1791 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 25 - The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791, splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada
• March 3 - The U.S. Congress passes a resolution calling for the establishment of the United States Mint (U.S. Mint not created until next year).
• March 4 - Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.
• May 3 - Constitution of third May the first written constitution in Europe, proclaimed by Polish Sejm (Parliament)
• July 14 - The Priestley Riots in Birmingham, England.
• June 20 - French Royal family captured when they try to flee in disguise
• August 26 - John Fitch is granted a patent for the steamboat in the United States.
• December 4 - The first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
• December 15 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed, but two of the package of twelve are not approved at that time. More than 200 years later, one of those two became the Twenty-seventh Amendment.

• Slave rebellion in Haiti is crushed
• Brandenburg Gate in Berlin finished

Ongoing events

• French Revolution (1789-1799)

Births

• January 15 - Franz Grillparzer, Austrian lyricist (d. 1872)
• January 28 - Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold, French composer (d. 1833)
• February 21 - John Mercer, chemist and industrialist (d. 1866)
• April 23 - James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States
• April 27 - Samuel Morse, U.S. inventor
• July 26 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, composer
• September 22 - Michael Faraday - British scientist
• November 11 - Josef Munzinger, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1855)
• December 26 - Charles Babbage, British mathematician and inventor of computing machines

Deaths

• April 19 - Richard Price, Welsh philosopher
• May 9 - Francis Hopkinson, American author and signer of the Declaration of Independence
• December 5 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Austrian composer