Year 1774 (MDCCLXXIV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).
Events of 1774
January - June
July - December
- 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.
Undated
Births
- February 11 - Hans Jarta, Swedish political activist and administrator (d. 1847)
- February 24 - Prince Adolphus, 1st Duke of Cambridge (d. 1850)
- March 9 - Mayhew Folger, whaler, captain of Topaz (ship), rediscovered Pitcairn Islands in 1808 (d. 1828)
- March 16 - Captain Matthew Flinders, English explorer (d. 1814)
- July 20 - Auguste Marmont, French marshal (d. 1852)
- August 12 - Robert Southey, English poet and biographer (d. 1843)
- August 28 - Elizabeth Ann Seton, co-founder of Mount Saint Mary's University, founder of the Sisters of Charity (d. 1821)
- September 5 - Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (d. 1840)
- September 26 - Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), nurseryman/missionary planted apple-tree nurseries in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (d. 1847)
- date unknown - Sergei Nikolayevich Glinka - Russian author, brother of Fedor Nikolaevich Glinka (d. 1847)
- See also Category: 1774 births.
Deaths
- January 21 - Mustafa III, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1717)
- February 4 - Charles Marie de La Condamine, French mathematician and geographer (b. 1701)
- April 4 - Oliver Goldsmith, English writer (b. 1730)
- May 4 - Anthony Ulrich II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (b. 1714)
- May 10 - King Louis XV of France (b. 1710)
- July 1 - Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, English statesman (b. 1705)
- July 11 - Sir William Johnson, 1st Baronet, Irish-born New York pioneer
- July 14 - James O'Hara, 2nd Baron Tyrawley and Kilmaine, British field marshal (b. 1682)
- August 11 - Tiphaigne de la Roche, French writer (b. 1722)
- August 14 - Johann Jakob Reiske, German scholar and physician (b. 1716)
- August 25 - Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer (b. 1714)
- September 22 - Pope Clement XIV (b. 1705)
- September 25 - John Bradstreet, Canadian-born soldier (b. 1714)
- October 23 - Michel Benoist, French Jesuit missionary and scientist (b. 1715)
- October 26 - Roemer Vlacq II, Dutch vice-admiral (b. 1712)
- November 22 - Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, British general and statesman (b. 1725)
- December 2 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, German composer (b. 1720)
- December 16 - François Quesnay, French economist (b. 1694)
- Elizabeth Woollat, wife of Jedediah Strutt (b. 1729).
- See also Category: 1774 deaths.
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