* 1776 – American Revolutionary War: Ships of the Continental Navy fail in their attempt to capture a Royal Navy dispatch boat.

* 1776 – American Revolution: With the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.

* 1776 – The Battle of Long Island: in what is now Brooklyn, New York, British forces under General William Howe defeat Americans under General George Washington.

* 1776 – Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist ( d. 1856 )

* 1717 – Louis François, Prince of Conti ( d. 1776 )

* 1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.

* 1734 – Duchess Maria Anna Josepha of Bavaria ( d. 1776 )

* 1776 – Thomas Bladen Capel English navy admiral ( d. 1853 )

* 1776 – American Revolutionary War: American forces are surprised in the Battle of Bound Brook, New Jersey.

In the years between 1776 – 78, Volta studied the chemistry of gases.

Maria's sister, Elizabeth Branwell ( 1776 – 1842 ), moved to the parsonage, initially to nurse her dying sister, but she spent the rest of her life there raising the children.

* 1776 – American Revolutionary War: word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.

* Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first leader of free modern Greece ( 1776 – 1831 ), had a large building erected ; intended as a barracks, it was subsequently used as a museum, a library and a school.

* 1710 – James Ferguson, Scottish astronomer ( d. 1776 )

* 1776 – Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh ( d. 1857 )

* 1776 – Captain John Barry and the captures the Edward.

* Benjamin Franklin: First American Diplomat, 1776 – 1785 US State Department

* 1776 – Marquis de Lafayette arranges to enter the American military as a major general.

* 1776 – Johann Wilhelm Ritter, German physicist ( d. 1810 )

* 1776 – At The College of William and Mary, Phi Beta Kappa is founded and becomes the first American college fraternity.

* 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The British are defeated in the Battle of Trenton.

* 1776 – Nikolay Kamensky, Russian general ( d. 1811 )

His first wife, Juliet Macpherson ( c. 1776 – 1850 ), was a daughter of James Macpherson ( 1736 – 1796 ), a probable translator of Ossian poems.

Edvard Munch was related to painter Jacob Munch ( 1776 – 1839 ) and historian Peter Andreas Munch ( 1810 – 1863 ).

) – July 4, 1826 ) was an American Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence ( 1776 ) and the third President of the United States ( 1801 – 1809 ).

The Mission was founded on June 29, 1776, by Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Father Francisco Palóu ( a companion of Father Junipero Serra ), both members of the de Anza Expedition, which had been charged with bringing Spanish settlers to Alta ( upper ) California, and evangelizing the local Natives, the Ohlone.

Founders: Father Francisco Palóu, O. F. M., Father Pedro Benito Cambón, O. F. M .- June 27, 1776

One year later Father Serra himself, along with Fathers Amúrrio and Pablo de Mugártegui, took up work on the Mission at San Juan Capistrano ; the contingent, accompanied by eleven soldiers, arrived on October 30 or 31, 1776.

Father Serra celebrated High Mass in thanksgiving on November 1, 1776 — celebrated ever since as the official founding date.

Father Amúrrio performed the Mission's first baptism on December 19 of that year ( a total of 4, 639 souls were converted at the Mission between 1776 and 1847.

A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.

The Kern River was originally named Rio Bravo de San Felipe by Father Francisco Garces when he explored the area in 1776.

The complete Spanish name was Rio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores ( River of our Lady of Sorrows ), as reported by Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante in 1776.

When Father Francisco Garcés visited the area in 1776, he recorded that the Indians were cultivating crops.

The first European to see Utah Lake was Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante in 1776.

Father Francisco Garces, a Spanish Franciscan friar, is believed to have traveled the west end of the valley in 1776.

And when the chapel burnt down again in 1776, Father Michael Priester pressed for the archiepiscopal vicariate general to work towards getting the Count of Schönborn to build it anew.

In 1806, Father Jose Maria Zalvidea, diarist for the expedition of First Lieutenant Francisco Ruiz, into the San Joaquin Valley, named the canyon, creek and pass discovered by padre Francisco Garces in 1776, " Tejon " ( badger ) after a dead badger found at the canyon mouth.

Father Pedro Font, while on the de Anza Expedition to found the Presidio of San Francisco in March, 1776 wrote in his diary, " we saw a grove of live oaks near which is the Laguna de la Merced, where Captain Ribera stopped ; and here we saw many bears ( California Grizzly Bear )..." Once owned by Francisco De Haro, first Alcalde of Yerba Buena, as part of the Galindo ranch, the Spring Valley Water Company bought the water rights for the Lake in 1868, and the surrounding watershed in successive years.

Father Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, a Spanish Franciscan missionary is considered the first European explorer in the area in 1776, but only came as far north as Utah valley ( Provo ), some 60 miles south of the Salt Lake City area.

Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, the sixth Spanish Mission, was founded on June 29, 1776, by Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Father Francisco Palóu ( a companion of Junípero Serra ), both members of the 1775 – 1776 de Anza Expedition.

Major John Cartwright also supported the colonists, even as the American Revolutionary War began, and in 1776 earned the title of the " Father of Reform " when he published his pamphlet Take Your Choice!

Finally, Father Pedro Font, on the second de Anza Expedition in 1776, described the coastal Chumash women as wearing beaver capes.