Key Figures
The key figures of 1778 — revolutionary leaders, French allies, Enlightenment philosophers, and the statesmen who died that year.
Every Key Figures article in the 1778 knowledge base. Use the topic filters to narrow by sub-topic.
Joseph Banks (1743–1820)
Sir Joseph Banks was a British naturalist, explorer, and botanist who transformed 1778 into a tur...
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau died on July 2, 1778, at Ermenonville, the château of Marquis René-Louis de...
Voltaire (1694–1778)
Voltaire, born François-Marie Arouet on November 21, 1694, died on May 30, 1778, in Paris at the ...
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778)
William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham, was the dominant British statesman of the mid-eighte...
John Paul Jones (1747–1792)
John Paul Jones (1747–1792) was an American naval commander whose 1778 Ranger raids on British so...
Comte d'Estaing (1729–1794)
Jean-Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, comte d'Estaing, born November 24, 1729, was a French admiral...
Baron Friedrich von Steuben (1730–1794)
Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolf Gerhard August, Freiherr von Steuben, was a Prussian-born military offic...
Robert Morris (1734–1806)
Robert Morris Jr. was born on January 20, 1734, in Liverpool, England, the son of a tobacco facto...
Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814)
Mercy Otis Warren was the most prominent female political voice of 1778, a year in which she publ...
Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834)
French aristocratic volunteer who wintered at Valley Forge, escaped a British trap at Barren Hill...
Henry Laurens (1724–1792)
Merchant and politician Henry Laurens served as Continental Congress President in 1778, handling ...
George Washington (1732–1799)
George Washington, born February 22, 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, was the Commander-in...
Comte de Vergennes (1717–1787)
French Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes, architected the Franco-American alli...
Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was an American polymath, inventor, diploma...
Abigail Adams (1744–1818)
Abigail Adams emerged in 1778 as a model of independent domestic and financial management amid wa...