Editing 1785 (section)

=== October&ndash;December ===
* [[October 5]] &ndash; [[Vincenzo Lunardi]] of Italy becomes the first person to pilot a balloon over [[Scotland]].<ref>"On Air Balloons" (''Mechanics Magazine'', June 17, 1826) p102
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* [[October 13]]
** The first newspaper in British India, the English-language ''[[Madras Courier]]'', is published. It continues publication as a weekly until 1794.<ref>Henry Davison Love, ed., ''Indian Records Series: Vestiges of Old Madras, 1640-1800'' (Mittal Publications, p440</ref>
** [[France]] mints new [[Louis d'or]] coins, with the image of [[Louis XVI of France|King Louis XVI]] on the obverse, and one-sixth less gold than the coins with King Louis XV's image.<ref>Jean-Baptise Say, ''A Treatise on Political Economy'' (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2008) p254</ref> 
* [[October 17]] &ndash; The Commonwealth of Virginia stops the importation of new [[History of slavery in Virginia|African slaves]] by declaring that "No persons shall henceforth be slaves within this commonwealth, except such as were so on the seventeenth day of October, 1785, and the descendants of the females of them."  <ref>W. E. B. Du Bois, ''The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade'' (Wilberforce University, 1896, reprinted by Oxford University Press, 2014) p xxv</ref>
* [[October 18]] &ndash; [[Benjamin Franklin]] takes office as the new [[Governor of Pennsylvania|President of the Supreme Council of Pennsylvania]], at the time the equivalent of a republic as one of the 13 independent governments of the United States of America under the [[Articles of Confederation]].<ref name=Zall/>
* [[November 23]] &ndash; [[John Hancock]] of Massachusetts, the former President of the Continental Congress, is selected as the new President of the Congress of the Confederation, but is unable to take office because of illness.<ref name="Harper1785"/>
* [[November 28]] &ndash; The [[Treaty of Hopewell]] is signed between the United States of America and the [[Cherokee Nation]].
* [[December 11]] &ndash; An edict is issued limiting [[Freemasonry|Masonic lodges]] throughout the [[Holy Roman Empire]] by [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor Joseph II]]. With the exception of [[Vienna]], [[Budapest]] and [[Prague]], no Empire province may have more than one lodge.<ref>Jasper Ridley, ''The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society'' (Skyhorse Publishing, 2011)</ref>