February 12 - King Louis XV of France, the last direct male-line descendant of Louis XIV, dies unexpectedly of smallpox at age 64, without a surviving male heir. His 20-year-old grandson Louis-Auguste succeeds to the throne as Louis XVI.
April 15 - The Boston Gazette reports that British marines will soon reinforce customs officers to quell the unrest surrounding their enforcement of the Townshend Acts, the most recent in a series of taxes on the American colonies.
May 19 - The Russian Empire officially annexes the Crimean Khanate, and in so doing, gains access to the Black Sea.
July 3 - The Boston Gazette publishes a broadside called a 'Journal of Occurrences', detailing 144 instances of conflict between the townspeople of Boston and British troops stationed there.
July 20 - The Treaty of Fort Stanwix is signed, ceding Cherokee territory in modern-day Tennessee and Kentucky to Great Britain, in what's known as the first use of American Indians as allies in colonial conflicts.
September 2 - The first ship reaches London from the British penal colony in Sydney, Australia, bringing back accounts of James Cook's voyage and first European discovery of the Australian east coast.
September 17 - The first issue of the first daily newspaper in the American Colonies, the 'Pennsylvania Chronicle' is published.
October 28 - English writer Laurence Sterne dies in London at the age of 55.
December 15 - The Corsican General Pasquale Paoli signs the Constitution of the Republic of Corsica.