1797

Events 
January 3 – The Treaty of Tripoli (a peace treaty between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Algiers.
January 7 – The parliament of the Cisalpine Republic adopts the Italian green-white-red tricolour as official flag. It is the birthday of the flag of Italy.
February 14 – The Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797), part of the Wars of the French Revolution.
February 18 – Spanish Governor Chacon peacefully surrenders the colony of Trinidad and Tobago to a British naval force.
February 22 – Attempted invasion of Britain at Fishguard in Wales by French forces
February 26 – The Bank of England (national bank of Britain) issues the first one-pound note (discontinued March 11, 1988).
March 4 – John Adams succeeds George Washington as the President of the United States of America.
 May 12 – First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice, ending the 1100 years of independence of the city. Last doge of Venice, Ludovico Manin, steps down.
 July 24 – Horatio Nelson is wounded at Tenerife, causing a loss of one arm.
 September 7 – Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.
 October 21 – In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli.
 December 17 – Napoleon leads a successful French charge against Fort l'Aiguilette to secure Toulon for French
 Large-scale mutinies in Royal Navy
 Joseph Haydn composes the music to "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser," the tune of which also became the music to the German national anthem, "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit."

 Births 
 Date unknown – Mahmud Bayazidi, Kurdish polymath
 August 30 – Mary Shelley, British writer of Frankenstein

 Deaths 
 September 10 – Mary Wollstonecraft, female philosopher (b. 1759)