After Bunker Hill, Putnam progressed to temporary command of the American forces in New York, while waiting for the arrival on April 13, 1776 of the commander-in-chief, Lieutenant General George Washington.

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.

Bligh was appointed Commanding Lieutenant of Bounty on 16 August 1787, at the age of 32, after a career that included a tour as sailing master of James Cook's HMS Resolution during Cook's third and final voyage ( 1776 – 1779 ).

In September 1776 the Continental Congress commissioned Marion as a Lieutenant Colonel.

In 1776, Bald Head Island was briefly involved in the Revolutionary War after British Major General Henry Clinton and Lieutenant Charles Cornwallis ( later promoted to general ) used the island as a staging area for their voyage to Charleston, SC.

General Montgomery's body was recovered by the British on New Years Day 1776 and was given a simple military funeral on January 4, paid for by Lieutenant Governor Cramahé.

Tench joined His Majesty's Marine Forces, Plymouth division, as a Second Lieutenant on 25 January 1776, aged 17.

Lord Derby also served as Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire between 1776 and 1834.

In February 1776, Sumter was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Regiment of the South Carolina Line of which he was later appointed Colonel.

He served as adjutant in Colonel Seth Warner's regiment in Canada in 1775, and was then commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the regiment known as the Green Mountain Boys in July 1776.

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.

He was also Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia from 1776 to 1778, active in suppressing Patriot sentiment in that province.

On January 11, 1776, Mercer was appointed Colonel to what soon became the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Virginia Line, and the next day George Weedon was appointed Lieutenant Colonel.

Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Haraden joined the Massachusetts State Navy in July 1776 as First Lieutenant of the sloop-of-war Tyrannicide, fourteen guns.

During the summer of 1776 Colonel Herkimer allowed his regular militia to return to their farms ; however, about one out of every fifteen soldiers, including Lieutenant Adam Helmer, was assigned to ranger duty.

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.

In December 1776, after completing the conquest of New York City, British Lieutenant General William Howe detached a body of troops from his army which occupied Newport, Rhode Island without significant opposition.

John Nicholson entered the Continental Navy as Lieutenant in October 1776 and the next month was promoted to Captain to command sloop Hornet.

In November, 1776 to has made Lieutenant Colonel of the 3rd New York Regiment which was commanded by Peter Gansevoort.

On August 12, 1776, General of the Army George Washington promoted Knowlton to Lieutenant Colonel.

During the summer of 1776 Luis de Unzaga y Amezaga, the governor of New Spain at New Orleans, had privately delivered five tons of gunpowder, out of the King's stores, to Captain George Gibson and Lieutenant Linn of the Virginia Council of Defense.

* Richard Onslow, 3rd Baron Onslow ( 1715 – 1776 ), Member of Parliament for Guildford and Lord Lieutenant of Surrey

On 20 May 1776 the British forces under the command of Lieutenant Clayton formally took their leave of Port Egmont, leaving a plaque asserting Britain's continuing sovereignty over the islands.

In early 1776, Thomas Paine argued in the closing pages of the first edition of Common Sense that the “ custom of nations ” demanded a formal declaration of American independence if any European power were to mediate a peace between the Americans and Great Britain.

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

" Anticipating the Declaration of Independence, Patriot leaders Thomas McKean and Caesar Rodney convinced the Colonial Assembly to declare itself separated from British and Pennsylvania rule on June 15, 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.

As a young man during the American Revolutionary War, Madison served in the Virginia state legislature ( 1776 – 79 ), where he became known as a protégé of the delegate Thomas Jefferson.

* 1776 – Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.

* 1853 – Thomas Bladen Capel Royal Navy admiral ( b. 1776 )

* Thomas Paine ( 1737 – 1809 ) English / American pamphleteer, most famous for Common Sense ( 1776 ) calling for American independence as the most rational solution

Image: Johann Christian Bach by Thomas Gainsborough. jpg | Johann Christian Bach, ( 1776 )

Prior to Independence, Thomas Mifflin was a member of Pennsylvania's Provincial Assembly ( 1772 – 1776 ).

A Commonwealth of Pennsylvania historical marker at the church commemorates both Thomas Wharton and Mifflin, the first and last Presidents of Pennsylvania under the 1776 State Constitution.

In January 1776, just as it became clear in the colonies that the king was not inclined to act as a conciliator, Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was published.

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.

* September 9 – Thomas Assheton Smith II, politician and cricketer ( b. 1776 )

During the Rococo era Portraiture was an important component of painting in all countries, but especially in Great Britain, where the leaders were William Hogarth ( 1697 – 1764 ), in a blunt realist style, and Francis Hayman ( 1708 – 1776 ), Angelica Kauffman who was Swiss, ( 1741 – 1807 ), Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds ( 1723 – 1792 ), in more flattering styles influenced by Antony Van Dyck ( 1599 – 1641 ).

Oroonoko kills Imoinda in a 1776 performance of Thomas Southerne's Oroonoko.

On September 6, 1776, the Maryland Constitutional Convention agreed to a proposal introduced by Thomas Sprigg Wootton wherein Frederick County, the largest and most populous county in Maryland, would be divided into three smaller units.

* Humphrey Gainsborough ( 1718 – 1776 ), brother of the artist Thomas Gainsborough, was a pastor and inventor who lived in Henley.

* Thomas Howard, 16th Earl of Suffolk ( 1776 – 1851 ), British peer and politician

On August 19, 1791, after departing the federal capital area, Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1776 had drafted the United States Declaration of Independence and in 1791 was serving as the United States Secretary of State.

An English abolitionist, Thomas Day, had earlier written in a 1776 letter:

In the winter of 1775 and 1776, the Rhode Island Legislature put militia General William West in charge of rooting out loyalists in Newport, and several notable individuals such as Joseph Wanton and Thomas Vernon were exiled to the northern part of the state.

In his influential 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, Thomas Paine echoed this notion, arguing that the American Revolution provided an opportunity to create a new, better society:

On July 14, 1776, Isaiah Thomas, intercepting the packet from Philadelphia to Boston, performed the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence ever in front of Worcester City Hall.