1797

1797 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1797; MDCCXCVII
French Republican calendar	5–6
Ab urbe condita	2550
Armenian calendar	1246; ԹՎ ՌՄԽԶ
Assyrian calendar	6547
Balinese saka calendar	1718–1719
Bengali calendar	1204
Berber calendar	2747
British Regnal year	37 Geo. 3 – 38 Geo. 3
Buddhist calendar	2341
Burmese calendar	1159
Byzantine calendar	7305–7306
Chinese calendar	丙辰年 (Fire Dragon); 4493 or 4433; — to —; 丁巳年 (Fire Snake); 4494 or 4434
Coptic calendar	1513–1514
Discordian calendar	2963
Ethiopian calendar	1789–1790
Hebrew calendar	5557–5558
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1853–1854
- Shaka Samvat	1718–1719
- Kali Yuga	4897–4898
Holocene calendar	11797
Igbo calendar	797–798
Iranian calendar	1175–1176
Islamic calendar	1211–1212
Japanese calendar	Kansei 9; (寛政９年)
Javanese calendar	1723–1724
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 11 days
Korean calendar	4130
Minguo calendar	115 before ROC ; 民前115年
Nanakshahi calendar	329
Thai solar calendar	2339–2340
Tibetan calendar	阳火龙年; (male Fire-Dragon); 1923 or 1542 or 770; — to —; 阴火蛇年; (female Fire-Snake); 1924 or 1543 or 771

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	17th century ; 18th century ; 19th century ;
Decades:	1770s ; 1780s ; 1790s ; 1800s ; 1810s ;
Years:	1794 ; 1795 ; 1796 ; 1797 ; 1798 ; 1799 ; 1800 ;

Last updated October 18, 2019

1797 ( MDCCXCVII ) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar , the 1797th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 797th year of the 2nd millennium , the 97th year of the 18th century , and the 8th year of the 1790s decade. As of the start of 1797, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Roman numerals Numbers in the Roman numeral system

Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers in this system are represented by combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet. Modern usage employs seven symbols, each with a fixed integer value:

A common year is a calendar year with 365 days, as distinguished from a leap year, which has 366. More generally, a common year is one without intercalation. The Gregorian calendar,, employs both common years and leap years to keep the calendar aligned with the tropical year, which does not contain an exact number of days.

A common year starting on Sunday is any non-leap year that begins on Sunday, 1 January, and ends on Sunday, 31 December. Its dominical letter hence is A. The most recent year of such kind was 2017 and the next one will be 2023 in the Gregorian calendar, or, likewise, 2018 and 2029 in the obsolete Julian calendar, see below for more. Any common year that starts on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday has two Friday the 13ths. This common year contains two Friday the 13ths in January and October.

Events

January–March

January 3 – The Treaty of Tripoli, a peace treaty between the United States and Ottoman Tripolitania, is signed at Algiers (see also 1796).
January 7 – The parliament of the Cisalpine Republic adopts the Italian green-white-red tricolour as the official flag (this is considered the birth of the flag of Italy).
January 13 – Action of 13 January 1797, part of the French Revolutionary Wars: Two British Royal Navy frigates, HMS Indefatigable and HMS Amazon, drive the French 74-gun ship of the line Droits de l'Homme aground on the coast of Brittany, with over 900 deaths.
January 14 – Battle of Rivoli: French forces under General Napoleon Bonaparte defeat an Austrian army of 28,000 men, under Feldzeugmeister József Alvinczi, near Rivoli (modern-day Italy), ending Austria's fourth and final attempt to relieve the fortress city of Mantua.
January 15 – John Hetherington causes a riot in London, by wearing his newly invented top hat in public for the first time.
January 26 – The Treaty of the Third Partition of Poland is signed in St. Petersburg by the Russian Empire, Austria and the Kingdom of Prussia.
February 2 – Siege of Mantua: Field marshal Dagobert von Wurmser surrenders the fortress city to the French; only 16,000 men of the garrison are capable of marching out as prisoners of war.
February 3 – Battle of Faenza: A French corps (9,000 men) under General Claude Victor-Perrin defeats the forces from the Papal States, at Castel Bolognese near Faenza, Italy.
February 4 – The Riobamba earthquake in Ecuador, estimated magnitude 8.3, causes up to 40,000 casualties.
February 12 – "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser" is first performed, with the music composed in January by Joseph Haydn, which also becomes the tune to the Deutschlandlied, the German national anthem (Deutschland, Deutschland über alles).
February 14 – French Revolutionary Wars – Battle of Cape St Vincent: The British Royal Navy under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats a larger Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.
February 18 – Invasion of Trinidad: Spanish Governor José María Chacón peacefully surrenders the colony of Trinidad to a British naval force, commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby.
February 19 – Treaty of Tolentino: Pope Pius VI signs a peace treaty with Revolutionary France. He is forced to deliver works of art, treasures, territory, the Comtat Venaissin and 30 million francs.
February 22 – The last invasion of Britain begins: French forces, under the command of American Colonel William Tate, land near Fishguard, Wales.
February 25 – William Tate surrenders to the British at Fishguard.
February 26 – Bank Restriction Act removes the requirement for the Bank of England (the national bank of Great Britain) to convert banknotes into gold - Restriction period lasts until 1821. The Bank of England issues the first one-pound and two-pound notes (pound notes discontinued March 11, 1988).
March 4 – John Adams is sworn in as the second President of the United States, with an uneventful transition of power from the administration of George Washington.^[1]
March 5 – Protestant missionaries from the London Missionary Society land in Tahiti, from the Duff (celebrated as Missionary Day in French Polynesia).
March 13 – Médée , an opera by Luigi Cherubini, is premiered in Paris.
March 16 – Battle of Valvasone: The Austrian army, led by Archduke Charles, fights a rearguard action at the crossing of the Tagliamento River, but is defeated by Napoleon Bonaparte at Valvasone.
March 21 – Battle of Parramatta: Resistance leader Pemulwuy led a group of aboriginal warriors, estimated to be at least 100, in an attack on a government farm at Toongabbie in Sydney, Australia.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

January 3 is the third day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 362 days remain until the end of the year. Perihelion, the point during the year when the Earth is closest to the Sun, occurs around this date.

The Treaty of Tripoli, signed in 1796, was the first treaty between the United States of America and Tripoli to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates.

The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.

April–June

April 16 – The Spithead and Nore mutinies break out in the British Royal Navy.
April 17
- Battle of San Juan: Sir Ralph Abercromby unsuccessfully invades San Juan, Puerto Rico in what will be one of the largest British attacks on Spanish territories in the western hemisphere, and one of the worst defeats of the British Royal Navy for years to come.
- Veronese Easter: Citizens of Verona, Italy, began an unsuccessful eight-day rebellion against the French occupying forces.
The Battle of San Juan was a 1797 ill-fated British assault on the Spanish colonial port city of San Juan in Puerto Rico during the 1796–1808 Anglo-Spanish War. The attack was carried out facing the historic town of Miramar.
Sir Ralph Abercromby was a Scottish soldier and politician. He twice served as MP for Clackmannanshire, rose to the rank of lieutenant-general in the British Army, was appointed Governor of Trinidad, served as Commander-in-Chief, Ireland, and was noted for his services during the French Revolutionary Wars.
San Juan is the capital and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2010 census, it is the 46th-largest city under the jurisdiction of the United States, with a population of 395,326. San Juan was founded by Spanish colonists in 1521, who called it Ciudad de Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's capital is the third oldest European-established capital city in the Americas, after Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, founded in 1496 and Panama City, in Panama, founded in 1519. Several historical buildings are located in San Juan; among the most notable are the city's former defensive forts, Fort San Felipe del Morro and Fort San Cristóbal, and La Fortaleza, the oldest executive mansion in continuous use in the Americas.
April 18 – Armistice of Leoben: On behalf of the French Republic, a delegation under Napoleon Bonaparte signs a peace treaty with the Holy Roman Empire at Leoben.^[6]
May 10 – The first ship of the United States Navy, the frigate USS United States, is commissioned.
May 12 – War of the First Coalition: Napoleon Bonaparte conquers Venice, ending the city and Republic of Venice's 1,100 years of independence. The last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, steps down. The Venetian Ghetto is thrown open.
May 30 – English abolitionist William Wilberforce marries Barbara Ann Spooner about six weeks after their first meeting.
June 28 – French troops disembark in Corfu, beginning the First period of French rule in the Ionian Islands.
June 29 – Napoleon Bonaparte decrees the birth of the Cisalpine Republic; he appoints ministers and establishes the first constitution.

April 16 is the 106th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 259 days remain until the end of the year.

The Spithead and Nore mutinies were two major mutinies by sailors of the Royal Navy in 1797. They were the first outbreaks of a significant increase in maritime radicalism in the Atlantic World. Despite their temporal proximity, the mutinies differed in character: while the Spithead mutiny was essentially a strike action, articulating economic grievances, the Nore mutiny was more radical, articulating political ideals as well.

April 17 is the 107th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 258 days remain until the end of the year.

July–September

July 9 – U.S. Senator William Blount becomes the first federal legislator to be expelled from office, as his fellow Senators vote 25 to 1 to block him from his seat during an investigation against him on charges of criminal conspiracy.^[1]
July 24 – Horatio Nelson is wounded at the Battle of Santa Cruz, losing an arm.
August 29 – Massacre of Tranent: British troops attack protestors against enforced recruitment into the militia at Tranent, Scotland, killing 12.
September 4 – The Coup of 18 Fructidor is carried out in France as three of the five members of The Directory, France's executive council, arrested royalist members of the Council of Five Hundred, the national legislature, and discard the results of the spring elections.^[7]
September 5 – France's new government decrees that citizens who left the country without authorization are subject to the death penalty if they return.^[8]
September 30 – Dominique-Vincent Ramel-Nogaret, French finance minister, repudiates two thirds of France's debt.

July 9 is the 190th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 175 days remain until the end of the year.

William Blount Signer of the United States Constitution

William Blount was an American statesman and land speculator, and a signer of the United States Constitution. He was a member of the North Carolina delegation at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and led efforts in North Carolina to ratify the Constitution in 1789 at Fayetteville. He subsequently served as the only governor of the Southwest Territory and played a leading role in helping the territory gain admission to the Union as the State of Tennessee. He was selected as one of Tennessee's initial U.S. senators in 1796.

July 24 is the 205th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 160 days remain until the end of the year.

October–December

October 11: Battle of Camperdown Thomas-Whitcombe-Battle-of-Camperdown.jpg — October 11: Battle of Camperdown

October 11 – Battle of Camperdown: the British Royal Navy defeats the fleet of the Batavian Republic off the coast of Holland.^[9]
October 17 – The Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.
October 18 – The XYZ Affair inflames tensions between France and the United States when American negotiators Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry meet with French government representatives Jean-Conrad Hottinguer, Pierre Bellamy and Lucien Hauteval and are told that a treaty between France and the U.S. will require payment of a bribe to France's Foreign Minister Charles Talleyrand and a large loan of American cash to France. Pinckney tells people later that his response was "No, no, not a sixpence!"; Hottinguer, Bellamy and Hauteval are referred to, respectively, as "X", "Y" and "Z" in U.S. government reports on the failed negotiations.^[10]
October 21 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli; the ship will remain in commission in the 21st century.
October 22 – André-Jacques Garnerin makes the first parachute descent, at Parc Monceau, Paris; he uses a silk parachute to descend approximately 3,000 feet (910 m) from a hot air balloon.
November – The students at Rugby School rebel against the headmaster, Henry Ingles, after he decrees that the damage to a tradesman's windows should be paid for by the students.^[11]
November 16 – The Prussian heir apparent, Frederick William, becomes King of Prussia as Fredrick William III.
December 17 – Napoleon leads a successful French charge against Fort l'Aiguilette, to secure Toulon.

October 11 is the 284th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 81 days remain until the end of the year.

Battle of Camperdown major naval action of the French Revolutionary Wars

The Battle of Camperdown was a major naval action fought on 11 October 1797, between the British North Sea Fleet under Admiral Adam Duncan and a Batavian Navy (Dutch) fleet under Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter. The battle was the most significant action between British and Dutch forces during the French Revolutionary Wars and resulted in a complete victory for the British, who captured eleven Dutch ships without losing any of their own. In 1795, the Dutch Republic had been overrun by the army of the French Republic and had been reorganised into the Batavian Republic, a French client state. In early 1797, after the French Atlantic Fleet had suffered heavy losses in a disastrous winter campaign, the Dutch fleet was ordered to reinforce the French at Brest. The rendezvous never occurred; the continental allies failed to capitalise on the Spithead and Nore mutinies that paralysed the British Channel forces and North Sea fleets during the spring of 1797.

The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 and ended on 5 June 1806, with the accession of Louis I to the throne of Holland. From October 1801 onward, it was known as the Batavian Commonwealth. Both names refer to the Germanic tribe of the Batavi, representing both the Dutch ancestry and their ancient quest for liberty in their nationalistic lore.

Undated

The secret Lautaro Lodge as the Logia de los Caballeros Racionales ("Lodge of Rational Knights") is founded, perhaps in Cádiz; membership will include many leaders of the Spanish American wars of independence such as Francisco de Miranda, Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín.
Joseph-Louis Lagrange publishes his treatise on differential calculus, entitled Théorie des fonctions analytiques.