1766

1766 was 105 years before the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Individuals

Births

• Goldsmith Hewitt, Sr, Revolutionary War veteran

Context

In 1766, the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act which was very unpopular in the British colonies. The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signed the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returned to Salzburg after the Mozart family grand tour of Europe. Sweden introduced its Freedom of the Press Act, becoming the first country of the world to protect freedom of the press in the Constitution and to pass wide-ranging freedom of information legislation. Christie's auction house was founded in London by James Christie.

Notable births in 1766 included English demographer and economist Thomas Robert Malthus, Scottish chemist and discoverer of strontium Thomas Charles Hope, English chemist William Hyde Wollaston, and English chemist and physicist John Dalton. Notable deaths included "The Old Pretender" James Francis Edward Stuart, French physician and scholar Jean Astruc, and American minister and patriot Jonathan Mayhew.

1760s

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