Having lost its colonial empire, France saw a good opportunity for revenge against Britain in signing an alliance with the Americans in 1778, and sending an army and navy that turned the American Revolution into a world war.

Davy was born in Penzance, Cornwall, in the Kingdom of Great Britain, on 17 December 1778.

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

The 1778 treaty of alliance with France was still in effect, yet most of the new country's trade was with Britain.

* 1868 – Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, English statesman, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain ( b. 1778 )

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC ( 15 November 1708 – 11 May 1778 ), called William Pitt the Elder by historians, was a British Whig statesman who led Britain during the Seven Years ' War ( known as the French and Indian War in the United States ).

* May 7 – Henry Peter Brougham, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain ( b. 1778 )

France returned to North America in 1778 with the establishment of a Franco-American alliance against Great Britain in the American War of Independence.

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

John Paul Jones became notorious in Britain for his expedition from France in the little sloop of war Ranger in April 1778, during which, in addition to his attacks on merchant shipping, he made two landings on British soil.

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.

Vancouver Island came to the attention of Britain after the third voyage of Captain James Cook, who spent a month during 1778 at Nootka Sound, on the island's western coast.

The stated intention of the Papists Act of 1778 was, as its preamble notes, to mitigate some of the official discrimination against Roman Catholics in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

After an eventful voyage, he reached Pondicherry and contributed to the defence of that city during the Second Anglo-Mysore War, a siege which ended in its surrender to Great Britain on 18 October 1778.

When revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain in 1793, the United States sought to remain neutral, but the Jay Treaty, which was favorable to Great Britain, angered the French government, which viewed it as a violation of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance.

In 1778 Sheridan wrote The Camp which commented on the ongoing threat of a French invasion of Britain.

" The Jeffersonians were opposed to Britain, preferring support for France in the wars raging in Europe, and they argued that the treaty with France from 1778 was still in effect.

After 1778 the British switched the focus of their efforts to the defence of the West Indies, as their sugar wealth made them much more valuable to Britain than the Thirteen Colonies.

The regiment was then stationed at Gibraltar, where he remained until he was made captain in the 75th in January 1778, at which point he then returned to Britain.

Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux ( 1778 – 1868 ) ( pronounced Broom and Vokes ) was a British statesman who became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.

The treaty was signed on February 6, 1778, and France declared war on Britain one month later, with hostilities beginning with naval skirmishes off Ushant in June.

Before the Treaty of Paris, which formalized America ’ s independence from Great Britain, American shipping was protected by France during the Revolutionary years under the Treaty of Alliance ( 1778 – 83 ).

* William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ( 1708 – 1778 ), Prime Minister of Great Britain 1766 – 1768 ; often known as William Pitt the Elder

It is doubtful if Morgan was able to take home much money to his wife and children, for his pay, as shown by the War Department Abstracts of early 1778 was $75 a month as a colonel, and that apt to be delayed.

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.

In " Mémoire sur la combustion en général " (" On Combustion in General ," 1777 ) and " Considérations générales sur la nature des acides " (" General Considerations on the Nature of Acids ," 1778 ), he demonstrated that the " air " responsible for combustion was also the source of acidity.

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.

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 ).

Among the most successful of his 37 operas staged during his lifetime were Armida ( 1771 ), La fiera di Venezia ( 1772 ), La scuola de ' gelosi ( 1778 ), Der Rauchfangkehrer ( 1781 ), Les Danaïdes ( 1784 ), which was first presented as a work of Gluck's, La grotta di Trofonio ( 1785 ), Tarare ( 1787 ) ( Tarare was reworked and revised several times as was Les Danaïdes ), Axur, re d ' Ormus ( 1788 ), La cifra ( 1789 ), Palmira, regina di Persia ( 1795 ), Il mondo alla rovescia ( 1795 ), Falstaff ( 1799 ), and Cesare in Farmacusa ( 1800 ).

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.

In 1778, during the American War of Independence, the French mounted a successful invasion with the active cooperation of the population, which was largely French.

When Voltaire died in 1778, the church denied him a church burial, and his body was interred near a monastery.

First imprisoned aboard Royal Navy ships, he was paroled in New York City, and finally released in a prisoner exchange in 1778.

His capture ended his participation in the revolution until 1778, as he was imprisoned by the British.

On May 3, 1778 he was transferred to Staten Island.

As part of the fledgling nation's government, he was treasurer of the Continental Loan Office in 1778 ; appointed judge of the Admiralty Court of Pennsylvania in 1779 and reappointed in 1780 and 1787 ; and helped ratify the Constitution during the constitutional convention in 1787.

From around 1778, a larger " heavy " frigate was developed with a main battery of twenty-six or twenty-eight 18-pounder guns ( again with the remaining ten smaller guns carried on the quarter deck and forecastle ).

The word geology was first used by Ulisse Aldrovandi in 1603, then by Jean-André Deluc in 1778 and introduced as a fixed term by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in 1779.

The leader of the French Enlightenment and a writer of enormous influence across Europe, was Voltaire ( 1694 – 1778 ).

Since cast iron was becoming cheaper and more plentiful, it also became a major structural material following the building of the innovative Iron Bridge in 1778 by Abraham Darby III.

In the Battle of Ushant with the French in 1778, Lord Keppel commanded the Channel Fleet and the outcome resulted in no clear winner ; Keppel ordered to renew the attack and this was obeyed except by Sir Hugh Palliser, who commanded the rear, and the French escaped bombardment.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (; 28 June 17122 July 1778 ) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism of French expression.