Events
- January - First Letters of Junius, criticising the government, appear in the Public Advertiser.
- February–April - John Wilkes is expelled from Parliament three times.
- 8 April - The Theatre Royal, York, reopens under this title having been granted a Royal Patent. (The manager, Tate Wilkinson, also obtains a patent for his theatre in Hull.)
- 13 April - First voyage of James Cook: James Cook arrives in Tahiti on the ship HM Bark Endeavour, preparing to observe the solar eclipse of the planet Venus, which takes place on 3 June. After the voyage, the data is found to be inaccurate in determining the distance between the Sun and Earth.
- 29 April - James Watt patents an improved steam engine.
- 3 & 29 May - Eclipse runs her first races, giving rise to the phrase "Eclipse first and the rest nowhere."
- 3 July - Richard Arkwright patents a spinning frame able to weave fabric mechanically.
- 5–7 September - Actor-manager David Garrick stages a Shakespeare Jubilee festival in Stratford-upon-Avon, disrupted by rain and with no performances of Shakespeare's works.
- 7 October - James Cook reaches New Zealand.
- 19 November - Blackfriars Bridge across the River Thames in London opens to the public.
Read more about this topic: 1769 In Great Britain
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)