Early Modern
Mesmer Royal Commission (1784): Franklin Tests Mesmerism
The commission found no evidence for a magnetic fluid and attributed the patients' reactions to imagination, discrediting animal magnetism as science.
Era · c. 1500 – 1800
Early Modern
Voyages of exploration, the Reformation and the age of revolutions that reshaped Europe and the wider world.
Early Modern
Kant's What Is Enlightenment? (1784): Dare to Know, Sapere Aude
Kant's short essay became the most famous definition of the Enlightenment and a lasting statement on freedom of thought and public reason.
Early Modern
La Pérouse Expedition (1785-1788): The Lost French Voyage
The two frigates charted much of the Pacific rim but were wrecked at Vanikoro in 1788 with no confirmed survivors; their fate was solved only from 1826 onwards.
Early Modern
Shays' Rebellion (1786–1787): Farmers' Uprising in Massachusetts
The uprising was put down by state militia, but it led to tax relief in Massachusetts and strengthened calls for a stronger federal constitution.
Early Modern
Northwest Ordinance (1787): Governing the Old Northwest
Congress created the Northwest Territory, set a path from territory to equal statehood and prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River.
Early Modern
The Federalist Papers (1787–1788): Hamilton, Madison and Jay
The essays helped make the case for ratification and became the most influential commentary on the US Constitution.
Early Modern
US Constitution (1787): Philadelphia Convention and Ratification
The convention replaced the Articles of Confederation with a new federal constitution, which was ratified in 1788 and took effect in 1789.
Early Modern
Province of Freedom (1787): The Sierra Leone Resettlement Scheme
The first settlement, Granville Town, failed, but the scheme led to the Sierra Leone Company and the founding of Freetown by Black Loyalists from Nova Scotia in 1792.
Early Modern
Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1787)
The society built a national campaign of petitions, publications and boycotts that helped bring about the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807.
Early Modern
First Fleet (1787–1788): Convict Ships Sail to Botany Bay
The fleet founded the penal colony of New South Wales at Sydney Cove, beginning British settlement of Australia and the dispossession of its Aboriginal peoples.
Early Modern
Sino-Nepalese War (1788-1792): The Qing Army in the Himalayas
Nepal was forced to make peace, return plunder taken from Tibet and send tribute missions to Beijing, while the Qing tightened control over Tibet.
Early Modern
Brookes Slave Ship Diagram (1788): The Image That Shocked Britain
The diagram became the most widely reproduced image of the abolition campaign and a lasting symbol of the Middle Passage.