1765

Year 1765 (MDCCLXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1765

January–June

• January 23 – Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor marries Princess Maria Josepha of Bavaria in Vienna.
• March 9 – After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have committed suicide.
• March 22 – The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, which is the first direct tax levied from Great Britain on the American colonies.
• March 24 – Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, requiring the 13 American colonies to house British troops.
• May 18 – Fire destroys one quarter of the town of Montreal, Quebec.
• June 21 – The Isle of Man is brought under British control.

July–December

• August
  • Josef II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
• August 9 – Russian Empress Catherine II issues a decree authorizing the new way to produce vodka (by freezing
• August 14 – in protest of the Stamp Act, Bostonians attack home of official Andrew Oliver
• August 26 – in protest of the Stamp Act, Bostonians destroy home of lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson
• September 6 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau's house in Switzerland is stoned by a mob.
• September 21 – François Antoine (also wrongly titled Antoine de Beauterne) announces he has killed the Beast of Gévaudan.
• October 17 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a Mr. McCullough, the Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest of the Stamp Act. A Dr. Huston is appointed to the position.
• November 1 – The Stamp Act goes into effect in the 13 colonies, in order to help pay for British military operations in North America.
• December 12 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that Dr. Huston, the recently instated Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest of the Stamp Act.

Undated

• The first chocolate factory in the United States (Dorchester, Massachusetts) is established by Dr. James Baker.
• The first true restaurant opens in Paris, where a tavern-keeper named Boulanger sells cooked dishes at an all-night place on the Rue Bailleul.
• James Watt supersedes the 1705 Newcomen engine with the more effective Watt steam engine.
• In Lisbon, the auto de fé parade (often an excuse for violence against Jews or Christian 'heretics') is abolished.
• Horace Walpole publishes The Castle of Otranto.
• Desai Atash Behram was established in Navsari, India.

Ongoing events

• War of the Regulation (1764–1771)

Births

• January 11 – Antoine Alexandre Barbier, French librarian (d. 1825)
• February 1 – Charles Hatchett, English chemist (d. 1847)
• March 7 – Nicéphore Niépce, French inventor (d. 1833)
• March 27 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher and theologian (d. 1841)
• April 1 – Luigi Schiavonetti, Italian engraver (d. 1810)
• April 6 – Duke Charles Felix of Savoy (d. 1831)
• April 26 – Emma, Lady Hamilton, English mistress of Horatio Nelson (d. 1815)
• June 15 – Henry Thomas Colebrooke, English orientalist (d. 1831)
• July 14–Abigail Adams Smith, firstborn daughter of Abigail Adams and John Adams (d. 1813)
• July 26 – Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Count d'Erlon, French marshal (d. 1844)
• August 21 – King William IV of the United Kingdom (d. 1837)
• September 18 – Pope Gregory XVI (d. 1837)
• October 8 – Harman Blennerhassett, Irish-American lawyer (d. 1831)
• October 17 – Henri Jacques Guillaume Clarke, duc de Feltre, French marshal and politician (d. 1818)
• October 24 – James Mackintosh, Scottish publicist (d. 1832)
• November 14 – Robert Fulton, American inventor (d. 1815)
• November 17 – Étienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre MacDonald, French marshal (d. 1840)
• November 20 – Sir Thomas Fremantle, British captain and politician (d. 1819)
• December 8 – Eli Whitney, American inventor (d. 1825)
• date unknown
  • Pyotr Bagration, Russian general (d. 1812)
  • Mary Bryant, one of the first successful escapees from the fledging Australian penal colony
  • James Smithson, British mineralogist and chemist who left a bequest in his will to the United States of America, which was used to initially fund the Smithsonian Institution (d. 1829)

Deaths

• March 3 – William Stukeley, English archaeologist (b. 1687)
• March 27 – Arthur Dobbs, Irish politician and governor of the Royal Colony of North Carolina (b. 1689)
• April 5 – Edward Young, English poet (b. 1683)
• April 8 – Andrew Gannon III, Proclaimed King of Ireland by the Irish bishops (b. 1683)
• April 15 – Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian author and scientist (b. 1711)
• April 20 – Abigail Williams, American accuser in the Salem witch trials (b. 1681)
• May 17 – Alexis Claude Clairault, French mathematician (b. 1713)
• July 15 – Charles-André van Loo, French painter (b. 1705)
• August 18 – Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1708)
• September 2 – Henry Bouquet, Swiss-born British army officer (b. 1719)
• October 10 – Lionel Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (b. 1688)
• October 21 – Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Italian painter and architect (b. 1691)
• October 31 – Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, English military leader (b. 1721)
• November 30 – George Glas, Scottish merchant and adventurer (b. 1725)
• December 3 – Lord John Philip Sackville, English cricketer (b. 1713)
• December 16 – Peter Frederick Haldimand, Swiss-born military officer and surveyor
• December 25 – Vaclav Prokop Divis, Czech scientist (b. 1698)