1771

• Scottish author Sir Walter Scott.
• English poet James Montgomery.
• American author Charles Brockden Brown.
• Welsh industrialist Robert Owen, believer in paternalistic treatment of workers.
• Baptist Theologian John Gill.
• French physician Xavier Bichat, founder of histology.
• Scottish explorer of Africa Mungo Park.
• French mathematician Joseph-Diaz Gergonne.
• English explorer George Bass.
• German composer Johann Baptist Cramer.

• English poet Thomas Gray.
• French philosopher Claude Adrien Helvetius.
• German composer Johann Gottlieb Graun.
• English poet Christopher Smart.
• Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore. His illegitimate son Henry Harford inherits his estates (including Maryland) but the title goes extinct.

• The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica is completed.
• The Marathas re-occupy Delhi but their kingdom is a pale shadow of the Mughal Empire.
• Luigi Galvani hooks electrical wires up to a dead frog and flips the switch on.   The legs twitch.
• Japanese Empress Go-Sakuramachi is forced to abdicate in favor of her nephew, Go-Momozono, becoming Empress Regent.
• Spain cedes the Falkland Islands to Great Britain.

1770 - 1771 - 1772