20 January – Great Britain signs preliminary peace treaties with the Kingdoms of France and of Spain at Versailles.[3]
27 January – The Herald newspaper begins publication as the weekly Glasgow Advertiser; it will become the longest continually-published daily in Britain.[2]
19 March – Zong massacre: the case of a British slave trader who, in 1781, threw approximately 142 slaves overboard to conserve supplies for the remainder, the owners subsequently attempting to reclaim part of their value from insurers, is revealed by Olaudah Equiano to anti-slavery activist Granville Sharp, creating new support for abolitionism.[6]
8 June – a sulphurous haze from the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland gives rise to the "sand-summer", thought to have caused the deaths of more than 10,000 people in Britain.[10]
1–31 July – the hottest month in the CET series until July 1983 with a mean temperature of 18.8 °C (65.8 °F) features what is still the highest minimum daily CET for any month at 16.3 °C (61.3 °F).[11]
3 September – Peace of Paris: The Treaty of Paris between Britain and the United States is signed, formally ending the American Revolutionary War and granting the United States independence from Great Britain; and treaties are signed between Britain, France and Spain at Versailles ending hostilities with the Franco-Spanish Alliance.[4]
25 November – American Revolutionary War: Evacuation Day (New York) – the last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.[4]
27 November – English rector John Michell concludes that some stars might have enough gravity force to prevent light escaping from them, so he calls them "dark stars".
^Cobbett, William, ed. (1814). The Parliamentary History of England: From the Earliest Period to Year 1803, Vol. XXIII: The Parliamentary Debates, 10 May 1782 to 1 December 1783. London: T. C. Hansard. pp. 346–354.
.svg){kind=small}
