1797
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Year 1797 (MDCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1797

January - February

• January 1 - New Year Eve Party with the invention of confetti and party hats.^{citation needed}
• January 3 - The Treaty of Tripoli (a peace treaty between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Algiers. see also 1796.
• January 7 - The parliament of the Cisalpine Republic adopts the Italian green-white-red tricolour as official flag. It is the birthday of the flag of Italy.
• January 15 - London haberdasher John Hetherington wears silk top hat in public and attracts a large crowd of onlookers. He is later fined £500 for causing public nuisance.
• February 14 - The Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797), part of the Wars of the French Revolution.
• February 18 - Spanish Governor Chacón peacefully surrenders the colony of Trinidad to a British naval force commanded by Sir Ralph Abercromby.
• February 22 - The Last invasion of Britain begins. French forces under the command of American Colonel William Tate land near Fishguard in Wales.
• February 25 - Tate surrenders to the British at Fishguard.
• February 26 - The Bank of England (national bank of Britain) issues the first one-pound and two-pound notes (discontinued March 11, 1988).

March - June

• March 4 - John Adams succeeds George Washington as the President of the United States of America.
• April 16 - Spithead and Nore mutinies.
• April 17 - Sir Ralph Abercromby unsuccessfully invades San Juan, Puerto Rico in what would be one of the largest British attacks on Spanish territories in the western hemisphere and one of the worst defeats of the English navy for years to come.
• May 12 - First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice, ending the 1070 years of independence of the city. The last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, steps down.
• May 30 - William Wiberforce marries Barbra Ann Spooner.

July - December

• July 24 - Horatio Nelson is wounded at the Battle of Santa Cruz, losing an arm.
• October 17 - Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.
• October 21 - In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli.
• December 17 - Napoleon leads a successful French charge against Fort l'Aiguilette to secure Toulon.

Undated

• Joseph Haydn composes the music to "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser," the tune of which also became the music to the German national anthem, "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles."
• XYZ Affair between France and the United States

Ongoing events

• French Revolution (1789-1799).
• French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-First Coalition.

Births

• January 10 - Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, German writer (died 1848)
• January 31 - Franz Schubert, Austrian pianist and composer (died 1828)
• February 15 -Henry Engelhard Steinway, German-American piano manufacturer (died 1871)
• March 22 - Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany (died 1888)
• March 27 - Alfred de Vigny, French author (died 1863)
• May 6 - Joseph Brackett, American religious leader and composer (died 1882)
• May 18 - Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, (died 1854)
• July 20 - Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (died 1873)
• August 30 - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer (died 1851)
• October 3 - Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (died 1870)
• November 14 - Sir Charles Lyell, British geologist (died 1875)
• November 29 - Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer (died 1848)
• December 13 - Heinrich Heine, German poet (died 1856)
• December 17 - Joseph Henry, American scientist (died 1878)
• date unknown - Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Japanese woodblock print or ukiyo-e (died 1861)

See also Category: 1797 births.

Deaths

• January 13 - Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig-Bevern, wife of Frederick II of Prussia (born 1715)
• February 11 - Antoine Dauvergne, French composer (born 1713)
• February 22 - Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, German officer and adventurer (born 1720)
• March 2 - Horace Walpole, English politician and writer (born 1717)
• March 26 - James Hutton, Scottish geologist (born 1726)
• March 31 - Olaudah Equiano Nigerian ex-slave and slavery abolitionist (born 1745)
• May 17 - Michel-Jean Sedaine, French dramatist (born 1719)
• May 25 - John Griffin Whitwell, 4th Baron Howard de Walden, British field marshal (born 1719)
• May 27 - François-Noël Babeuf, French revolutionary leader (executed) (born 1760)
• May 27 - Augustin Alexandre Darthé, French revolutionary leader (executed) (born 1769)
• July 9 - Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher (born 1723)
• July 11 - Ienăchiţă Văcărescu, Wallachian writer (born 1740)
• August 3 - Jeffrey Amherst, British military commander (born 1717)
• August 22 - Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser, Alsatian-born Austrian general (born 1724)
• September 10 - Mary Wollstonecraft, feminist author (born 1759)
• October 9 - Vilna Gaon, Lithuanian rabbi (born 1720)
• November 14 - Ivan Shuvalov, founder of the Moscow University (born 1727)
• November 16 - King Frederick William II of Prussia (born 1744)
• November 18 - Jacques-Alexandre Laffon de Ladebat, French shipbuilder and merchant (born 1719)
• November 29 - Samuel Langdon, American President of Harvard University (born 1723)
• December 11 - Richard Brocklesby, English physician (born 1722)

See also Category: 1797 deaths.

Fiction

The events of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night happen in this year.