1768 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 9 - Philip Astley stages the first modern circus (London)
• May 10 - John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for the North Briton severely criticizing King George III. This action provokes rioting in London
• Secretary of State for colonies appointed in Britain
• Massachusetts Assembly dissolved for refusing to assist collection of taxes.
• Boston citizens refuse to quarter British troops
• France buys Corsica from Genoa
• Gurkhas conquer Nepal
• First of the weekly numbers of the Encyclopædia Britannica are published; 100 are planned

Births

• January 7 - Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples and Spain (d. 1844)
• January 28 - King Frederick VI of Denmark
• February 12 - Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1835)
• March 4 - August Friedrich Wilhelm Holtzhausen , engineer (d. 1827).
• March 21 - Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier, French mathematician and physicist
• May 17 - Caroline of Brunswick, Queen-Consort of King George IV of the United Kingdom
• May 20 - Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (d. 1849)
• June 9 - Samuel Slater, US industrialist
• November 21 - Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian
• Charlotte Corday - assassinated Jean-Paul Marat
• Zacharias Werner, German religious poet

Deaths

• March 1 - Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher and writer (b. 1694)
• June 8 - Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German archaeologist
• October 1 - Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician (b. 1687)
• October 31 - Francesco Maria Veracini, composer
• Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1693)
• The last of Steller's sea cows