Calendar of Literary Facts

1770

  • Prime Minister Lord North’s government eliminates many of the Townshend duties, but keeps in place a tax on imported tea; British regiments are quartered in the colonies
  • The Boston Massacre occurs when British troops fire upon a band of taunting Bostonians
  • Captain James Cook claims the region known today as New South Wales, Australia for Great Britain
  • Haiku becomes a popular poetic form in Japan
  • William Wordsworth is born (April 7)
  • Friedrich Holderlin is born (March 20)
  • Mark Akenside dies (June 23)
  • Thomas Chatterton dies (August 24)