* 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 ).

The committee met repeatedly, and chairman John Dickinson presented their results to the Congress on July 12, 1776.

* 1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

John Harrison ( 24 March 1693 – 24 March 1776 ) was a self-educated English carpenter and later a clockmaker.

" Other theories include those in Johann Friedrich Breithaupt's Christliche Helden Insel Malta (), published in 1632, where he calls Maltese a mixed ' barbaric ' language and John Dryden's description of the language as ' Berber ' on his visit to the islands ( the memoirs of those journeys appeared in 1776 ).

* 1693 – John Harrison, British clockmaker ( d. 1776 )

* 1776 – John Harrison, English clockmaker ( b. 1693 )

On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a " Committee of Five ", consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration.

* March 31 – John Constable, English painter ( b. 1776 )

* March 24 – John Harrison, English clockmaker ( d. 1776 )

When the American colonies published their Declaration of Independence in July 1776, the British government did not issue any official response but instead secretly commissioned London lawyer and pamphleteer John Lind to publish a rebuttal.

John Trumbull had pointed this out as early as 1776, when a shot fired from the fort was able to reach Defiance's summit, and several officers inspecting the hill noted that there were approaches to its summit where gun carriages could be pulled up the sides.

In July 1776, the New York convention appointed a committee, including John Jay, Robert Livingston, George Clinton and Robert Yates, to " devise and carry into execution " measures for " obstructing the channel of Hudson's river, or annoying the navigation of the said River.

During the American Revolution, on November 1, 1776, John Paul Jones-the father of the American Navy-set sail in command of Alfred to free hundreds of American prisoners working in the coal mines in eastern Cape Breton.

In 1756, after the deaths of his uncle and father, John became the fourth Earl of Dunmore, and sat as a Scottish representative peer in the House of Lords from 1761 to 1774 and from 1776 to 1790.

On January 22, 1829, at the age of 35, Houston married 19-year-old Eliza Allen, the daughter of the well-connected planter Colonel John Allen ( 1776 – 1833 ) of Gallatin, Tennessee, who was a friend of Andrew Jackson.

In late March 1776, South Carolina President and Commander in Chief John Rutledge learned that a large British naval force was moving toward Charleston.

John Brown ( 1728 – 1776 ).

In 1997 he returned to Broadway, playing John Adams in the Roundabout Theatre Company revival of the musical 1776.

* John Shaw Senior ( 1776 – 1832 ) and John Shaw Junior ( 1803 – 1870 ), father and son architects lived in Gower Street.

* John Henry ( spy ) ( c. 1776 – 1853 ), British spy

* Sir John Jamison ( 1776 – 1844 ), naval surgeon, physician and, later, an important Australian land-owning pioneer and constitutional reformer, was from Carrickfergus.

Along with John Constable ( 1776 – 1837 ), Crome was one of the earliest English artists to represent identifiable species of trees, rather than generalised forms.