1752 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Note: in Britain and its then colonies, this was the shortest year on record, because it started in late March, as usual, but ended at the end of December since the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar. Events shown here for the first couple of months of 1752 in Britain and colonies were actually in what the inhabitants had called "1751".

Events

• February 11 - Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the US, is opened.
• March 23 - The Halifax Gazette , the first Canadian newspaper
• June 15 - Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity (kite + key + lightning)
• September 14 - The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, making it necessary to skip eleven days (September 2 being followed directly by September 14 this year)
• Adam Smith at the University of Glasgow transfers to professor of moral philosophy
• English Scientist Lord John Davies first observes what is later recognised as respiratory collapse

Births

• January 1 - Betsy Ross, American entrepreneur (died 1836)
• January 31 - Gouverneur Morris, American diplomat and politician (died 1815)
• February 25 - John Graves Simcoe, first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (died 1806)
• May 11 - Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German anthropologist (died 1840)
• June 13 - Fanny Burney, English novelist and diarist (died 1840)
• July 7 - Joseph Marie Jacquard, French inventor (died 1834)
• August 13 - Queen Marie Caroline of Naples and Sicily, consort of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, and de facto ruler
• September 18 - Adrien-Marie Legendre, French mathematician (died 1833)
• November 20 - Thomas Chatterton, English poet (died 1770)
• November 29 - Jemima Wilkinson, preacher (died 1819)
• Humphry Repton, English garden designer (died 1818)
• John Nash, English architect (died 1835)
• Philip Freneau, American poet (died 1832)

Deaths

• June 16 - Giulio Alberoni, Spanish cardinal (born 1664)
• June 16 - Joseph Butler, English priest and theologian (born 1692)
• July 20 - Johann Christoph Pepusch, German composer (born 1667)
• Gabriel Cramer, Swiss mathematician (born 1704)
• Jacopo Amigoni, Italian painter (born 1675)
• Michael Festing , English violinist and composer (born 1680)
• Jean Francois de Troy , French painter (born 1679)
• Francis Blomefield, English topographer (born 1705)

Various calendars

External link

Brainy History - 1752 in History