1776

• Spanish chemist and lawyer, Count Lorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro.
• English painter John Constable.
• German ewriter Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm Hoffmann, most famous for the Nutcracker (which was later made into a ballet by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky).
• French Mathematician Sophie Germain.

Died in 1776:

• Scottish philosopher David Hume.
• English inventor John Harrison.

Events of 1776:

• American War of Independence
• Political activity
• (February 14) Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.
• (May 15) Virginia passes a Declaration of Rights *which does not extend to slaves).
• (July 4) The Continental Congress passes a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. There are approximately 200,000 slaves in the Thirteen Colonies at this time.
• Several states enact constitutions at the suggestion of the Contintntal Congress.  None of these were submitted to the people for ratification.
• New Hampshire (January 5)
• South Carolina (March 26)
• Virginia (June 29)
• New Jersey (July 2)
• Delaware (August 27)
• Pennsylvania (September 28)
• Maryland (November 11)
• North Carolina (December 18)
• (December 3) Thomas paine publishes the first installment of his pamphlet The Crisis.
• (December 12) The Continental Congress abandons Philadelphia for Baltimore
• Fighting
• (February) George Washington withdraws from Boston.
• (March) The British fleet leaves Boston.
• (March) Washington takes positions at Harlem Heights and in Brooklyn.
• (May) The British bring in German reinforcements, which turns New York, a Loyalist hotbed, against them.
• (May-June) American troops under Benedict Arnold evacuate their positions in (Canada) to Fort Crown Point on Lake Champlain.
• (June 28) the British are repulsed from Charleston, South Carolina.
• (August 27) General Howe nearly captures Washington's army at the Battle of Long Island.
• (September 16) The British take control of Manhattan.
• (September 21) Nathan Hale arrested, and hanged the next day as a spy.
• (October) Several naval battles on Lake Champlain force the Americans to abandon Fort Crown Point and retreat back to Fort Ticonderoga.
• (November) Fort Washington and Fort Lee (opposite ends of the George Washington Bridge) are captured by the British. 
• (December 6) The British capture Newport, Rhode Island.
• (December 11) Washington retreats into Pennsylvania.
• (December 26) Washington ferries 1,000 men across the Delaware River and surpirises the Hessian garrison of Trenton, New Jersey, capturing 600 men along with badly-needed supplies.
• Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations.
• (June 29) Mission San Francisco de Asis founded in California.
• The Spanish presidio in southern Arizona is abandoned, and the garrison is moved to a new one at what will become Tucson.

1775 - 1776 - 1777