Eighteenth-Century Chronology: 1780

This page in the Eighteenth-Century Chronology is maintained by Jack Lynch. Please send suggestions and corrections to jlynch@andromeda.rutgers.edu.

Literature

William Blake and his companions on a sketching trip are arrested for being French spies

Lazzaro Spallanzani develops the techniques of the artificial insemination of dogs
The American Academy of Sciences is founded in Boston

Richard Brinsley Sheridan becomes an MP
The English Reform Movement: Major Cartwright founds the radical Society for Constitutional Information, advocating suffrage of poor men
Lord Shelburne gathers together the Bowood circle, including Richard Price, Joseph Priestley, and Jeremy Bentham
2-8 June: The Gordon Riots follow upon Parliament's passage of a Roman Catholic relief measure
Dunning introduces a motion in Parliament on the increase of the power of the Crown (against George III) ???
Britain declares war on Holland
Josef II abolishes serfdom in Hungary