1768

1768 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 9 – Philip Astley stages the first modern circus (London)
• May 10 – John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for the North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London
• Secretary of State for colonies appointed in Britain
• Massachusetts Assembly dissolved for refusing to assist collection of taxes.
• Boston citizens refuse to quarter British troops
• France buys Corsica from Genoa
• Gurkhas conquer Nepal
• First of the weekly numbers of the Encyclopædia Britannica are published; 100 are planned

Births

• January 7 – Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples and Spain (d. 1844)
• January 28 – King Frederick VI of Denmark (d. 1839)
• February 12 – Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1835)
• March 4 – August Friedrich Wilhelm Holtzhausen, German engineer (d. 1827)
• March 21 – Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1830)
• May 17 – Caroline of Brunswick, queen of George IV of the United Kingdom (d. 1821)
• May 20 – Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (d. 1849)
• June 9 – Samuel Slater, American industrialist (d. 1835)
• July 27 – Charlotte Corday. French murderess of Jean-Paul Marat (d. 1793)
• September 4 – François-René de Chateaubriand, French writer and diplomat (d. 1848)
• November 18 – Zacharias Werner, German religious poet (d. 1823)
• November 21 – Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian (d. 1834)

Deaths

• March 1 – Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher and writer (b. 1694)
• April 10 – Canaletto, Italian artist (b. 1697)
• June 8 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German archaeologist (b. 1717)
• October 1 – Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician (b. 1687)
• October 31 – Francesco Maria Veracini, Italian composer (b. 1690)
• Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1693)