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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.

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January

January 21 - Mustafa III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid I.

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March
March 31 - American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act.


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May

May 10 - Louis XVI becomes King of France.

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June

June 2 - Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to let British soldiers into their homes, is reenacted.
June 11 - Jews in Algier escape the attack of the Spanish army.

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July

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.

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September

September 5 - First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
September 21 - George Mason and George Washington found the Fairfax County Militia Association.

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October

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.

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Births

February 11 - Hans Jarta, Swedish political activist and administrator (d. 1847)
February 24 - Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge (d. 1850)
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)
September 5 - Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (d. 1840)

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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)