1786 Archives | HISTORY

On August 1, 1782, Caroline Herschel—sister of William Herschel, an astronomer who discovered Uranus the year before—discovers a comet after spotting it through a telescope. This is the first comet discovery credited to a woman.

On August 29, 1786, more than 500 armed farmers and Revolutionary War veterans upset at the state government’s failure to provide debt relief block access to a county court in Northampton, Massachusetts. The populist uprising marks the start of Shays’ Rebellion, a series of attacks on Massachusetts courthouses and government facilities that exposes the new federal government’s weakness and propels the creation of the Constitutional Convention to form a stronger national government.

On October 12, 1786, a lovesick Thomas Jefferson composes a romantic and introspective letter to a woman named Maria Cosway.