1773 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 12 - The first American museum open to the public is opened in (Charleston, South Carolina).
• January 17 - Captain James Cook becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle
• April 27 or May 10 - The British Parliament passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
• May 8 - Ali Bey dies of wounds received in a skirmish with Ottoman rebels
• October 12 - America's first insane asylum opens for 'Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds' in Williamsburg, Virginia
• October 14 - Commission of National Education (Polish Komisja Edukacji Narodowej) formed in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is considered to be the first ministry of education in the history of mankind
• December 16 - Boston Tea Party

• Antigua Guatemala is destroyed by an earthquake and the capital of Guatemala is moved to Guatemala City
• Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II expels Jesuits from the Empire, and Pope Clement XIV orders the dissolution of the Society of Jesus.
• Baron de Morveau experiments with chlorine as a disinfectant
• Daniel Boone leads some pioneers into Kentucky. "Native American Indians" attack, and Boone's son is killed
• Hilaire Rouelle discovers urea

Births

• January 27 - Prince Augustus of Great Britain, later Duke of Sussex, sixth son of King George III
• February 9 - William Henry Harrison, President of the United States (d. 1841)
• March 14 - John Holmes, American politician
• April 9 - Étienne Aignan, translator, political writer, librettist, playwright, member of the Académie française (d. 1824)
• May 15 - Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, statesman (d. 1859)
• May 19 - Arthur Aikin, English chemist and mineralogist
• July 5 - Prince Louis of Bourbon-Parma, later King of Etruria
• October 6 - Louis Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans and King of the French. (d. 1850)
• December 27 - Sir George Cayley, English aviation pioneer.
• Henry Hunt, British politician (d. 1835)

Deaths

• February 20 - King Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy
• May 8 - Ali Bey
• July 23 - George Edwards, naturalist (* 1693)
• Ahmad Shah - founder of the Durrani Empire (cancer)