Events of 1785

January–June

• January 1 – The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London.

• January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.

• January 27 – The University of Georgia is founded.

• May 10 – A hot air balloon crashes in Tullamore, causing a fire that burns down about 100 houses, making it the world's first aviation disaster (by 36 days).

• June 15 – After several attempts, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and his companion, Pierre Romain, set off in a balloon from Boulogne-sur-Mer, but the balloon suddenly deflates (without the envelope catching fire) and crashes near Wimereux in the Pas-de-Calais, killing both men. Although more than a month after the Tullamore crash, some people consider this crash the world's first aviation disaster.

July–December

• July 6 – The dollar is unanimously chosen as the money unit for the United States (the first time a nation has adopted a decimal coinage system).

• August 1 – The fleet of French explorer Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse leaves Paris for the circumnavigation of the globe.

• August 15 – Cardinal de Rohan is arrested in Paris; the Necklace Affair comes into the open.

• November – A drought occurs in Haiti.

• November 28 – The Treaty of Hopewell is signed between the United States of America and the Cherokee Nation.

Undated

• The University of New Brunswick is founded in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.

• Coal gas is first used for illumination.

• Louis XVI of France signs to a law that a handkerchief must be square.

• The British government establishes a permanent land force in the Eastern Caribbean, based in Barbados.

• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Lincolnton, North Carolina (named for American General Benjamin Lincoln) as the new county seat for Lincoln County.

• Belfast Academy (later Belfast Royal Academy) is founded by Rev. Dr James Crombie in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

• Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi publishes Letters on the Teachings of Spinoza, and starts the Pantheism controversy.

• Napoleon Bonaparte becomes a lieutenant in the French artillery.

Births

• January 4

• *Jakob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist, and writer (d. 1863)

• *Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (d. 1831)

• February 8 – Martín Miguel de Güemes Argentine military leader (d. 1821)

• February 10 – Claude-Louis Navier, French engineer and physicist (d. 1836)

• March 27 – Louis XVII of France (d. 1795)

• April 4 – Bettina von Arnim, German poet (d. 1859)

• April 26 – John James Audubon, French-American naturalist and illustrator (d. 1851)

• May 18 – John Wilson, Scottish writer (d. 1854)

• May 20 – Marcellin Champagnat, Saint

• July 6 – William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (d. 1865)

• August 15 – Thomas de Quincey, English writer (d. 1859)

• August 23 – Oliver Hazard Perry, American naval officer (d. 1819)

• September 27 – David Walker, Abolitionist (d. 1830)

• October 15 – José Miguel Carrera, Chilean general and founding father (d. 1821)

• October 18 – Thomas Love Peacock, English satirist (d. 1866)

• October 20 – George Ormerod, English historian and antiquarian (d. 1873)

• November 18 – David Wilkie, Scottish artist (d. 1841)

• December 23 – Christian Gobrecht, designer of the "Liberty Seated" coins (d. 1844)

Deaths

• January 3 – Baldassare Galuppi, Italian composer (b. 1706)

• January 19 – Jonathan Toup, English classical scholar and critic (b. 1713)

• January 23 – Matthew Stewart, Scottish mathematician (b. 1717)

• April 14 – William Whitehead, English writer (b. 1715)

• May 8

• *Etienne Francois, Duke of Choiseul, French statesman (b. 1719)

• *Pietro Longhi, Venetian painter (b. 1701)

• June 2 – Jean Paul de Gua de Malves, French mathematician (b. 1713)

• June 30 – James Oglethorpe, English general and founder of the state of Georgia (b. 1696)

• August 17 – Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of the Colony and the state of Connecticut (b. 1710)

• August 26 – George Germain, 1st Viscount Sackville, British soldier and politician (b. 1716)

• August 28 – Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, French sculptor (b. 1714)

• October 4 – David Brearly, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1703)

• November 18 – Louis Philip I, Duke of Orléans, French soldier and writer (b. 1725)

• November 19 – Bernard de Bury, French composer (b. 1720)

• November 25 – Richard Glover, English poet (b. 1712)

• December 6 – Kitty Clive, English actress and playwright (b. 1711)

• December 29 – Johan Herman Wessel, Norwegian author (b. 1742)