1770 - Definition and Overview

Events

• March 5 - Boston Massacre: 5 Americans killed by British troops in an event that would help start the American Revolutionary War 5 years later.
• May 14 - Marie Antoinette arrives to French Court.
• May 16 - 14-year old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year old Louis-Auguste (who later becomes Louis XVI King of France). (marriage is consummated four years later)
• May 16 – Fireworks in the wedding of the crown prince of France in Paris cause a fire – 800 dead
• July 1 – Lexell Comet passes the Earth
• August 22 - James Cook claimed for Great Britain the eastern coast of New Holland (Australia)

• Joseph Priestley, British chemist, recommends the use of a rubber to remove pencil marks

Births

• March 20 - Friedrich Hölderlin, German poet, novelist, and dramatist
• April 7 - William Wordsworth, English poet (+ 1850)
• April 30 - David Thompson, English-Canadian explorer, the first European to explore the Columbia River from source to mouth.
• May 22 - Princess Elizabeth of Great Britain, third daughter of King George III
• August 3 - King Frederick William III of Prussia
• August 27 - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher.
• December 17 - Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer (baptized)

Deaths

• March 27 - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Venetian artist (born 1696)
• August 24 - Thomas Chatterton, English poet (born 1752)
• October 18 - John Manners, Marquess of Granby, British soldier (born 1721)
• Giuseppe Tartini, Italian composer and violinist (born 1692)