July 14 - James O'Hara, 2nd Baron Tyrawley and Kilmaine
August 11 - Tiphaigne de la Roche, French writer (b. 1722)
August 25 - Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer (b. 1714)
October 16 - Robert Fergusson, Scottish poet (b. 1750)
December 2 - Johann Friedrich Agricola, German composer and organist (b. 1720)
Events
March 4 - First sighting of Orion Nebula by William Herschel.
March 31 - American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain orders the port of Boston, Massachusetts closed in the Boston Port Act.
April 30 - Yellow Creek massacre, British settlers (soon to be American settlers) massacre family members of Chief Logan and spark off the conflict known as Lord Dunmore's War
May 28 - American Revolutionary War: the first Continental Congress convenes.
June 2 - Intolerable Acts: The Quartering Act is enacted, allowing a governor in colonial America to house British soldiers in uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns, or other buildings if suitable quarters were not provided.
June 13 - Rhode Island becomes the first of Britain's North American colonies to ban the importation of slaves.
July 4 - Orangetown Resolutions adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament's Coercive Acts
July 21 - Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774: Russia and the Ottoman Empire sign the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji ending the war.
August 1 - The element oxygen is discovered for the third (and last) time.
September 5 - First Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
October 21 - First display of the word "Liberty" on a flag, raised by colonists in Taunton, Massachusetts and which was in defiance of British rule in Colonial America.
October 26 - The first Continental Congress adjourns in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
