Aug 11 Explosive eruption blows 4,000' off Papandayan Java, kills 3,000

Aug 05 Poland loses one-third of her territory and half her population as she is partitioned among Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

Aug 31 Hurricane destroy ships off Dominica

Aug 11 The birth of Jean Victor Moreau, French general

Sep 01 Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa forms in California

Feb 10 1771 Maratha forces from the Deccan Plateau drive the Afghans out of Delhi, install the son of the exiled Mughal emperor Shah Alam as temporary ruler

Feb 12 Yves de Kerguelen of France discovers Kerguelen Archipelago, India

Nov 02 Boston patriot Samuel Adams, 50, and local physician Joseph Warren, 31, organize a Committee of Correspondence, similar committees spring up throughout the colonies, relaying the anti-British polemics of Adams and others.

Dec 22 Moravian missionary constructs first schoolhouse west of Allegheny

May 11 Amsterdam theater destroyed by fire, 18 killed

Jun 22 Slavery outlawed in England

Jun 09 First Protestant church west of Penn (in Ohio) holds communion

Jun 08 The birth of Robert Stevenson, English engineer

Jan 01 The firt traveler's checks issued (London)

Oct 21 The birth of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and friend of Wordsworth