1787

Events 

 May 13 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England with the First Fleet, 11 ships full of convicts to establish a penal colony in Australia.
 August 16 – Lieutenant William Bligh takes command of the HMVA Bounty.
 December 23 – The HMVA Bounty is sent to Tahiti to collect breadfruit plants.

Date unknown
 The Pennsylvania Prison Society is started.

 Births 
 March 16 – Georg Ohm, German physicist
 December 10 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, founder of the American School for the Deaf

 Deaths 
 May 28 – Leopold Mozart, composer
 June 20 – Karl Friedrich Abel, German Baroque composer