Edward Jenner inoculates the boy James Phipps with cowpox material, pioneering vaccination against smallpox.
A British embassy led by Lord Macartney meets the Qianlong Emperor but fails to secure expanded trade.
The revolutionary government dominated by the Committee of Public Safety carries out mass repression, with tens of thousands executed; it ends with the fall of Robespierre.
Condemned by the National Convention, the former king Louis XVI is guillotined at the Place de la Révolution in Paris.
Napoleon Bonaparte overthrows the Directory and establishes the Consulate, holding supreme power as First Consul.
Alessandro Volta announces the voltaic pile, the first source of continuous electric current.
Parisians storm the Bastille fortress-prison, an iconic moment of the French Revolution.