1799 Explained

Year 1799 (MDCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday^[1] of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1799

January - June

• January 9 - British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain's war effort in the Napoleonic Wars.
• March 1 - Federalist James Ross becomes President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate.
• March 7 - Napoleon captures Jaffa in Palestine and his troops proceed to kill more than 2,000 Albanian captives.
• March 22 - Roddy McCorley is executed in the town of Toomebridge by the British for his part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
• March 29 - New York passes a law aimed at gradually abolishing slavery in the state.
• May 4 - Battle of Seringapatam: Tippu Sultan is defeated and killed by the British.

July - December

• July 7 - Ranjit Singh's men take their positions outside Lahore.
• July 12- Ranjit Singh the Great conquers Lahore and becomes ruler of the Punjab.
• July 15 - In the Egyptian port city of Rosetta, French Captain Pierre Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone.
• July 25 - At Aboukir in Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte defeats 10,000 Ottoman Mamluk troops under Mustafa Pasha.
• August 27 - The British and Russians send an expedition to the Batavian Republic (now the Netherlands).
• August 30 - British forces under Sir Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Charles Mitchell capture the entire Dutch fleet.
• October 6 - Battle of Castricum: Franco-Dutch forces defeat the Russo-British expedition force.
• October 9 - The HMS Lutine (a famous treasure wreck) is sunk.
• October 18 - Anglo-Russian expedition forces surrender in Holland.
• November 9 - Napoleon overthrows the French Directory.
• December - A new constitution is approved in a plebiscite in France.
• December - Napoleon becomes First Consul.
• December 14 - George Washington, the first President of the United States, dies in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

Undated

• The Place Royale in Paris is renamed Place des Vosges when the Department of Vosges becomes the first to pay new Revolutionary taxes.
• The American system of manufacturing is invented.
• The small town of Tignish, PE, Canada is founded.
• 12 year old Conrad John Reed finds what he describes as a "heavy yellow rock" along Little Meadow Creek in Cabarrus County, North Carolina and makes it a doorstop in his home. Conrad's father John Reed learns that the rock is actually gold in 1802, initiating the first gold rush in the United States.
• The assassination of the 14th Tu'i Kanokupolu, Tukuʻaho, plunges Tonga into half a century of civil war.
• The Nawab (provincial governor) of Oudh in northern India sends to George III of England the Padshahnama, an official history of the reign of Shah Jahan.
• William Cockerill begins building cotton-spinning equipment in Belgium.
• Dutch government takes over Dutch East India Company.

Ongoing events

• French Revolution (1789-1799)
• French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-Second Coalition/Egyptian Campaign
• Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)-Second Coalition/Egyptian Campaign

Births

• January 6 - Jedediah Smith, American fur trapper and explorer (d. 1831)
• January 31 - Rodolphe Töpffer, Swiss teacher, author, and artist (d. 1846)
• February 4 - Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (d. 1854)
• February 11 - Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross (d. 1873)
• February 14 - Walenty Wańkowicz, polish painter (d. 1842)
• March 8 - Simon Cameron, American politician (d. 1889)
• March 20 - Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (d. 1839)
• March 28 - Karl Adolph von Basedow, a Germanphysician, famous for reporting the symptoms of Graves-Basedow disease (d. 1854)
• March 29 - Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1869)
• April 12 - Henri Druey, Swiss Federal Councilor (d. 1855)
• April 17 - Eliza Acton, English cookery writer (d. 1859)
• May 13 - Catherine Gore, English author (d. 1861)
• May 20- Honoré de Balzac, French author (d. 1850)
• May 21 - Mary Anning, British paleontologist (d. 1847)
• June 6 - Aleksandr Pushkin, Russian author (d. 1837)
• June 18 - Prosper Ménière, French physician (d. 1862)
• July 4 - King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (d. 1859)
• September 8 - James Bowman Lindsay, Scottish inventor (d. 1862)
• September 10 - George Willison Adams, American abolitionist (d. 1879)
• November 1 - Thomas Baldwin Marsh, American religious leader (d. 1866)
• November 29 - Amos Bronson Alcott, father of novelist Louisa May Alcott (d. 1888)
• December 30 - David Douglas, Scottish botanist (d. 1834)
• date unknown
  • Alexei Lvov, Russian composer (d. 1870)
  • Patrick MacDowell, Irish sculptor (d. 1870)
  • James Townsend Saward, English barrister and forger
  • John Brown Russwurm, American abolitionist (d. 1851)

Deaths

• January 9 - Maria Gaetana Agnesi, Italian mathematician (b. 1718)
• January 22 - Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, Swiss aristocrat and alpinist (b. 1740)
• February 6 - Étienne-Louis Boullée, French architect (b. 1728)
• February 7 - Qianlong Emperor of China (b. 1711)
• February 12 - Lazzaro Spallanzani, Italian biologist and physiologist (b. 1729)
• February 16 - Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria (b. 1724)
• February 19 - Jean-Charles de Borda, French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor (b. 1733)
• February 22 - Heshen, Manchu official under Qianlong (b. 1750)
• February 24 - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German scientist, satirist and Anglophile (b. 1742)
• April 6 - Alexander Bezborodko, Grand Chancellor of Russia, architect of Catherine the Great's foreign policy (b. 1747)
• May 2 - Guemes Padilla Horcasitas, Viceroy of New Spain (b. 1740)
• May 4 - Tipu Sultan, Indian ruler (b. 1750)
• May 19 - Pierre Beaumarchais, French writer (b. 1732)
• May 26 - James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, Scottish judge (b. 1714)
• May 31 - Pierre Charles Le Monnier, French astronomer (b. 1715)
• June 6 - Patrick Henry, American revolutionary politician (b. 1736)
• June 10 - Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Guadeloupe-born French musician (b. 1745)
• July 7 - William Curtis, English botanist and entomologist (b. 1746)
• August 2 - Jacques Étienne Montgolfier, French inventor (b. 1744)
• August 4 - John Bacon, British sculptor (b. 1740)
• August 5 - Richard Howe, British admiral (b. 1726)
• August 15 - Barthélemy Catherine Joubert, French general (b. 1769)
• August 29 - Pope Pius VI (b. 1717)
• August 31 - Nicolas-Henri Jardin, French architect (b. 1720)
• September 7 - Jan Ingenhousz, Dutch physician, physiologist, biologist and chemist (b. 1730)
• October 6 - William Withering, British physician (b. 1741)
• October 9 - Pigneau de Behaine, French priest who helped to establish the Nguyen dynasty (b. 1741)
• October 24 - Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Austrian composer (b. 1739)
• December 6 - Joseph Black, Scottish physician, physicist, and chemist (b. 1728)
• December 14 - George Washington, 1st President of the United States (b. 1732)
• December 31 - Jean-François Marmontel, French historian and writer (b. 1723)

Notes

1. "Calendar in year 1799 (Russia)" (full Julian calendar), Steffen Thorsen, Time and Date AS, 2007, webpage: Julian-1799 (Russia used the Julian calendar until 1919).