1769

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File:Endeavour replica in Cooktown harbour.jpg

April 13: James Cook arrives in Tahiti on the Endeavour.

File:CugnotAppleton.jpg

October 23: Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates first steam-powered vehicle.

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Events

January–March

February 2 – Pope Clement XIII dies, the night before preparing an order to dissolve the Jesuits.<ref name=DeLucca>Denis De Lucca, Jesuits and Fortifications: The Contribution of the Jesuits to Military Architecture in the Baroque Age (BRILL, 2012) pp315-316</ref>
February 17 – The British House of Commons votes not to allow MP John Wilkes to take his seat after he wins a by-election, on the grounds that he was an outlaw when standing.<ref>"The Ethics and Philosophy of By-Elections", by J.G. Swift MacNeill, in The Fortnightly Review (April 1, 1920) p557</ref>
March 4 – Mozart departs Italy, after the last of his three tours there.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
March 16 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville returns to Saint-Malo, following a three-year circumnavigation of the world with the ships Boudeuse and Étoile, with the loss of only seven out of 330 men; among the members of the expedition is Jeanne Baré, the first woman known to have circumnavigated the globe. She returns to France some time after Bougainville and his ships.

April–June

April 13 – James Cook arrives in Tahiti, on the ship HM Bark Endeavour, preparing for the 1769 Transit of Venus observed from Tahiti on June 3. After the voyage, the data is found to be inaccurate in determining the distance between the Sun and Earth.
April 29 – Scottish inventor James Watt is granted a British patent for "A method of lessening the consumption of steam in steam engines" – the separate condenser,<ref>Patent 913; specification accepted January 5.</ref> a key improvement (first devised by Watt in 1765) and the basis for the Watt steam engine which stimulates the Industrial Revolution.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
May 9 – France conquers Corsica.
May 14 – Charles III of Spain sends Spanish missionaries, who found California missions in San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Monterey, and begin the settlement of California.
May 19 – Cardinal Giovanni Vincenzo Antonio Ganganelli is elected as the 249th pope, succeeding the late Clement XIII and choosing to take the regnal name of Pope Clement XIV.<ref name=DeLucca/>
June 3 – A transit of Venus is followed five hours later by a total solar eclipse, the shortest such interval in historical times. The transit is viewed by King George III of Great Britain, at the Kew Observatory.
June 7 – Frontiersman Daniel Boone first begins to explore modern-day Kentucky.

July–September

July 3 – Richard Arkwright patents a spinning frame in England, able to spin threads mechanically.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology325">Template:Cite book</ref>
July 16 – Father Junípero Serra founds Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the first of the 21 California missions.
July 20 – Recently appointed as the Governor of Spanish Louisiana, Irish-born soldier of fortune Alejandro O'Reilly sails into the French fort of La Balize with 21 Spanish ships, along with 2,056 soldiers, cannons and ammunition, and informs French Louisiana Governor Charles Philippe Aubry of his royal commission to take Louisiana on behalf of the King of Spain.<ref>Joan Garvey and Mary Lou Widmer, Beautiful Crescent: A History of New Orleans (Pelican Publishing, 2012) pp62-63</ref>
August 3 – The party of Gaspar de Portolà becomes the first white group to set foot in the area now known as Santa Monica, California.
August 18 – Brescia Explosion: The city of Brescia, Italy is devastated when the Church of San Nazaro is struck by lightning. The resulting fire ignites 200,000 lb (90,000 kg) of gunpowder being stored there, causing a massive explosion, which destroys 1/6 of the city and kills 3,000 people.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
September – Massive droughts in Bengal lead to the Bengal famine of 1770, in which ten million people, a third of the population, will die, the worst natural disaster in human history (in terms of lives lost).
September 6–9 – David Garrick holds a Shakespeare Jubilee festival at Stratford-upon-Avon in England.
September 10 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–74): Russian forces take the Ottoman fortress of Chocim in Bukovina.

October–December

October 1 – James Cook names White Island, off the coast of New Zealand.
October 7 – James Cook lands in New Zealand, at Poverty Bay.
October 9 – In the first encounter between the Māori people and Europeans (at the future site of Gisborne, New Zealand), one Maori is shot and killed after he steals a sword from one of the officers of the Cook expedition. Several more Māori are killed in fighting the next day.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
October 23 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot demonstrates a steam-powered artillery tractor (see drawing) in France.
November 1 – A party of the expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola becomes the first Europeans to reach San Francisco Bay. Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega and his group accidentally discover the area while searching for Drakes Bay in Alta California.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
November 12 –The Gorkhali Army conquer the last standing Malla Kingdom of Bhaktapur marking the end of The Malla dynasty in Nepal.
November 21 – Ireland's House of Commons rejects a spending bill passed by Great Britain's parliament, by a 94–71 margin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
December 13 – Dartmouth College is established in Hanover, New Hampshire, as John Wentworth, the Royal Governor, conveys a charter from King George III of Great Britain.
December 22 – The Sino-Burmese War (1765–69) is ended by a truce.