Chesma Column in Tsarskoe Selo, commemorating the end of the Russo-Turkish War.

Year 1774 (MDCCLXXIV) 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 1774

January - June

• January 21 - Mustafa III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid I.
• January 27 - An angry crowd seizes a British customs collector and then tars and feathers him.
• March 31 - Intolerable Acts: The British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston, Massachusetts as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.
• April 17 - The first avowedly Unitarian congregation, Essex Street Chapel, is founded in London by Theophilus Lindsey.
• May 10 - Louis XVI becomes King of France following the death of Louis XV.
• June 2 - Intolerable Acts: A new Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide better housing for British soldiers upon demand, is passed.
• June 11 - Jews in Algiers escape the attack of the Spanish army.

July - December

• July 21 - Russo-Turkish War (1768?1774): Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji, ending six years of war. The treaty does give Russia the right to intervene in Ottoman politics to protect its Christian subjects.

• 1 August - The element oxygen is discovered for the third (and last) time - the second quantitatively following the somewhat earlier work of Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1771-1772) - by Joseph Priestley, who publishes the fact in 1775 and so names the element and usually gets all the credit.

• September 5 - The First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• September 21 - George Mason and George Washington found the Fairfax County Militia Association, a military unit independent of British control.

• October 10 - Dunmore's War - Battle of Point Pleasant: Cornstalk is forced to make peace with Dunmore at the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, ceding Shawnee land claims south of the Ohio (modern Kentucky) to Virginia.

• October 21 - The word "Liberty" is first displayed on a flag raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts, in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.

Undated

• The British pass the Quebec Act, setting out rules of governance for the colony of Quebec in British North America.
• To avoid severe flooding, Martinsborough, North Carolina is moved to higher ground 3 miles west. The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Martinsborough as the new county seat of Pitt County, 3 years after its founding.
• German cobbler Johann Birkenstock creates the first Birkenstock sandals.

Births

• February 11 - Hans Jarta, Swedish political activist and administrator (d. 1847)
• February 24 - Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge (d. 1850)
• March 9 - Mayhew Folger, whaler, captain of Topaz (ship), rediscovered Pitcairn Islands in 1808 (d. 1828)
• March 16 - Captain Matthew Flinders, English explorer (d. 1814)
• July 20 - Auguste Marmont, French marshal (d. 1852)
• August 12 - Robert Southey, English poet and biographer (d. 1843)
• August 28 - Elizabeth Ann Seton, co-founder of Mount Saint Mary's University, founder of the Sisters of Charity (d. 1821)
• September 5 - Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (d. 1840)
• September 26 - Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), nurseryman/missionary planted apple-tree nurseries in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (d. 1847)
• date unknown - Sergei Nikolayevich Glinka - Russian author, brother of Fedor Nikolaevich Glinka (d. 1847)

See also Category: 1774 births.

Deaths

• January 21 - Mustafa III, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1717)
• February 4 - Charles Marie de La Condamine, French mathematician and geographer (b. 1701)
• April 4 - Oliver Goldsmith, English writer (b. 1730)
• May 4 - Anthony Ulrich II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (b. 1714)
• May 10 - King Louis XV of France (b. 1710)
• July 1 - Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, English statesman (b. 1705)
• July 11 - Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, Irish-born New York pioneer
• July 14 - James O'Hara, 2nd Baron Tyrawley and Kilmaine, British field marshal (b. 1682)
• August 11 - Tiphaigne de la Roche, French writer (b. 1722)
• August 14 - Johann Jakob Reiske, German scholar and physician (b. 1716)
• August 25 - Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer (b. 1714)
• September 22 - Pope Clement XIV (b. 1705)
• September 25 - John Bradstreet, Canadian-born soldier (b. 1714)
• October 23 - Michel Benoist, French Jesuit missionary and scientist (b. 1715)
• October 26 - Roemer Vlacq II, Dutch vice-admiral (b. 1712)
• November 22 - Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, British general and statesman (b. 1725)
• December 2 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, German composer (b. 1720)
• December 16 - François Quesnay, French economist (b. 1694)
• Elizabeth Woollat, wife of Jedediah Strutt (b. 1729)

See also Category: 1774 deaths.

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