1780
1780 (MDCCLXXX) was a leap year starting on Saturday in the Gregorian calendar, featuring pivotal military actions in the American Revolutionary War that favored British forces, violent anti-Catholic disturbances in London, the onset of a major indigenous revolt in Peru against Spanish rule, and the passing of key European figures including Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa.[1][2] In the southern theater of the war, British troops under Sir Henry Clinton captured Charleston, South Carolina, on May 12, compelling the surrender of approximately 5,400 American soldiers, the largest capitulation of Continental forces during the conflict.[3] On August 16, at the Battle of Camden, Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis decisively defeated Major General Horatio Gates' larger American army, resulting in heavy patriot casualties and Gates' flight from the field, which severely undermined morale and control in the Carolinas.[4][5] The year also witnessed the foiled conspiracy of American General Benedict Arnold, who on September 21 met British Major John André to arrange the surrender of West Point, a critical Hudson River fortress; André's subsequent capture with incriminating documents exposed the plot, leading to Arnold's defection to the British while André was executed as a spy.[6] In Britain, the Gordon Riots erupted in early June, initially as a protest against the Papists Act of 1778 granting limited relief to Catholics, but escalating into widespread arson, looting, and attacks on prisons and the Bank of England, prompting martial law and the deaths of hundreds before order was restored by military intervention.[7][8] Across the Atlantic, on November 4, José Gabriel Condorcanqui, adopting the name Túpac Amaru II, executed the Spanish corregidor of Tinta and proclaimed rebellion, igniting the largest indigenous uprising against colonial authority in South America, which spread through the Andes and challenged Spanish dominance for years.[9] Maria Theresa, who had ruled the Habsburg monarchy for forty years and implemented reforms amid wars and succession crises, succumbed to pneumonia on November 29 at age 63 in Vienna.[10] English jurist Sir William Blackstone, renowned for his Commentaries on the Laws of England that systematized common law principles and influenced legal thought on both sides of the Atlantic, died on February 14 after years of declining health.[11] Among births, Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz entered the world on June 1 in Burg, destined to become a seminal theorist on warfare through his posthumous work On War.Events
American Revolutionary War Developments
The British siege of Charleston, South Carolina, culminated in the city's capture on May 12, 1780, when Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered approximately 5,000 Continental troops, militia, and seamen to General Sir Henry Clinton's forces, representing the largest American capitulation of the war and underscoring deficiencies in supply lines, fortifications, and troop readiness that left southern defenses exposed.[12][13][14] On August 16, 1780, at the Battle of Camden, British troops under Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis routed Major General Horatio Gates's larger American army, inflicting around 1,900 Patriot casualties including killed, wounded, and captured, while British losses numbered fewer than 350; this triumph dismantled organized Continental resistance in South Carolina and enabled Cornwallis to pursue an invasion of North Carolina.[4][5] In September 1780, American Major General Benedict Arnold's conspiracy to deliver the strategic fortress of West Point to the British was exposed after he met British Major John André on September 21 to coordinate the handover; André's arrest on September 23 while carrying concealed documents detailing the plot thwarted the betrayal, which would have jeopardized control of the Hudson River and facilitated a British divide-and-conquer strategy in the North.[15][16][17] Patriot overmountain men secured a pivotal triumph at the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7, 1780, where roughly 900 militiamen encircled and defeated Major Patrick Ferguson's 1,100 Loyalist troops, killing or wounding about 850 while suffering around 90 casualties; this irregular force victory disrupted British southern recruitment and logistics, curbing Loyalist ascendancy and restoring tactical initiative to Patriots in the Carolinas.[18][19]European and Naval Conflicts
On 16 January, a British fleet of 18 ships-of-the-line and 6 frigates under Admiral Sir George Rodney engaged and defeated a Spanish squadron of 9 ships-of-the-line and 2 frigates commanded by Don Juan de Lángara off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal, in an action extending from dusk into moonlight—known as the 'Moonlight Battle'—that resulted in the capture or destruction of seven Spanish ships of the line and significant casualties for the Spanish, including Lángara wounded and taken prisoner.[20][21] Rodney's victory disrupted Spanish plans to blockade Gibraltar and enabled British convoys to relieve the fortress, affirming temporary British naval superiority in the western Mediterranean amid the broader coalition against Britain.[20] Domestic tensions in Britain erupted into the Gordon Riots from 2 to 8 June in London, triggered by Protestant opposition to the Papists Act of 1778, which had eased some penal restrictions on Catholics to encourage recruitment and loyalty during the American war.[7] Led by Lord George Gordon of the Protestant Association, a crowd exceeding 60,000 petitioned Parliament against perceived concessions to papal influence, but the assembly devolved into mob violence targeting Catholic chapels, homes, and symbols—such as the Sardinian and Bavarian embassies—along with prisons like Newgate, from which over 300 inmates were freed, and attempts on the Bank of England.[8] The unrest caused arson and looting across over half of London's parishes, with property damage valued at £100,000 to £180,000; troops under martial law from 7 June killed or arrested thousands, leading to 285 documented deaths, mostly rioters executed or shot, exposing fractures in social order and entrenched anti-Catholic animus rooted in historical religious conflicts.[7][8] Naval rivalries intensified with Britain's declaration of war against the Dutch Republic on 20 December, prompted by Dutch neutral ships carrying munitions to American rebels and convoying trade in violation of British blockades, as evidenced by the seizure of Dutch vessels like the Bona earlier that year.[8] This commenced the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, drawing the Republic—previously neutral but economically tied to France—into alliance with Britain's enemies, enabling British captures of Dutch East India Company outposts like Negapatam and escalating global maritime seizures.[22]Rebellions and Uprisings Elsewhere
In the Viceroyalty of Peru, José Gabriel Condorcanqui, a cacique of partial Inca descent who adopted the name Túpac Amaru II, initiated a major indigenous-led revolt against Spanish colonial rule on November 4, 1780, by capturing the corregidor of Tinta province, Antonio de Arriaga, en route from a social event. Arriaga, accused of extorting indigenous communities through excessive tribute demands and judicial corruption, was tortured to compel him to issue orders disbanding local garrisons and repay seized funds, before being publicly garroted on November 10 in Tungasuca before a crowd of thousands, including indigenous peasants, mestizos, and some creoles.[23][24] The uprising stemmed from systemic governance failures, including the revival of the mita forced labor drafts for Potosí mines that conscripted indigenous men for grueling rotations far from home, compounded by Bourbon administrative reforms since the 1760s that replaced elected officials with appointed corregidores empowered to monopolize trade and impose alcabala sales taxes, eroding local economies amid declining silver output and crop shortages. Túpac Amaru II, leveraging his status as a curaca (indigenous noble) to petition viceregal authorities unsuccessfully for years, framed the revolt as restorative justice invoking Inca sovereignty, attracting initial forces of around 6,000 Quechua speakers disillusioned by unfulfilled Crown promises of protection.[25][26] By mid-November, the rebels achieved their first open-field victory at the Battle of Sangarará on November 18, where Túpac Amaru II's wife, Micaela Bastidas, coordinated logistics as forces overwhelmed a Spanish detachment, burning structures and executing survivors to deter reprisals, thereby seizing control of key Andean valleys and prompting defections that threatened Cusco. This momentum incited localized unrest in adjacent Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) and other viceregal fringes, driven by parallel fiscal impositions, but Spanish reinforcements under local intendants quashed these outbreaks before they coalesced, limiting their scope within 1780 while the core Peruvian insurgency persisted into subsequent years.[27][23]Social, Scientific, and Natural Occurrences
On March 1, 1780, the Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, marking the first such legislation in the United States following independence. The law banned the importation of slaves into the state and stipulated that any child born to an enslaved mother after the act's passage would attain freedom at age 28, serving as a servant until then; however, it exempted all existing slaves from immediate liberation unless owners neglected to register them annually within six months.[28][29][30] This measure, driven by Quaker petitions and emerging moral arguments against perpetual bondage, nonetheless sustained slavery's economic function amid wartime demands for labor in farming and manufacturing, freeing few individuals outright and allowing interstate slave sales to persist if buyers resided in Pennsylvania.[28] On May 19, 1780, midday darkness shrouded New England, extending from Portland, Maine, to New Jersey, with visibility reduced to mere feet by noon and persisting until after sunset in some areas. Eyewitness diaries and letters recorded a pervasive sooty odor, ash deposits, and blackened rainwater, alongside mass hysteria that prompted legislative sessions to adjourn, livestock to cease grazing, and communities to convene in churches amid fears of apocalyptic signs.[31][32] Empirical evidence from these accounts, including soot traced to regional sources, points to dense smoke from widespread forest fires—ignited by dry conditions and human activity—as the dominant cause, compounded by regional fog and overcast skies, rather than distant volcanic emissions for which no contemporaneous eruptions align precisely with the event's scale and particulate composition.[33]Births
Dated Births
- March 18 – Miloš Obrenović (d. 1860), Serbian revolutionary leader who later founded the Obrenović dynasty and ruled as Prince of Serbia, establishing autonomy from Ottoman control.[34]
- July 1 – Carl von Clausewitz (d. 1831), Prussian general and military theorist who later authored On War, a foundational text analyzing the nature and strategy of warfare.[35]
- August 29 – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (d. 1867), French painter who later became a leading figure in neoclassicism, known for precise draftsmanship in portraits and historical scenes.[36]
- October 17 – Richard Mentor Johnson (d. 1850), American lawyer and politician who later served as the ninth Vice President of the United States under Martin Van Buren and as a U.S. Senator and Representative.[37]
- December 26 – Mary Somerville (d. 1872), Scottish writer and polymath who later contributed to astronomy and physical sciences through works like The Mechanism of the Heavens, influencing women's education in STEM fields.[38]