 1726)
• August 15 – Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, a French general (b. 1769)
• August 20 – Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel, Italian poet, journalist and revolutionary (b. 1752)
• August 29 – Pope Pius VI a Roman Catholic clergyman (b. 1717)
• August 31 – Nicolas-Henri Jardin, a French architect (b. 1720)
• September 7 – Jan Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician, physiologist, biologist, and chemist (b. 1730)
• October 6 – William Withering, a British physician (b. 1741)
• October 9 – Pierre Pigneau de Behaine, the French priest who helped to establish the Nguyễn dynasty (b. 1741)
• October 24 – Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, an Austrian composer (b. 1739)
• December 6 – Joseph Black, a Scottish physician, physicist, and chemist (b. 1728)
• December 14 – George Washington, the military leader of the American Revolution, president of the Constitutional Convention (1787), and the first President of the United States (1789–97) (b. 1732)
• December 31 – Jean-François Marmontel, a French historian and writer (b. 1723)

References