• Zulu chieftain Shaka.
• Shoshone woman Sacajewea, guide to Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their famous expedition.
• Erastus "Deaf" Smith, a scout for Sam Houston.
• German Physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer, discoverer of spectroscopic absorption lines.
• American educator Thomas Gallaudet.
• French courtier Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, a figure in the American Revolution.

• Czech Christoph Willibald Gluck.
• Princess Anna Amalie of Prussia, daughter of Frederick II and composer.
• (eventual) Saint Alphonsus de Ligouri, founder of the Redemptorist Order.
• Croatian mathematician and physicist Rudjer Boskovic.
• American naturalist Thomas Say.
• Maryland frontiersman and firebrand Thomas Cresap.
• Austrian violinist, composer, and musical theorist Leopold Mozart, father of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• Italian priest and economist Ferdinando Galiani.
• British theologian and logician Richard Whately.
• Italian painter Pompeo Girolamo Battoni.
• English composer Thomas Arne.
• French composer François Francoeur.
• French photography pioneer Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre.

• (January 15) Daniel Shays attempts to storm Springfield, Massachusetts, but government soldiers put down the uprising.
• (May 13) The first fleet of transportee convicts bound for Botany Bay in Australia leaves Portsmouth, England.
• (July 13) The Continental Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance laying out the future division of the Northwest Territory and making manifest the intent to settle this area.
• Representatives from the thirteen United States meet in Philadelphia assemble to work out a stronger form of central government than exists under the Articles of Confederation, which is wreaking havoc on the states' economies.  the United States Constitution is passed on September 17.
• Several states ratify the Constitution quickly:
• (December 7) Delaware
• (December 13) Pennsylvania
• (December 18) New Jersey
• (December 31) Georgia
• Jeremy Bentham writes a Defence of Usury in a letter to a Russian colleague.
• If the economy of the United States seems like a basket case, the finances of France are little better.  An Assembly of Notables convenes to work out reforms, but this dissolves after failing to agree on anything.  In December, King Louis XVI takes the extreme measure of calling the Estates General.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Le Nozze di Figaro premieres in Vienna, but is pulled from the stage, reportedly because of a prohibited ballet sequence in the third act.
• Progressives in The Netherlands try to overthrow the oligarchy controlling the country; however, a Prussian army invades and restores the status quo.
• Austria and Russia declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
• William Herschel discovers two satellites orbiting the planet Uranus.   They are later named Oberon and Titania.
• John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton publish a series of essays in the New York press under the pseudonym "Publius". These are collected in book form next year as the Federalist Papers.

1786 - 1787 - 1788

How they Were Made - 18th Century