1781 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 5 - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.
• January 30 - Articles of Confederation ratified by 13th state, Maryland.
• January - William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister, enters Parliament.
• March 1 - American Continental Congress implements the Articles of Confederation.
• March 13 - Sir William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus. Originally he calls it Georgium Sidus (George's Star) in honour of King George III of England.
• March 15 - American Revolutionary War: American General Nathanael Greene loses Battle of Guilford Court House to British.
• July 27 - French spy Francis Henry de la Motte executed in Tyburn prison in England for high treason
• August 30 - American Revolutionary War: French fleet under Comte de Grasse enters Chesapeake Bay, cutting British General Charles Cornwallis off from escape by sea.
• September 4 - Los Angeles is founded as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Ángeles de Porciuncula (City of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula) by a group of 44 Spanish settlers.
• September 5 - British fleet under Thomas Graves arrives and fights de Grasse, but to no effect.
• September 6 - The British army attacks a fort in Groton, Connecticut which became known as the Battle of Groton Heights.
• September 10 - Graves gives up trying to break through the now-reinforced French fleet and returns to New York, leaving Cornwallis to his fate.
• October 19 - Following the Siege of Yorktown, General Charles Cornwallis surrenders to General George Washington at Yorktown, Virginia, ending the armed struggle of the American Revolutionary War.
• October 20 - Patent of Tolerance, providing limited freedom of worship, was approved in Habsburg Monarchy.
• November 5 - John Hanson is elected President of the Continental Congress.
• November 29 - The slave ship Zong dumps its living cargo into the sea in order to claim insurance.
• November 29 - Henry Hurle officially founds the Ancient Order of Druids(AOD) in London, England.
• December 12 - French and British fleets fight in the Second Battle of Ushant.

• Bank of North America is chartered by the Continental Congress.
• Charles Messier publishes final catalog of Messier objects.
• Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers tungsten.
• Immanuel Kant publishes Critique of Pure Reason.
• Jeremy Bentham formulates utilitarian ethics.
• Reverend Samuel Peters publishes General History of Connecticut, using the term blue law for the first time.
• Antonio Salieri selected as music teacher of Princess of Württemberg over Mozart.

Births

• January 26 - Achim von Arnim, German writer (d. 1831)
• January 30 - Adelbert von Chamisso, German writer (d. 1838)
• February 17 - Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec, French physician and inventor (d. 1826)
• March 4 - Rebecca Gratz, American educator and philanthropist (d. 1869)
• March 13 - Karl Friedrich Schinkel, German architect and painter (d. 1841)
• June 9- George Stephenson, English engineer (d. 1848)
• June 21 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1840)
• July 6 - Thomas Stamford Raffles, English founder of Singapore (d. 1826)
• July 6 - John D. Sloat, American naval officer (d. 1867)
• July 27 - Mauro Giuliani, Italian composer (d. 1828)
• September 3 - Eugène de Beauharnais, French nobleman, son of Napoleon's wife Josephine (d. 1824)
• September 6 - Anton Diabelli, Austrian music publisher, editor, and composer (d. 1858)
• October 1 - James Lawrence, U.S. Navy officer (d. 1813)
• November 6 - Lucy Aikin, English writer (d. 1864)
• November 20 - Karl Friedrich Eichhorn, German jurist (d. 1854)
• November 29 - Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaked, teacher, philosopher and sociologist (d. 1865)
• November 30 - Alexander Berry, Scottish adventurer and Australian pioneer (d. 1873)
• December 11 - Sir David Brewster, Scottish physicist (d. 1868)
• William Williams of Wern, minister (d. 1840)
• Shaka Zulu King of the Zulu people. (d. circa 22 september 1828)

Deaths

• January 12 - Richard Challoner, English Catholic prelate (b. 1691)
• January 15 - Marianne Victoria of Borbón, queen regent of Portugal (b. 1718)
• February 15 - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, German author and philosopher (b. 1729)
• February 23 - George Taylor, American signer of the Declaration of Independence
• February 24 - Edward Capell, English critic (b. 1713)
• March 18 - Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune, French statesman and economist (b. 1727)
• April 23 - James Abercrombie, British general (b. 1706)
• April 28 - Cornelius Harnett, American delegate to the Continental Congress (b. 1723)
• May 8 - Richard Jago, English poet (b. 1715)
• May 27 - Giovanni Battista Beccaria, Italian physicist (b. 1716)
• July 18 - Padre Francisco Garcés, Spanish missionary (killed) (b. 1738)
• July 23 - John Joachim Zubly, Swiss-born Continental Congressman (b. 1724)
• September 28 - William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, British diplomat and statesman (b. 1717)
• October 16 - Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, British naval officer (b. 1705)
• November 4 - Johann Nikolaus Götz, German poet (b. 1721)
• Peter Scheemakers, Flemish sculptor (b. 1691)

1781

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