Events[edit]
January 10: Common Sense published
January–February[edit]
January 1 – American Revolutionary War: Burning of Norfolk: The town of Norfolk, Virginia, is destroyed by the combined actions of the British Royal Navy and occupying Patriot forces.
January 10 – American Revolution: The radical Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense "written by an Englishman" in Philadelphia arguing for independence from British rule in the Thirteen Colonies.[1]
January 20 – American Revolution: South Carolina Loyalists led by Robert Cunningham sign a petition from prison agreeing to all demands for peace by the formed state government of South Carolina.
January 24 – American Revolution: Henry Knox arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts, with the artillery that he has transported from Fort Ticonderoga
February 17 – Edward Gibbon publishes the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
February 27 – American Revolution: Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge: Scottish North Carolina Loyalists charge across Moore's Creek bridge near Wilmington to attack what they mistakenly believe to be a small force of rebels. Several loyalist leaders are killed in the ensuing battle. The patriot victory[2] virtually ends all British authority in the town.
March–April[edit]
March 2–3 – The American Revolution:
Battle of Nassau: The American Continental Navy and Marines make a successful assault on Nassau, Bahamas.
Battle of the Rice Boats: American Patriots resist the Royal Navy on the Savannah River. British control over the Province of Georgia is lost.
March 4 – American Revolution: American Patriots capture Dorchester Heights dominating the port of Boston, Massachusetts.
March 9 – Scottish economist Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations in