1765

• Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin.
• German mathematician Johann Freiderich Pfaff.
• Scottish poet James Grahame.
• Italian mathematician Paolo Ruffini.
• American inventor Robert Fulton.
• English scientist James Smithson, whose later bequest to the United States Government would create the Smithsonian Institution.
• The future king William IV of Great Britain.
• Joseph Nicéphore Niepce, inventor of the first effective photographic process.
• English poet Mary Lamb.

• English poet Edward Young.
• German composer Johann Melchior Molter.
• Italian painter Giovannni Paolo Pannini.
• Russian chemist Mihkail Lomonosov.
• Prince William Augustus, second son of George II, and third duke of Cumberland, infamous for suppressing the Jacobite rebellion at the Battle of Culloden.

• The British Parliament passes two acts which enrage American colonists:
• The Stamp Act, requiring American colonists to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper.
• The Quartering Act, requiring Colonial authotities to furnish barracks and supplies to British troops.  It would be expanded in 1766 to include private houses.
• The American colonists react:
• Rioters in Boston destroy the house of Thomas Hutchinson, Lieutenant Governor of Massachussetts.
• The Virginia House of Burgesses passes several resolutions proposed by Patrick Henry against the Stamp Act.
• An intercolonial assembly, called the Continental Congress, meets for the sole purpose of passing a resolution against the Stamp Act. It issues a declaration of rights on October 9.
• Samuel Johnson publishes his collection of William Shakespeare's plays.
• James Watt produces his first steam engine, an improvement on the Newcomen steam engine in use for 50 years.
• After the crew of the brigantine Hope mutinies and throws the captain overboard, the slaves they carry revolt against the crew, but fail to take over the ship.
• In the Treaty of Mobile, the Choctaw and Creek Indians grant the British all of the land in Florida (containing parts of modern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia) south of the 31st parallel.
• Robert Clive returns to India as Royal Governor of Bengal.

1764 - 1765 - 1766