1753 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 1 - Britain and its colonies adopt the idea that 1st January should be New Year's Day, following adoption of the Gregorian calendar in September 1752. The concept was first conceived in 1582, but suffered from slow public adoption.
• April 5 – Founding charter of the British Museum

• Sweden adopts Gregorian calendar
• British parliament extends citizenship to Jews
• Publication of Species Plantarum by Linnaeus on 1st May, adopted by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature as the formal start date of the scientific classification of plants
• James Lind writes A Treatise of the Scurvy
• Tobias Smollett writes Ferdinand Count Fathom
• Robert Wallace writes On the Numbers of Man

Births

• March 8 - William Roscoe, English writer (died 1831)
• March 26 - Benjamin Thompson, physicist and inventor (died 1814)
• May 8 - Miguel Hidalgo, Catholic priest, known as "the Father of Mexican Independence" (died 1811)
• May 13 - Lazare Nicholas Marguerite Carnot, mathematician (died 1823)
• August 10 - Edmund Randolph, American politician (died 1813)
• August 12 - Thomas Bewick, English wood engraver (died 1828)
• September 10 - John Soane, British architect (died 1837)
• December 3 - Samuel Crompton, inventor of the spinning mule (died 1827)
• Phillis Wheatley, American poet, born in Africa (died 1784)

Deaths

• January 11 - Sir Hans Sloane, physician (born 1660)
• January 14 - George Berkeley, philosopher (born 1685)
• August 19 - Balthasar Neumann, German Rococo architect and military engineer (born 1687)
• Jacques Aubert, French violinist and composer (born 1689)
• Richard Boyle Burlington, 3rd Earl of Burlington, Anglo-Irish architectural patron and architect (born 1685)
• Gottfried Silbermann, German organ builder and harpsichord maker (born 1683)