1770 – 1780s

Events in the 1770s 7

• 1694 – 1778 Voltaire French philosopher and writer Voltaire was a leading Enlightenment thinker who defended freedom of speech, religion, and reason.
• 1707 – 1778 Carl Linnaeus Father of Modern Taxonomy Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist who created the binomial system of naming organisms still used across the biological sciences today. Trained in medicine at Lund and Uppsala, he spent his early career collecting and classifying plants and animals across Scandinavia and the Netherlands before returning to a long professorship at Uppsala University. His landmark works, including Systema Naturae and Species Plantarum, imposed a rigorous, hierarchical order on the natural world that transformed botany and zoology into systematic sciences. Ennobled as Carl von Linné in 1761, he trained dozens of students, the so-called "Linnaean Apostles," who carried his methods to every continent.
• 1770 – 1850 Jane Austen English novelist Austen wrote novels like Pride and Prejudice that examine class, love, and society with sharp irony and realism.
• 1770 – 1827 Ludwig van Beethoven Classical & Romantic titan German composer whose 9 symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and string quartets bridged the Classical and Romantic eras. He composed his greatest works while profoundly deaf.
• 1771 – 1777 Lavoisier — oxygen and the chemical revolution The role of oxygen in combustion, breathing and chemistry Antoine Lavoisier of Paris identified oxygen as a distinct element (naming it in 1777), demonstrated its role in combustion and respiration, showed that air is a mixture of gases, and established the law of conservation of mass. His Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (1789) reformulated chemistry using a new systematic nomenclature still used today. He is considered the founder of modern chemistry.
• 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca -- Russia dominant The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), ending the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, is the most damaging diplomatic defeat in Ottoman history before the 19th century. Russia gains the Crimea (formally in 1783), access to the Black Sea, and -- crucially -- the right to protect Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, giving the Tsar a permanent pretext for interference in Ottoman internal affairs. Catherine the Great formulates the 'Greek Project' -- the partition of Ottoman Europe and restoration of a Byzantine Empire under Russian patronage. The Black Sea ceases to be an Ottoman lake.
• 1775 – 1851 J. M. W. Turner Romanticism · England J. M. W. Turner (April 23, 1775 – December 19, 1851) was an English Romantic painter famous for his luminous seascapes and atmospheric landscapes. He anticipated Impressionism by decades and is considered Britain's greatest painter.