April 1 - Richard Butler American soldier, (b. 1743)
May 9 - Francis Hopkinson, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1737)
July 17 - Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (b. 1717)
July 25 - Isaac Low, American Continental Congressman (b. 1735)
August 16 - Charles-François de Broglie, marquis de Ruffec
December 5 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer (b. 1756)
Events
January 2 - Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War.
January 25 - The British Parliament passes the Constitutional Act of 1791 and splits the old province of Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada.
March 2 - Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
March 3 - The United States Mint is created by the Congress of the United States.
March 4 - Vermont is admitted as the 14th U.S. state.
March 4 - A Constitutional Act is introduced by the British House of Commons in London which envisages the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).
May 3 - The Constitution of May 3 (the first modern constitution in Europe) is proclaimed by the Sejm of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
May 15 - Maximilien Robespierre proposes the Self-denying Ordinance.
July 14 - The Priestley Riots drive Joseph Priestley, a supporter of the French Revolution, out of Birmingham, England.
July 17 - Members of the French National Guard under the command of General Lafayette open fire on a crowd of radical Jacobins at the Champ de Mars, Paris, during the French Revolution, killing as many as 50 people.
August 4 - The Treaty of Sistova is signed, ending the Ottoman-Habsburg wars.
August 22 - Beginning of the Haitian Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue.
August 30 - The HMS Pandora sank after running aground on a reef the previous day.
September 9 - Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, is named after President George Washington.
September 30 - The Magic Flute, the last opera composed by Mozart receives its premiere performance at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria.
September 30 - The National Constituent Assembly in Paris is dissolved; Parisians hail Maximilien Robespierre and Jérôme Pétion as incorruptible patriots.
October 1 - First session of the French Legislative Assembly.
November 4 - The Western Confederacy of American Indians win a major victory over the United States in the Battle of the Wabash.
November 15 - The first U.S Catholic college, Georgetown University, opens its doors.
December 4 - The first issue of The Observer, the world's first Sunday newspaper, is published.
December 15 - The United States Bill of Rights becomes law when ratified by the Virginia legislature.
