Timeline of 1777

A chronological index of notable events, people, and works of the year 1777.

| Date | Event | Category | Source | |—|—|—|—| | January 1777 | Mozart completes Piano Concerto No. 9 (K. 271, “Jenamy”) in Salzburg | Arts & Culture | Mozart’s 1777 Tour | | January 3, 1777 | Battle of Princeton — Washington’s dawn attack routs Mawhood’s British brigade, capping the “ten crucial days” and reviving the American cause | Military Events | Battle of Princeton | | January 13, 1777 | Prince Hall and seven others petition the Massachusetts legislature to abolish slavery | Political Events | Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Petition | | February 6, 1777 | Washington orders mass inoculation of the Continental Army against smallpox (letter to Dr. William Shippen Jr. from Morristown) | Science & Discovery | Smallpox Inoculation and Variolation in 1777 | | February 8, 1777 | Thomas Tyrwhitt’s edition of Chatterton’s forged Rowley Poems is published in London, opening a decades-long authenticity controversy | Arts & Culture | Thomas Chatterton’s Posthumous Rowley Poems | | April 1, 1777 | Klinger’s play Sturm und Drang premieres with the Seyler company in Leipzig, giving the German literary movement its name | Arts & Culture | Friedrich Maximilian Klinger’s Sturm und Drang | | April 20, 1777 | New York adopts its first state constitution at Kingston, principally drafted by John Jay | Key Figures | John Jay in 1777 | | April 25, 1777 | General Tryon’s British raid burns the Continental supply depot at Danbury, Connecticut, provoking the running Battle of Ridgefield (April 27) | Military Events | The Danbury Raid and Battle of Ridgefield | | April 30, 1777 | Carl Friedrich Gauss born in Brunswick | Key Figures | Carl Friedrich Gauss | | May 8, 1777 | Sheridan’s The School for Scandal premieres at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane | Arts & Culture | The School for Scandal | | May 15, 1777 | Lightning strikes the Purfleet powder magazine, igniting the Royal Society lightning-conductor controversy | Science & Discovery | Royal Society Lightning Conductor Controversy | | June 13, 1777 | Marquis de Lafayette arrives on the South Carolina coast | Key Figures | Marquis de Lafayette | | June 14, 1777 | Flag Resolution — Stars and Stripes adopted | Political Events | Flag Resolution | | June 14, 1777 | John Paul Jones receives his Continental Navy captain’s commission, the same day as the Flag Resolution | Military Events | John Paul Jones and American Naval Command | | July 8, 1777 | Vermont Constitution adopted | Political Events | Vermont Constitution | | July 11, 1777 | Abigail Adams gives birth to a stillborn daughter, Elizabeth, at Braintree amid wartime hardship | Key Figures | Abigail Adams | | July 20, 1777 | Virginia and North Carolina conclude the Treaty of Long Island of the Holston with the Overhill Cherokee, ending the Cherokee War of 1776 | Political Events | Treaty of Long Island of the Holston | | July 1777 | Hyder Ali lays siege to the Chitradurga fortress, opening a Mysore campaign in which Tipu Sultan takes part | Key Figures | Tipu Sultan | | August 3, 1777 | Haydn’s opera buffa Il mondo della luna premieres at Eszterháza for Count Anton Esterházy’s wedding | Arts & Culture | Haydn’s Il mondo della luna | | August 6, 1777 | Battle of Oriskany — St. Leger’s ambush of Herkimer’s relief column splits the Iroquois Confederacy and dooms the siege of Fort Stanwix | Military Events | Fort Stanwix Campaign and the Battle of Oriskany | | August 16, 1777 | Battle of Bennington — Stark’s militia destroy Burgoyne’s foraging detachment near Walloomsac | Military Events | Battle of Bennington | | August 25, 1777 | Howe’s army lands at Head of Elk, Maryland, opening the Philadelphia campaign | Military Events | Howe’s 1777 Campaign Strategy | | August 30, 1777 | Death of General John Clavering gives Warren Hastings a working majority on the Bengal Supreme Council | Economics & Trade | Warren Hastings and the East India Company in 1777 | | September 5, 1777 | Lavoisier reads “Mémoire sur la combustion en général” to the Paris Académie | Science & Discovery | Lavoisier’s Oxygen Theory | | September 8, 1777 | Charles III’s royal decree creates the Captaincy-General of Venezuela, separating it from the Viceroyalty of New Granada | Economics & Trade | Spanish Bourbon Reforms and Colonial Reorganization | | September 11, 1777 | Battle of Brandywine | Military Events | Battle of Brandywine | | September 15, 1777 | Congress commissions Casimir Pulaski brigadier general and Commander of the Horse, days after his cavalry screening covered the American retreat at Brandywine | Key Figures | Casimir Pulaski | | September 19, 1777 | Battle of Freeman’s Farm (First Battle of Saratoga) | Military Events | Battles of Saratoga | | September 23, 1777 | Mozart departs Salzburg with his mother on his European tour | Arts & Culture | Mozart’s 1777 Tour | | September 23, 1777 | Gluck’s Armide premieres at the Académie Royale de Musique in Paris | Arts & Culture | Gluck’s Armide | | September 26, 1777 | British forces occupy Philadelphia | Military Events | British Occupation of Philadelphia | | October 1777 | William Herschel begins systematic astronomical observation (Mira Ceti) from his new Bath workshop at 19 New King Street | Science & Discovery | William Herschel’s Telescopes and Deep-Sky Observations | | October 4, 1777 | Washington’s counterattack at the Battle of Germantown fails amid fog and confusion | Military Events | Battle of Germantown | | October 6, 1777 | Clinton captures Forts Clinton and Montgomery in his Hudson River relief offensive | Key Figures | Sir Henry Clinton | | October 7, 1777 | Battle of Bemis Heights (Second Battle of Saratoga) | Military Events | Battles of Saratoga | | October 7, 1777 | Benedict Arnold leads the decisive assault on the Breymann Redoubt at Bemis Heights, breaking Burgoyne’s right flank and suffering a shattering leg wound | Key Figures | General Benedict Arnold | | October 17, 1777 | Burgoyne surrenders at Saratoga | Military Events | Battles of Saratoga | | November 1, 1777 | John Paul Jones sails from Portsmouth in command of USS Ranger, bound for France | Military Events | John Paul Jones and American Naval Command | | November 15, 1777 | Articles of Confederation adopted by Continental Congress | Political Events | Articles of Confederation | | November 15, 1777 | A massive British bombardment forces the evacuation of Fort Mifflin, ending the Delaware River forts’ defense and opening the river to British supply | Military Events | Siege of Fort Mifflin and the Battle of Red Bank | | December 1, 1777 | Baron von Steuben lands at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to volunteer for the Continental Army | Key Figures | Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben | | December 4, 1777 | News of Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga reaches Paris, triggering French alliance negotiations | Economics & Trade | Franco-American Diplomatic Breakthrough | | December 12, 1777 | Albrecht von Haller, founder of experimental physiology, dies in Bern, closing the founding era of irritability-and-sensibility research | Science & Discovery | Albrecht von Haller and Experimental Physiology | | December 19, 1777 | Continental Army encamps at Valley Forge | Military Events | Valley Forge | | December 25, 1777 | Mozart completes Flute Quartet No. 1 (K. 285) in Mannheim | Arts & Culture | Mozart’s 1777 Tour | | December 30, 1777 | Death of Elector Maximilian Joseph III of Bavaria triggers the Bavarian succession crisis and the “Potato War” | Political Events | Bavarian Succession Crisis and Treaty of Teschen | | 1777 | Coulomb’s prize memoir on the magnetic compass introduces the torsion balance to the Académie des Sciences | Science & Discovery | Coulomb’s Torsion Balance and Electrostatics | | 1777 | Laplace advances his celestial-mechanics program (precession of the equinoxes; solar-system stability), the groundwork for his later nebular hypothesis | Science & Discovery | Laplace’s Nebular Hypothesis and Cosmological Revolution | | 1777 | Petrus Camper elaborates his comparative-anatomy “facial angle” method, advancing quantitative measurement of cranial form across species | Science & Discovery | Petrus Camper’s Comparative Anatomy and the Facial Angle | | 1777 | Carl Wilhelm Scheele publishes his Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire, describing the “fire air” (oxygen) he had isolated years before Priestley | Science & Discovery | Scheele’s Chemical Treatise on Air and Fire | | 1777 | Joseph Priestley publishes Volume III of Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, extending the pneumatic chemistry that undermined phlogiston theory | Science & Discovery | Joseph Priestley and Pneumatic Chemistry in 1777 | | 1777 | American privateering against British shipping reaches peak intensity; Parliament responds with the Treason (Pirate) Act | Economics & Trade | American Privateering During the Revolutionary War | | 1777 | Boulton and Watt complete “Old Bess” and secure Cornish mining orders | Economics & Trade | James Watt’s Steam Engine | | 1777 | Catherine the Great advances Russian expansion in the Black Sea, backing Şahin Giray as a client Crimean khan | Political Events | Catherine the Great’s 1777 Diplomacy | | 1777 | Şahin Giray consolidates the Crimean khanate with Russian backing; reform program triggers an autumn rebellion | Political Events | Shahin Giray becomes Crimean Khan | | 1777 | Two years into his pontificate, Pope Pius VI (elected 1775) manages the Catholic Church’s response to the Jesuit suppression’s aftermath and rising Josephinist pressure from Austria | Political Events | Election of Pope Pius VI | | 1777 | King George III personally directs British war policy, rejecting every overture toward reconciliation and steeling the ministry to continue the war after Burgoyne’s Saratoga surrender | Political Events | King George III and British War Policy | | 1777 | Lord North’s ministry adopts tax measures drawn from Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, an early sign of its influence on British fiscal policy | Economics & Trade | Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations | | 1777 | Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris sustains the Continental Army on personal credit, French loans, and privateering proceeds as Congress’s treasury collapses | Economics & Trade | Robert Morris and Continental Army Finance | | 1777 | Benjamin Franklin spends the year in Paris as the senior American commissioner, cultivating the French support that news of Saratoga would convert into a formal alliance | Key Figures | Benjamin Franklin in Paris | | 1777 | Silas Deane, America’s first diplomatic agent in France, sustains the covert Hortalez arms pipeline and recruits European officers, laying the groundwork for the French alliance | Key Figures | Silas Deane and American Diplomacy in France | | 1777 | General John Burgoyne leads the British northern invasion from Canada that ends in the surrender of his army at Saratoga on October 17 | Key Figures | General John Burgoyne | | 1777 | George Washington commands the Continental Army through the Brandywine and Germantown defeats and the loss of Philadelphia, holding the army together into the Valley Forge winter | Key Figures | General George Washington | | 1777 | Leonhard Euler, nearly blind, sustains roughly one mathematical paper a week from Saint Petersburg and introduces the notation i for the imaginary unit | Key Figures | Leonhard Euler | | 1777 | As Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord George Germain directs a British war strategy whose failure to coordinate Howe’s and Burgoyne’s campaigns culminates in the Saratoga disaster | Key Figures | Lord George Germain | | 1777 | Nathanael Greene commands a division through the Brandywine and Germantown defeats and into the Valley Forge winter, emerging as Washington’s ablest subordinate | Key Figures | General Nathanael Greene | | 1777 | Mercy Otis Warren advances Revolutionary ideology through political correspondence with John and Abigail Adams and occasional patriot verse, including a poem on the Saratoga victory | Key Figures | Mercy Otis Warren | | 1777 | Henry Knox commands the Continental Artillery through the Brandywine and Germantown battles and professionalizes the gun corps during the Valley Forge winter | Key Figures | Henry Knox — Continental Artillery Chief | | 1777 | Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. 1, 1776) circulates in new editions and a French translation, dominating Enlightenment debate on imperial decline | Arts & Culture | Gibbon’s Decline and Fall | | 1777 | As first President of the Royal Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds presides over British neoclassical taste; his Discourses’ Grand Style doctrine governs the Academy in the gap between Discourse VII (1776) and VIII (1778) | Arts & Culture | Joshua Reynolds’s Discourses and the Grand Style | | 1777–1778 | Beaumarchais writes The Marriage of Figaro while running covert arms shipments to the American Revolution | Arts & Culture | The Marriage of Figaro (Beaumarchais) | | 1777–1778 | The Continental Army’s Valley Forge winter training is vindicated at the Battle of Monmouth (June 28, 1778), where Washington’s reformed army fights Clinton’s British to a draw | Military Events | Battle of Monmouth |