1797.html



Year 1797 (MDCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1797

January - February

• January 1 - The first New Year's Eve Party with the invention of confetti and party hats is held.^{citation needed}
• January 3 - The Treaty of Tripoli (a peace treaty between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Algiers (see also 1796).
• January 7 - The parliament of the Cisalpine Republic adopts the Italian green-white-red tricolour as the official flag(the birthday of the flag of Italy).
• January 15 - London haberdasher John Hetherington wears a silk top hat in public and attracts a large crowd of onlookers. He is later fined £500 for causing a public nuisance.
• February 14 - The Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797), part of the Wars of the French Revolution.
• February 18 - Spanish Governor Chacón peacefully surrenders the colony of Trinidad to a British naval force commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby.
• February 22 - The Last invasion of Britain begins. French forces under the command of American Colonel William Tate land near Fishguard in Wales.
• February 25 - Tate surrenders to the British at Fishguard.
• February 26 - The Bank of England (national bank of Britain) issues the first one-pound and two-pound notes (discontinued March 11, 1988).

March - June

• March 4 - John Adams succeeds George Washington as the President of the United States of America.
• April 16 - Spithead and Nore mutinies.
• April 17 - Sir Ralph Abercromby unsuccessfully invades San Juan, Puerto Rico in what will be one of the largest British attacks on Spanish territories in the western hemisphere, and one of the worst defeats of the English navy for years to come.
• May 10 - The first ship of the United States Navy, the frigate USS UNITED STATES, is commissioned.
• May 12 - First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice, ending the city's 1,070 years of independence. The last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, steps down.
• May 30 - William Wilberforce marries Barbra Ann Spooner.

July - December

• July 24 - Horatio Nelson is wounded at the Battle of Santa Cruz, losing an arm.
• October 17 - The Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.
• October 21 - In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli.
• December 17 - Napoleon leads a successful French charge against Fort l'Aiguilette to secure Toulon.

Undated

• Joseph Haydn composes the music to Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser, the tune of which also became the music to the German national anthem, Deutschland, Deutschland über alles.
• The XYZ Affair inflames tensions between France and the United States.
• Fundation of the Lautaro Lodge by Francisco de Miranda, membership will include many independence leaders such as Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín.

Ongoing events

• French Revolution (1789-1799)
• French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-First Coalition

Births

• January 10 - Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, German writer (d. 1848)
• January 31 - Franz Schubert, Austrian pianist and composer (d. 1828)
• February 15 -Henry Engelhard Steinway, German-American piano manufacturer (d. 1871)
• March 22 - Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany (d. 1888)
• March 27 - Alfred de Vigny, French author (d. 1863)
• May 6 - Joseph Brackett, American religious leader and composer (d. 1882)
• May 18 - Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, (d. 1854)
• July 20 - Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (d. 1873)
• August 30 - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer (d. 1851)
• October 3 - Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1870)
• November 14 - Sir Charles Lyell, British geologist (d. 1875)
• November 29 - Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer (d. 1848)
• December 13 - Heinrich Heine, German poet (d. 1856)
• December 17 - Joseph Henry, American scientist (d. 1878)
• date unknown - Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Japanese woodblock print or ukiyo-e (d. 1861)

See also Category: 1797 births.

Deaths

• January 13 - Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Bevern, wife of Frederick II of Prussia (b. 1715)
• February 11 - Antoine Dauvergne, French composer (b. 1713)
• February 22 - Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, German officer and adventurer (b. 1720)
• March 2 - Horace Walpole, English politician and writer (b. 1717)
• March 26 - James Hutton, Scottish geologist (b. 1726)
• March 31 - Olaudah Equiano, Nigerian ex-slave and slavery abolitionist (b. 1745)
• May 17 - Michel-Jean Sedaine, French dramatist (b. 1719)
• May 25 - John Griffin Whitwell, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, British field marshal (b. 1719)
• May 27 - François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1760)
• May 27 - Augustin Alexandre Darthé, French revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1769)
• July 9 - Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher (b. 1723)
• July 11 - Ienăchiţă Văcărescu, Wallachian writer (b. 1740)
• August 3 - Jeffrey Amherst, British military commander (b. 1717)
• August 22 - Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Alsatian-born Austrian general (b. 1724)
• September 10 - Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist author (b. 1759)
• October 9 - Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian rabbi (b. 1720)
• November 14 - Ivan Shuvalov, founder of the Moscow University (b. 1727)
• November 16 - King Frederick William II of Prussia (b. 1744)
• November 18 - Jacques-Alexandre Laffon de Ladebat, French shipbuilder and merchant (b. 1719)
• November 29 - Samuel Langdon, American President of Harvard University (b. 1723)
• December 11 - Richard Brocklesby, English physician (b. 1722)

See also Category: 1797 deaths.

Fiction

The events of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night happen in this year.