* 1726 – Francesco Cetti, Italian scientist ( d. 1778 )

* 1697 – Johann Gottlieb Görner, German composer and organist ( d. 1778 )

* 1720 – Konrad Ekhof, German actor ( d. 1778 )

* 1778 – American Revolutionary War: British forces begin besieging the French outpost at Pondicherry.

Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Jacob Johnson ( 1778 – 1812 ) and Mary (" Polly ") McDonough ( 1783 – 1856 ), a seamstress and the daughter of Andrew McDonough.

* 1778 – American Revolutionary War: British and American forces battle indecisively at the Battle of Rhode Island.

* 1778 – Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, Prussian educator and nationalist ( d. 1852 )

Salieri's Italian tour of 1778 – 80 began with the production of Europa riconosciuta ( Europa Recognized ) for La Scala ( which was revived in 2004 for the same opera house's re-opening following extensive renovations ).

Following his conquest of most of Western Europe, the first Napoleon made his elder brother Joseph ( 1768 – 1844 ) king first of Naples ( 1806 – 1808 ) and then of Spain ( 1808 – 1813 ), his third brother Louis ( 1778 – 1846 ) king of Holland ( 1806 – 1810 ) ( subsequently forcing his abdication after his failure to subordinate Dutch interests to those of France ) and his youngest brother Jérôme Bonaparte ( 1784 – 1860 ) king of Westphalia, the short-lived realm created from some of the states of northwestern Germany ( 1807 – 1813 ).

# Louis Bonaparte ( 1778 – 1846 ) married Hortense de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepdaughter

Carl Linnaeus ( Swedish original name Carl Nilsson Linnæus, 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778 ), also known after his ennoblement as, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature.

** Charles Darwin ( 1758 – 1778 ) physician and scientist, uncle of Charles Darwin ( 1809 – 1882 )

* 1778 – American Revolutionary War: British and French fleets clash in the Battle of St. Lucia.

* Jacques le fataliste et son maître, novel ( 1771 – 1778 )

* 1778 – John Ordronaux, privateer of the War of 1812 ( d. 1841 )

* 1778 – American Revolutionary War: 3, 000 British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.

However, in 1778 Gluck turned down an offer to compose the inaugural opera for La Scala in Milan ; upon the suggestion of Joseph II and with the approval of Gluck, Salieri was offered the commission, which he gratefully accepted.

In 1778, Joseph Banks, Cook's botanist on the voyage, presented evidence to the government on the suitability of Botany Bay for the establishment of a penal settlement, and in 1787 the first shipment of convicts set sail, arriving in 1788.

* May 10 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist ( b. 1778 )

The company that first sponsored the opera was the Nationalsingspiel (" national Singspiel "), a pet project ( 1778 – 1783 ) of the Austrian emperor Joseph II.

Joseph Bramah of Yorkshire patented the first practical water closet in England in 1778.

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (; also Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac ; 6 December 1778 – 9 May 1850 ) was a French chemist and physicist.

* Joseph Trumbull ( 1737 – 1778 ), a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1774 ( did not attend sessions ), and colonel in the Continental Army.

In 1811, Col. Joseph Durfee, the Revolutionary War veteran and hero of the Battle of Freetown in 1778 built the Globe Manufactory ( a spinning mill ) at the outlet of Cook Pond on Dwelly St. near what is now Globe Four Corners in the city's South End.

* In June 1778, a combined force of Tories and Indians led by Joseph Brant raided the East Branch of the Delaware including the Margaretville area.

In addition to intermittent raids, during the American Revolutionary War, the village was attacked in September 1778 by British forces, as well as Iroquois led by the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant.

In 1778, Joseph Brant, native leader, led an expedition that burned the town and took captives.

The leader of the society was named Joseph Bimeler ( also known as Joseph Bäumler or Bäumeler, born 1778 ), a pipemaker from Ulm.

Born in Schwetzingen and raised in Mannheim, Danzi studied with his father and with Georg Joseph Vogler before he joined the superlative orchestra of the Elector Karl Theodor in 1778 as a teenager.

On 26 July 1778, Joseph married Claudine Boichon.

The second Marquess envisaged a sculpture gallery at the house, which never came to fruition ; four marbles by Joseph Nollekens were carried out to his commission, in expectation of the gallery ; the ' Diana, signed and dated 1778, is now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Juno, Venus and Minerva, grouped with a Roman antique marble of Paris, are at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Other major 18th century English novelists are Samuel Richardson ( 1689-1761 ), author of the epistolary novels Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded ( 1740 ) and Clarissa ( 1747-8 ); Henry Fielding ( 1707 – 54 ), who wrote Joseph Andrews ( 1742 ) and The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling ( 1749 ); Laurence Sterne ( 1713 – 68 ) who published Tristram Shandy in parts between 1759 and 1767 ; Oliver Goldsmith (? 1730-74 ) author of The Vicar of Wakefield ( 1766 ); Tobias Smollett ( 1721 – 71 ) a Scottish novelist best known for his comic picaresque novels, such as The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle ( 1751 ) and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker ( 1771 ), who influenced Charles Dickens ; and Fanny Burney ( 1752-1840 ), whose novels " were enjoyed and admired by Jane Austen ," wrote Evelina ( 1778 ), Cecilia ( 1782 ) and Camilla ( 1796 ).

Between 1778 and 1781 he visited England three times, developing a friendship with Sir Joseph Banks.

* Joseph Grimaldi ( 1778 – 1837 ), performed as " Joey The Clown "

During the years 1777 and 1778 he was successful in London, one of many Austro-German musicians ( Carl Friedrich Abel, Johann Christian Bach, and in his last years Joseph Haydn would be some other ones ) to be drawn to that metropolis where a capitalist music life, largely independent of courts and nobility, was already in full swing.

During his Paris years ( 1770 – 1778 ) Stamitz began to cooperate with the Bohemian born clarinet virtuoso Joseph Beer ( 1744 – 1811 ) which proved fruitful for both Stamitz and Beer.

Joseph Andrews, a stage adaptation of the first and fourth books of the novel, was written by Samuel Jackson Pratt and performed on 20 April 1778 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

* 1778 – American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.

* 1778 – Louis Bonaparte, French-Dutch king ( d. 1846 )

Louis intervened in the American Revolution against Britain in 1778, but he is most remembered for his role in the French Revolution.

Louis XVI was convinced by Pierre Beaumarchais to secretly send supplies, ammunition and guns from 1776, sign a formal Treaty of Alliance in early 1778, and go to war with Britain.

Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu ( 2 September 1778 – 25 July 1846 ), King of Holland ( 1806 – 10 ), was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino.

# Louis Victor, Prince of Carignan, 1721 – 1778

( Note that he was not the first King of Holland ; that was Louis Bonaparte ( 1778 – 1846 ), who had reigned from 1806 to 1810.

Houdon's subjects include Denis Diderot ( 1771 ), Benjamin Franklin ( 1778-09 ), Jean-Jacques Rousseau ( 1778 ), Voltaire ( 1781 ), Molière ( 1781 ), George Washington ( 1785 – 88 ), Thomas Jefferson ( 1789 ), Louis XVI ( 1790 ), Robert Fulton, 1803 – 04, and Napoléon Bonaparte ( 1806 ).

Delegates of King Louis XVI of France and the Second Continental Congress, who represented the United States government at this time, signed the treaty along with The Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris on February 6, 1778 formalizing a Franco-American alliance that would technically remain in effect until 1800, and the signing of the Treaty of Mortefontaine, despite being annulled by the United States Congress in 1798 and the execution of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution.

With official approval to begin negotiations on a formal alliance given by King Louis XVI, the colonies turned down a British proposal for reconciliation in January 1778 and began negotiations that would result in the signing of The Treaty of Amity and Commerce and The Treaty of Alliance.

The jewelers hoped it could be a product that the new Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, could buy and indeed in 1778 the new king, Louis XVI, offered it to his wife as a present, but she refused.

On the death of Louis XV in 1774, Rohan was recalled from Vienna, and coldly received in Paris ; but his family's influence was too great for him to be neglected ; in 1777 he was made grand almoner, and in 1778, abbot of St. Vaast.

* Louis Bonaparte or Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, ( 1778 – 1846 ), King Louis I of Holland, brother of Napoleon I

* Napoléon Louis Bonaparte ( 1804 – 1831 ), King Louis II of Holland, second son of Louis Bonaparte ( 1778 – 1846 )