Eighteenth-Century Chronology: 1783

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

Literature

Luigi Galvani develops the first electric cell from two strips of metal and the fluids from a dissected frog, and determines the energy must proceed from the frog
The Brothers Montgolfier of France launch the first manned hot-air balloon

British Quakers petition against the slave trade
2 April: Fox-North Coalition formed under Duke of Portland, defeating Sehlburne in Commons; Fox and North become Secretaries of State
Sheridan becomes Secretary to the Treasury
Lords defeats Fox's India Bill
15 August: Duke of Richmond's letter to Sharman (a blueprint for parliamentary reform)
3 September: Treaty of Versailles ends the American Revolution
18 December: Fall of Fox-North Coalition; they are dismissed
19 December: William Pitt the younger becomes Lord Treasurer
Townshend becomes Home Secretary
Thurlow becomes Lord Chancellor
Potemkin captures the Crimea for Russia

Johann Gottfried von Herder, Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind