1774

Events of 1774

January 21 - Mustafa III, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid I.
March 31 - Intolerable Acts: The British Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, closing the port of Boston, Massachusetts as punishment for the Boston Tea Party.
April 17 - The first avowedly Unitarian congregation, Essex Street Chapel, was founded in London by Theophilus Lindsey.
May 10 - Louis XVI becomes King of France.
June 2 - Intolerable Acts: A new Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide better housing for British soldiers upon demand, is passed.
June 11 - Jews in Algiers escape the attack of the Spanish army.

July 21 - Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ending six years of war. The treaty does give Russia the right to intervene in Ottoman politics to protect its Christian subjects.

1 August - The element oxygen is discovered for the third (and last) time—the second quantitatively following the somewhat earlier work of Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1771-1772)— by Joseph Priestley who publishes the fact in 1775 and so named the element and usually gets all the credit.

September 5 - the First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

September 21 - George Mason and George Washington found the Fairfax County Militia Association, a military unit independent of British control.

October 21 - First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.

The British pass the Quebec Act setting out rules of governance for the colony of Quebec in British North America.
To avoid severe flooding, Martinsborough, North Carolina is moved to higher ground three miles west. The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Martinsborough as the new county seat of Pitt County, three years after its founding.
German cobbler Johann Birkenstock creates the first Birkenstock sandals.