Year 1789 (MDCCLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 11-day slower Julian calendar).

1789 was the year of the first French Revolution, which ultimately overthrew the French monarchy and triggered a series of European wars that lasted until the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815. The French Revolution was a watershed historical event that drew the age of unlimited monarchies to a close and ushered in the tumultuous 19th century.

Events of 1789

January–June

• January 7 – 1789 United States presidential elections and House of Representatives elections are held.

• January 21 – The first American novel, The Power of Sympathy or the Triumph of Nature Founded in Truth, is printed in Boston, Massachusetts.

• January 23 – Georgetown University is founded in Washington, D.C., becoming the first Catholic college in the United States.

• February 4 – George Washington is unanimously elected the first President of the United States by the United States Electoral College.

• February 12 – Ethan Allen ,Commander of the Green Mountain Boys during the capture of Ft. Ticonderoga and Vermont statesman, dies on his farm in Burlington, Vermont.

• March 4 – At Federal Hall in New York City, the 1st United States Congress meets and declares the new United States Constitution to be in effect.

• March 18 – The last burning at the stake takes place at Newgate when Catherine (or Christian) Murphy is executed for high treason coining.

• April 1 – At Federal Hall, the United States House of Representatives attains its first quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker of the House.

• April 7 – Selim III (1789–1807) succeeds Abd-ul-Hamid I (1773–1789) as Ottoman Sultan .

• April 28 – Mutiny on the Bounty: Fletcher Christian leads the mutiny on HMS Bounty against Captain William Bligh.

• April 30 – George Washington is inaugurated at Federal Hall in New York City, beginning his term as the first President of the United States.

• May 5 – In France, the Estates-General convenes for the first time in 175 years.

• June 14 – Bounty mutiny survivors, including Captain William Bligh and 18 others, reach Timor after a nearly journey in an open boat.

• June 17 – In France, representatives of the Third Estate at the Estates-General declare themselves the National Assembly.

• June 20 – Tennis Court Oath is made in Versailles.

• June 23 – Louis XVI of France makes a conciliatory speech urging reforms to a joint session and orders the three estates to meet together.

July–December

• July – An estimated 150,000 of Paris's 600,000 people are without work.

• July 9

• *In Versailles, the National Assembly reconstitutes itself as the National Constituent Assembly and begins preparations for a French constitution.

• *The Theater War officially ends.

• July 10 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches Mackenzie River Delta.

• July 11 – The King of France fires popular Chief Minister Necker.

• July 12 – An angry Parisian crowd demonstrates against the King’s decision to dismiss Minister Necker.

• July 13 – The people begin to seize arms for the defense of Paris.

• July 14 – The French Revolution (1789–1799) begins: Citizens of Paris storm the Bastille and free seven prisoners. In rural areas, peasants attack noble manors.

• July 27 – The first U.S. federal government agency under the new Constitution, the Department of Foreign Affairs (later renamed the Department of State), is established.

• August 4 – In France, members of the Constituent Assembly take an oath to end feudalism and abandon their privileges.

• August 7 – The United States Department of War is established.

• August 26 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man is proclaimed in France.

• August 28 – William Herschel discovers Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.

• September 2 – The United States Department of the Treasury is founded.

• September 22 – Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792 – Battle of Rymnik: Alexander Suvorov roundly defeats 100,000 Turks.

• September 24 – The Judiciary Act of 1789 establishes the federal judiciary and the United States Marshals Service.

• September 25 – The United States Congress proposes a set of 12 amendments for ratification by the states. Ratification for 10 of these proposals is completed on December 5, 1791, creating the United States Bill of Rights.

• September 29 – The U.S. Department of War establishes the nation's first regular army, with a strength of several hundred men.

• October – Some 7,000 women march from Paris to Versailles to demand action.

• November 6 – Pope Pius VI appoints John Carroll the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States.

• November 20 – New Jersey ratifies the United States Bill of Rights, the first state to do so.

• November 21 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 12th U.S. state.

• November 26 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress.

• December 11 – The University of North Carolina, the oldest public university in the United States, is founded.

• December 23 – A leaflet circulated in France accuses marquis de Favras of plotting to rescue the royal family.

Undated

• Thomas Jefferson returns from Europe, bringing the first macaroni machine to the United States.

• Influenced by Dr. Benjamin Rush's argument against the excessive use of alcohol, about 200 farmers in a Connecticut community form a temperance association.

• Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, decrees that all peasant labor obligations be converted into cash payments.

• Fort Washington is built in Cincinnati, Ohio, to protect early U.S. settlements in the Northwest Territory.

Ongoing

• Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)

• Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)

Births

• January 4 – Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (d. 1839)

• January 12 – Ettore Perrone di San Martino, prime minister of Sardinia (d. 1849)

• January 21 – William Machin Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (d. 1865)

• February 22 – René Edward De Russy, Brigadier General of the United States Army, Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, and military engineer (d. 1865)

• March 16 – Georg Ohm, German physicist (d. 1854)

• May 1 – George Fife Angas, Founder of South Australia (d. 1879)

• July 19 – John Martin, English painter (d. 1854)

• August 21 – Augustin Louis Cauchy, French mathematician (d. 1857)

• August 28 – Stephanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden (d. 1860)

• September 15 – James Fenimore Cooper, American writer (d. 1851)

• October 8 – William John Swainson an English naturalist and artist (d. 1855)

• December 28 – Catharine Sedgwick, American writer (d. 1867)

• date unknown – Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq, Urdu poet (d. 1854)

• Friedrich List, German journalist (d. 1846)

Deaths

• January 1 – Fletcher Norton, 1st Baron Grantley, English politician (b. 1716)

• January 8 – Jack Broughton, English boxer (b. 1703)

• January 23 – Frances Brooke, English writer (b. 1724)

• February 19 – Nicholas Van Dyke, American lawyer and President of Delaware (b. 1738)

• April 7 – Abd-ul-Hamid I, Ottoman Sultan (b. 1725)

• April 7 – Petrus Camper, Dutch anatomist (b. 1722)

• April 26 – Count Petr Ivanovich Panin, Russian soldier (b. 1721)

• May 9 – Jean Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, French artillery specialist (b. 1715)

• May 25 – Anders Dahl, Swedish botanist (b. 1751)

• June 4 – Prince Louis-Joseph of France, son of Louis XVI of France (tuberculosis) (b. 1781)

• July 13 – Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, French economist (b. 1715)

• July 14 – Jacques de Flesselles, French provost (assassinated) (b. 1721)

• July 15 – Jacques Duphly, French composer (b. 1715)

• July 22 – Joseph-François Foulon, French politician (executed) (b. 1715)

• October 27 – John Cook, American farmer and President of Delaware (b. 1730)

• December 3 – Claude Joseph Vernet, French painter (b. 1714)

• December 12 – John Ponsonby, Irish politician (b. 1713)

• December 23 – Charles-Michel de l'Épée, French philanthropist and developer of signed French (b. 1712)