1788 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 1 - First edition of The Times, previously The Daily Universal Register, was published.
• January 2 - Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 4th U.S. state.
• January 9 - Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 5th U.S. state.
• January 22 - Cyrus Griffin becomes the tenth and last President of the United States in Congress Assembled.
• January 26 - Australia Day: First Fleet from Botany Bay led by Arthur Phillip land in what would become Sydney, Australia.Great Britain establishes the prison colony of New South Wales, the first permanent European settlement on the continent.
• January 31 - Henry Benedict Stuart becomes the new Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Charles IX and the figurehead of Jacobitism.
• February 1 - Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent the steamboat.
• February 6 - Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 6th U.S. state.
• March 21 - A fire destroys 856 buildings in New Orleans leaving most of the town in ruins and twenty five percent of the population dead.
• April 28 - Maryland ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 7th U.S. state.
• May 23 - South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 8th U.S. state.
• June 21 - New Hampshire ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 9th U.S. state.
• June 25 - Virginia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 10th U.S. state.
• July 26 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th U.S. state.
• November 27 - 11 prison ships arrive to Port Jackson (modern-day Sydney), Australia
• December 14 - King Charles III of Spain dies and is succeeded by his son Charles IV of Spain.

• "Battle" of Karansebes - Forces of Joseph II of Austria marching against Turks rout for nothing in Karansebes

Births

• January 22 - George Gordon, Lord Byron, English poet (d. 1824)
• February 5 - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1850)
• February 22 - Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (d. 1860)
• March 10 - Joseph von Eichendorff, German poet (d. 1857)
• April 14 - David G. Burnet, interim president of the Republic of Texas (d, 1870)
• May 16 - Friedrich Rückert, German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages (d. 1866)
• September 22 - Theodore Edward Hook, English author (d. 1841)
• October 11 - Simon Sechter, music teacher
• October 24 - Sarah Josepha Buell, known as Sarah Josepha Hale, American author

Deaths

• January 31 - Bonnie Prince Charlie, Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain as King Charles III
• April 16 - Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, French naturalist (b. 1707)
• August 2 - Thomas Gainsborough, British painter
• December 14 - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German composer, son of Johann Sebastian Bach (b. 1714)
• December 14 - Charles III of Spain
• December 22 - Percivall Pott, English surgeon