1766 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 1 - Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Charles III and figurehead for Jacobitism.
• March 5 - Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrives in New Orleans.
• March 18 - American Revolution: The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act which was very unpopular in the British colonies. The persuasion of Benjamin Franklin is considered partly responsible. The Declaratory Act asserts the right of Britain to bind the colonies in all other respects.
• November 10 - The last Colonial governor of New Jersey, William Franklin, signs the charter of Queen's College (later renamed Rutgers University).
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart returns to Salzburg after touring Paris and London with his father
• Christian VII becomes King of Denmark
• Lorraine becomes French again on the death of Stanislas Leszczyncki
• The Burmese begin to invade the Thai kingdom of Ayutthaya.
• What is now England's oldest surviving Georgian theatre constructed in Stockton-on-Tees.

Births

• February 14 - Thomas Malthus, economist (+ 1834)
• April 22 - Anne Louise Germaine de Stael, author (+ 1817)
• August 6 William Hyde Wollaston was born. In 1802, he discovered a few inexplicable black lines when performing an experiment similar to those of Sir Isaac Newton. This research eventually led to the discovery of the elements in the Sun.
• September 6 - John Dalton, English chemist and physicist

Deaths

• January 1 - James Francis Edward Stuart, "The Old Pretender" (b. 1688)
• January 14 - King Frederick V of Denmark
• February 23 - Stanislas Leszczyncki , King of Poland
• April 4 - John Taylor, English classical scholar
• May 5 - Jean Astruc, French physician and scholar