Born in 1790:

• German mathematician Karl Weierstrass.
• French Egyptologist Jean-François Champollion, decipherer of The Rosetta Stone.
• John Tyler, tenth President of the United States.
• Southern American writer Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (uncle of the Civil War general).
• German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius.
• French poet and 1848 radical Alphonse de Lamartine.
• Scottish naval engineer Patrick Matthews, whose 1831 treatise on naval timber contained a theory much like that of natural selection.
• Russian painter Karl Bryullov.
• French biologist Jean Prévost.
• The future King Leopold I of Belgium.
• Venezuelan revolutionary José Antonio Páez, who broke Venezuela out of Simon Bolivar's Gran Colombia.
• British arctic explorer Sir William Edward Parry.
• Italian guitar composer Gabriello Melia.

Died in 1790:

• American statesman, scientist, ambassador, publisher, inventor, and wit Benjamin Franklin.
• Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith.
• Emperor Joseph II of Austria.  His brother Leopold II succeeds him.
• Flora MacDonald,  who helped smuggle Charles Edward Stewart out of Scotland after the 1746 Battle of Culloden.
• English prison reformer John Howard.
• Japanese poet Karai Senryu.
• Prince Nikolaus Esterházy.  Franz Josef Haydn, now a free agent, moves to Vienna.
• English composer Capel Bond.

Events of 1790:

• (May 29) Rhode Island is the last of the original 13 colonies to ratify the United States Constitution.
• The Census 1790 first United States Census counts 3,929,625 people, including  697,624 slaves.
• The "Compromise of 1790". In return for locating a new Capital city on the Potomac River (in the two slave states, Maryland and Virginia), Southern congressmen agree to:
• Federal assumption of state debt
• An excise tax on liquor
• A copyright act
• Methodist founder John Wesley publishes his own translation of the New Testament.
• Sweden and Russia fight two large battles (Viborg Bay, July 3 and Svenskund, July 9-10) in the Gulf of Finland.  Although Russia's navy was decimated, Sweden exhausted itself, and failed to gain any territory.
• Thomas Jefferson publishes an autobiography as well as a work reconciling the differences between British and American Weights and Measures.
• More activity in and about France.
• The National Assembly abolishes tithes and confiscates the land owned by the Catholic Church.
• The nobility is stripped of all titles. 16-year old Louis Philippe de Bourbon joins the Jacobin Club.
• A set of administrative units (départements) is set up.
• The Faction led by Maxamillien Robespierre takes over the Jacobin Club.
• The Marquis de Sade is released from prison, and happily joins the Paris Sections.
• The Civil Constitution of the Clergy means elected bishops and priests.
• Edmund Burke publishes his Reflections on the Revolution in France in which he declares "The age of chivalry is gone...and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever".

1789 - 1790 - 1791