1785

Year 1785 (MDCCLXXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1785

January - June

* January 1 - The first issue of the "Daily Universal Register", later known as "The Times", is published in London.
* January 7 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.
* January 27 - The University of Georgia is founded.
* May 10 - A hot air balloon crashes in Tullamore, causing a fire that burns down about 100 houses, making it the world's first aviation disaster (by 36 days).
* 15 June - After several attempts, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and his companion, Pierre Romain, set off in a balloon from Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the balloon suddenly deflates (without the envelope catching fire) and crashes near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais, killing both men. Although more than a month after the Tullamore crash, some people consider this crash the world's first aviation disaster.

July - December

* July 6 - The dollar is unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States (the first time a nation has adopted a decimal coinage system.
* August 1 - The fleet of French explorer Jean Francois de Galoup, count la Pérouse leaves Paris for the circumnavigation of the globe.
* August 15 - Cardinal de Rohan is arrested in Paris; the Necklace Affair comes into the open.

* November - A drought occurs in Haiti.
* November 28 - The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation.

Undated

* The University of New Brunswick is founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
* Coal gas is first used for illumination.
* Louis XVI of France signs to a law that a handkerchief must be square.
* The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.
* The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Lincolnton, North Carolina (named for American General Benjamin Lincoln) as the new county seat for Lincoln County.
* Belfast Academy (later Belfast Royal Academy) is founded by Rev. Dr James Crombie in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
* Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi publishes "Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza", and starts the Pantheism controversy.
* Napoleon Bonaparte becomes a lieutenant in the French artillery.

Births

* January 4
** Jakob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist, and writer (d. 1863)
** Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831)
* February 8 - Martín Miguel de Güemes Argentine military leader (d. 1821)
* February 10 - Claude-Louis Navier, French engineer and physicist (d. 1836)
* March 27 - Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)
* April 4 - Bettina von Arnim, German poet (d. 1859)
* April 26 - John James Audubon, French-American naturalist and illustrator (d. 1851)
* May 18 - John Wilson, Scottish writer (d. 1854)
* May 20 - Marcellin Champagnat, Saint
* July 6 - William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (d. 1865)
* August 15 - Thomas de Quincey, English writer (d. 1859)
* August 23 - Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (d. 1819)
* September 27 - David Walker, Abolitionist (d. 1830)
* October 18 - Thomas Love Peacock, English satirist (d. 1866)
* October 20 - George Ormerod, English historian and antiquarian (d. 1873)
*November 18 - David Wilkie, Scottish artist (d. 1841)

Deaths

* January 3 - Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (b. 1706)
* January 19 - Jonathan Toup, English classical scholar and critic (b. 1713)
* January 23 - Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. 1717)
* April 14 - William Whitehead, English writer (b. 1715)
* May 8
** Etienne Francois, Duke of Choiseul, French statesman (b. 1719)
** Pietro Longhi, Venetian painter (b. 1701)
* June 2 - Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician (b. 1713)
* June 30 - James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (b. 1696)
* August 17 - Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)
* August 26 - George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier and politician (b. 1716)
* August 28 - Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (b. 1714)
* October 4 - David Brearly, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1703)
* November 18 - Louis Philip I, Duke of Orléans, French soldier and writer (b. 1725)
* November 19 - Bernard de Bury, French composer (b. 1720)
* November 25 - Richard Glover, English poet (b. 1712)
* December 6 - Kitty Clive, English actress and playwright (b. 1711)
* December 29 - Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian author (b. 1742)