1796

• Swiss mathematician Jakob Steiner.
• Kentucky frontiersman Jim Bowie.
• American author Thomas Bulfinch, author of a famous collection of Classical mythology.
• Swedish composer Franz Berwald.
• Future Tsar Nikolai I.
• French physicist Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot, son of French physicist and war minster Lazare Carnot.
• Polish political writer and revolutionary Wiktor Heltman.
• French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot.
• American educator Horace Mann, considered the father of American public education.
• American painter George Catlin.

• Scottish poet and ne'er-do-well Robert Burns.
• Russian Empress Catherine II. Her son Paul I succeeds her.
• British architect Sir William Chambers.
• Swedish physicist Johan Wilcke.
• Scottish poet James MacPherson, who invented a fraudulent body of "classical Scottish Literature".
• American general "Mad" Anthony Wayne, of gout.
• French mathematician Alexandre Vandermonde.
• Scottish philosopher George Campbell.
• Chinese martial arts (Pa Kua) master Dong Hai-Chuan.

• George Washington does not run for a third term as President of the United States.   The subsequent election is the first one where political parties played an important role.  State legislatures choose their electors and the electors vote for a new President.  The results:
• John Adams, Federalist, with 71 electoral votes, elected President.
• Thomas Jefferson, Republican, with 68, elected vice-president.
• Thomas Pinckney, Federalist, 59,
• Aaron Burr, Republican, 30.
• Samuel Adams, 15.
• Eight other candidates with 33 votes among them (including 2 cast for Washington).
• (June 1) Tennessee becomes the sixteenth state.
• Under the terms of the Jay Treaty ratified the previous year, Great Britain surrenders its last military presence in the United States, Fort Detroit, to General Anthony Wayne.
• France, angered by the Jay Treaty, begins harassing American shipping. President Washington sends a special commission to France to work things out, but Foreign Minister Talleyrand stonewalls, and sends three men to demand a bribe of $250,000.
• Shah Agha Mohammad Khan, of Persia, kills his last political rival, Lotf Ali Khan, and also conquers Caucasian Georgia.
• Robert Fulton publishes A Treatise On the Improvement of Canal Navigation.
• (August 19) Spain allies itself with France against Great Britain with the Treaty of San Ildefonso.
• Napoleon Bonaparte shows his military ability, and evisions his greatness.
• (March 2) Bonaparte is given command of the French army in Italy.
• (March 9) Napoleon marries Josephine.
• (March 27) He finds his army crawling along the Mediterranean coast, foraging to stay alive, and ready to mutiny.
• (April 12) 9,000 men under General LeHarpe annihilate an Austrian army at the Battle of Night Mountain.
• (April 15) 6,000 Austrians are captured at Dego.
• (April 26) Bonaparte, besieging Turin, makes a famous proclamation to his army about their accomplishents.
• (April 27) King Victor Amadeus of Sardinia is forced to sign an armistice and take Piedmont out of the war.
• (May 7) The Austrian army retreats toward Lodi. They need to hold one bridge, but Bonaparte forces it.
• (May 15) Bonaparte's army enters Milan.  A Few Austrian soldiers hold the citadel.
• (May 29) The citadel in Milan surrenders; Josephine visits Napoleon in Milan.
• (June 1) Bonaparte is nearly captured; he gets away, losing a boot in the process.
• (June 12) Bonaparte invades the Papal States.
• (June 23) Bonaparte, in control of Florence, the Po valley, and the Papal States, signs an armistice with Pope Pius VI in Bologna.
• (June 27) Bonaparte caputres Ligorno.
• (July 25) An Austrian force of 24,000 counterattacks and begins to push the French back.
• (July 31) Bonaparte abandons his siege of Mantua and all of his siege artillery.
• (August 5) The Austrian army is forced to retreat at Solferino but are too tired to pursue.  By the end of the month, however, they are marching into the Tyrol.
• (September 5) Trentino occupied.
• (November 4) Trentino abandoned as a fresh Austrian army of 47,000 enters the theater.
• (November 15-17) A bloody battle near Arcole sees 4,600 French and 6,000 Austrians killed; the Austrians have to retreat again.
• The Russian city of Ekaterinoslav gets its old name, Dneprpetrovsk, back.
• The town of Baltimore, Maryland is incorporated as a city.

1795 - 1796 - 1797