1789

Born in 1789:

• Irish writer Marguerite Power, Countess of Blessington.
• American author James Fenimore Cooper.
• (August 21) French mathematician Augustin-Louis Cauchy, in Paris.
• Mexican revolutionary figure Javier Mina.
• Scottish poet Thomas Pringle.
• Scottish poet William Knox.
• German physicist Georg Simon Ohm.
• Austrian composer Joseph Mayseder.
• American astronomer William Cranch Bond.
• Scottish architect William Henry Playfair.
• Albanian-born Egyptian general Ibrahim Pasha, son of Muhammad Ali, and future "viceroy" of Egypt.

Died in 1789:

• Vermont Revolutionary war leader Ethan Allen.
• German Mathematician and physicist Jacob Bernoulli II.
• French painter Claude-Joseph Vernet.

Events of 1789:

• The new government in the United States begins to take its baby steps.
• The first US Congress is seated, replacing the Continental Congress.
• (March 4) George Washington takes office as first President of the United States, in New York City.
• (September 25) Congress passes 12 amendments to the Constitution, popularly called the Bill of Rights.  Ten¹ are eventually ratified
• The Judiciary Act sets up the system of Federal District and Circuit courts.
• Things begin to come apart in France. The government overspent itself in the American Revolution and peasants are starving; half of most people's income goes towards purchasing bread.
• The Estates-General is deadlocked. The First and Second Estates wish to count votes by precedence; the Third Estate wishes to count by head.
• (June 17) The Third Estate declares itself a National Assembly.
• (June 20) The 577 delegates of the Third Estate commandeer a tennis court.  576 of them sign an Oath to not leave Versailles until France had a constitution the Estate agreed on.
• (June 27) King Louis XVI orders the members of the First and Second Estates to join the Third Estate², legitimizing the National Assembly.  The King sends troops into Paris to keep order.
• (July 13) The Paris municipal government (not the National Assembly) forms a militia of 48,000, known as the National Guard. The marquis de Lafayette is its commander in chief.
• (July 14) About 800 Parisians march on the notorious prison, the Bastille.  Guards abandon their posts and the mob breaks in.  The gunpowder and weapons they hoped to find are not there.  The National Guard is unable to control rioting and looting in the streets. Nobles begin to flee the country.
• (August 11) The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system.
• (August 27) The National Assembly passes the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
• (October 5) 6,000 women march to Versailles demanding bread; the Marquis de Lafayette persuades the King to move to Paris.
• (April 28) Crewmembers of the H.M.S. Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, mutiny in the South Pacific.  Captain William Bligh and his supporters are set adrift in the ship's launch. The mutineers flee to Pitcairn Island where they burn and sink the ship.  Bligh navigates the launch 3600 miles (5800 km) to Timor.
• A German chemist, Martin Heinrich Klaproth analyzes pitchblende and discovers that it contains a new element.  Originally naming it "Klaprothium" he eventually names it uran after the new planet Uranus recently discovered by William Herschel.
• The Ainu people on Hokkaido revolt against Japanese encroachment (Kunashiri Menashi war).
• Kamehameha persuades a ship's captain to give him guns, and begins the conquest of the rest of Hawaii.
• Alexander Mackenzie begins his first expedition into the far North of Canada.

1788 - 1789 - 1790

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¹One of the other two was revived in the 1990s and was ratified in 1992.
²Some actually do. Silly liberals.