1798

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Year 1798 (MDCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–June

• January 22 – A coup d'état is staged in the Netherlands (Batavian Republic). Unitarian Democrat Pieter Vreede makes an end to the power of the parliament (with a conservative-moderate majority).
• February 10 – The papacy is removed from power by French General Louis-Alexandre Berthier.
• March 5 – French troops enter Bern.
• March 7 – French forces invade the Papal States and establish the Roman Republic.
• April 7 – The Mississippi Territory is organized by the United States from territory ceded by Georgia and South Carolina; later it is twice expanded to include disputed territory claimed by both the U.S. and Spain (which acquired territory in trade with Great Britain).
• April 12 – Helvetic Republic, a French client republic, proclaimed following collapse of the Old Swiss Confederacy on French invasion.
• April 26 – France annexes Geneva.
• May 23 – Irish republicans and nationalists, known as the Society of United Irishmen, launch a rebellion against British rule in expectation of greater support from France which only sent 1100 men. The United Irishmen are unique amongst Irish nationalist movements in that they unify Catholics and Protestants around republican ideals. The rebellion rages sporadically but is defeated by the British by October.
• June 12
  • The French take Malta.
  • A moderate coup d'état in the Netherlands (Batavian Republic) deposes Pieter Vreede.
• June 13 – Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is founded.

July–December

• July 1 – Napoleon's troops land in Egypt.
• July 7
  • Quasi-War: The United States Congress rescinds treaties with France, sparking the war.
  • In the action of USS Delaware vs La Croyable, the newly-formed United States Navy makes its first capture.
• July 11 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established.
• July 12 – Battle of Shubra Khit between French and Mamelukes, during Napoleon's march from Alexandria to take Cairo.
• July 14 – The Alien and Sedition Acts become United States law, making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government.
• July 16 – The Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen Act is signed into law, creating the Marine Hospital Service, the forerunner to the current United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
• July 21 – Battle of the Pyramids: Napoleon defeats Ottoman forces near the Pyramids.
• July 24 – Napoleon occupies Cairo.
• July 31 – A second round of elections are held in the Netherlands (Batavian Republic); no general elections this time.

August 1: Battle of the Nile.

• August 1 – Battle of the Nile (near Abu Qir): Lord Nelson defeats the French navy under Admiral Brueys; Nelson himself is wounded in the head.
• August 22 – French troops land at Kilcummin in County Mayo to assist the Irish rebellion.
• September – Charles Brockden Brown publishes the first significant American novel, the Gothic fiction Wieland: or, The Transformation; an American Tale.
• September 10 – Battle of St. George's Caye: Off the coast of British Honduras (now Belize), a group of British nationals and African slaves defeat a force sent from Mexico to drive them out.
• September 18 – Lyrical Ballads is published anonymously by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, inaugurating the English Romantic movement in literature.
• October 12 – Battle of Tory Island: A British Royal Navy squadron under Sir John Borlase Warren prevents French Republican ships commanded by Jean-Baptiste-François Bompart landing reinforcements for the Society of United Irishmen on the Donegal coast; Irish leader Wolfe Tone is captured and later dies of wounds.
• November 4 – Beginning of the Russo-Ottoman siege of Corfu.
• November 8 – British whaler John Fearn becomes the first European to land on Nauru.

Date unknown

• The first (anonymous) publication occurs of An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus.
• Aarau becomes the temporary capital of the Helvetic Republic.
• Alois Senefelder invents lithography.
• Eli Whitney contracts with the U.S. federal government for 10,000 rifles, which he produces with interchangeable parts.
• The first census in Brazil counts 2 million blacks in a total population of 3.25 million.
• The Ayrshire (Earl of Carrick's Own) Yeomanry, a British Army Yeomanry Cavalry Regiment, formed by The Earl of Cassillis at Culzean Castle, Ayrshire in 1794, is adopted onto the British Army List.
• Jenner publishes his work on smallpox vaccination

Births

• January 14 – Johan Rudolph Thorbecke, Dutch politician (d. 1872)
• January 19 – Auguste Comte, French sociologist (d. 1857)
• January 20 – Anson Jones, 5th and last President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1858)
• March 13 – Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States
• April 2 – August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben, German writer (d. 1874)
• April 12 – Baron du Potet, French writer (d. 1881)
• April 26 – Eugène Delacroix, French painter (d. 1863)
• April 28 – Duncan Forbes, British linguist (d. 1868)
• May 10 – Christodoulos Hatzipetros, Greek military leader (d. 1869)
• June 12 – William Abbot, English actor (d. 1843)
• June 14 – František Palacký, Czech historian and politician (d. 1876)
• June 29 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian writer (d. 1837)
• October 2 – King Charles Albert of Sardinia (d. 1849)
• September 4 – Raynold Kaufgetz, Swiss academic (d. 1869)
• December 24 – Adam Mickiewicz, Polish writer (d. 1855)

Deaths

• February 25 – Louis Jules Mancini Mazarini, French diplomat and writer (b. 1716)
• March 22 – Justin Morgan, horse breeder and composer (b. 1747)
• April 11 – Karl Wilhelm Ramler, German poet (b. 1725)
• April 14 – Henry Mowat, Royal Navy officer (b. 1734)
• April 29 – Nikolaus Poda von Neuhaus, German entomologist (b. 1723)
• May 19 – William Byron, 5th Baron Byron, English dueler (b. 1722)
• June 4 – Giacomo Casanova, Italian adventurer and writer (b. 1725)
• June 21 – John Kelly of Killanne, Irish republican
• June 25 – Thomas Sandby, English cartographer and architect (b. 1721)
• July 17 – Henry Joy McCracken, Irish republican
• July 21 – François Sébastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of Clerfayt, Austrian field marshal (b. 1733)
• August 1 – François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers, French admiral (killed in battle) (b. 1753)
• August 18 – John Lewis Gervais, Revolutionary Provincial Congress 1775. State’s Committee of Safety from 1775 to 1781. South Carolina’s Senate in 1781 and 1782. Continental Congress 1782 and 1783. Died in Charleston, S.C. (b. 1741)
• August 21 – James Wilson, American politician (b. 1742)
• August 24 – Thomas Alcock, English clergyman (b. 1709)
• August 25 – Mikiel'Ang Grima, Maltese surgeon (b. 1731)
• September 21 – George Read, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1733)
• November 19 – Theobald Wolfe Tone, Irish republican (b. 1737)
• December 4 – Luigi Galvani, Italian physicist (b. 1763)

References