1772

Events

January–March

January 10 – Shah Alam II, the Mughal Emperor of India, makes a triumphant return to Delhi 15 years after having been forced to flee.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
January 17 – Johann Friedrich Struensee and Queen Caroline Matilda are arrested, leading to his execution and her banishment from Denmark.
February 12
- Breton-French explorer Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec discovers the uninhabited Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean.
- The Virginia Assembly amends an act to describe the punishments for the practice of gouging.<ref name="Hening">Template:Cite web</ref>
February 17 – The First Partition of Poland is agreed to by Russia and Prussia, later including Austria.
March 8 – Biela's Comet is first discovered by French astronomer Jacques Leibax Montaigne, but not proven to be a periodic comet until 1826, when Wilhelm von Biela correctly identifies its return.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
March 20 – Pedro Fages, the Spanish Governor of Alta California, and Juan Crespí, a Catholic priest, set off from the capital at Monterey with a party of 12 soldiers and begin the first European exploration of the lands around San Francisco Bay.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

April–June

April 8 – Massachusetts legislator Samuel Adams persuades his colleagues to approve his plan for creating a Committee of Correspondence to begin a dialogue with the other American colonies concerning mutual problems with England.<ref>"The Revenue Administration of Bengal, 1765-86", by R. B. Ramsbotham, in The Cambridge History of the British Empire, H. H. Dodwell, ed. (Cambridge University Press Archive, 1929) p. 413</ref><ref>Samuel Fallows, Samuel Adams: A Character Sketch, with Anecdotes, Characteristics and Chronology (The University Association, 1898) p. 110</ref>
April 13 – Warren Hastings begins his service for the British East India Company as Governor of Bengal, arriving at the company's headquarters at Fort William, outside of Calcutta, and including what are now parts of northeast India and Bangladesh.<ref>Jaswant Lal Mehta, Advanced Study in the History of Modern India 1707-1813 (Sterling Publishers, 2005) p. 510</ref> Hastings serves for two years, then later becomes Governor-General of India.
May 8 – The Watauga Association Compact is signed in what is now East Tennessee by a group of white settlers led by William Bean, creating the first non-colonial government body in British North America.<ref>Lewis L. Laska, The Tennessee State Constitution: A Reference Guide (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1990) p. 1</ref>
June 9 – Gaspee Affair: In an act of defiance against the British Navigation Acts, American patriots, led by Abraham Whipple, attack and burn the British customs schooner HMS Gaspee off of Rhode Island.
June 10 – The crisis of 1772 is triggered when, following the flight of their partner Alexander Fordyce to France, the London banking house of Neal, James, Fordyce and Down (which has been speculating in East India Company stock) suspends payment. The resultant panic causes other banks to fail, extends to Scotland, Amsterdam and the Thirteen Colonies and threatens the East India Company with bankruptcy.
June 22 – Somersett's Case: Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, delivers the decision that leads to the end of slavery in England.<ref name="Cassell's Chronology327">Template:Cite book</ref>
June 23–28 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774): First of two Russian occupations of Beirut, following a naval bombardment which began on June 18.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

July–September

July 13 – The second voyage of James Cook departs from Plymouth on Captain Cook's new ship, HMS Resolution and the companion ship HMS Adventure in an attempt to prove the existence of an uncharted continent even further south than New Zealand.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
August 5 – The first Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth begins. The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria becomes part of the crown lands of the Habsburg monarchy.
August 12 – The volcano Mount Papandayan in West Java erupts and partially collapses, the debris avalanche killing several thousand.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
August 21 – A coup d'état by King Gustav III is completed by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden, and making him an enlightened despot.
September 1 – Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is founded in San Luis Obispo, California.

October–December

October 28 – Basque-Spanish explorer Domingo de Bonechea, in the Aguila, sights Tauere atoll, which he names San Simon y Judas.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
November 2 – American Revolutionary War: Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren form the first Committee of Correspondence.
December 14
- Russian government offices reopen at Moscow and Saint Petersburg after being closed for 15 months because of an epidemic of bubonic plague.<ref>John T. Alexander, Catherine the Great: Life and Legend (Oxford University Press, 1989) p159</ref>
- Second voyage of James Cook: The crew of Template:HMS finds that the ice floes encountered on their journey south are a source of fresh water, a "discovery... of utmost importance to the success of the voyage."<ref>"Anders Sparrman, 1748—1820", in Oceanographic History: The Pacific and Beyond, ed. by Keith R. Benson and Philip F. Rehbock (University of Washington Press, 2002) p230</ref>

Date unknown

Scottish scientist Daniel Rutherford discovers nitrogen gas, isolating it from air.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, demands that all bodies remain unburied for three days to ensure that death has actually taken place.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>