Died in 1799

Jan 7 James Bolton an English naturalist, botanist, mycologist, and illustrator.
Jan 9 Maria Gaetana Agnesi an Italian mathematician and philosopher.
Jan 13 Ivan Ivanovich Belsky a Russian painter. He was part of the "Belsky Dynasty" of painters of the Eighteenth Century and one of the first teachers at the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he taught history painting
Jan 18 Heinrich Johann Nepomuk von Crantz a botanist and a physician.
Jan 22 Horace-Bénédict de Saussure a Swiss aristocrat, physicist and Alpine traveller, often considered the founder of alpinism, and considered to be the first person to build a successful solar oven.
Jan 26 Gabriel Christie (British Army officer) a British Army General from Scotland, who settled in Montreal after the French and Indian War. Following the British Conquest of New France, he invested in land and became one of the largest landowners in the British Province of Quebec
Feb 1 Ferdinand Kobell a German painter and engraver.
Feb 4 Étienne-Louis Boullée a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects.
Feb 7 Qianlong Emperor the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. The fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, he reigned officially from 11 October 1735 to 8 February 1796.1 On 8 February, he abdicated in favor of his son, the Jiaqing Emperor – a filial act in order not to reign longer than his grandfather, the illustrious Kangxi Emperor. Despite his retirement, however, he retained ultimate power until his death in 1799. Although his early years saw the continuation of an era of prosperity in China, his final years saw troubles at home and abroad converge on the Qing Empire
Feb 12 Lazzaro Spallanzani an Italian Catholic priest, biologist and physiologist who made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions, animal reproduction, and essentially animal echolocation. His research of biogenesis paved the way for the downfall of preformationism theory , though the final death blow to preformationism was dealt by Pasteur
Feb 12 František Xaver Dušek a Czech composer and one of the most important harpsichordists and pianists of his time.
Feb 16 Charles Theodore Elector of Bavaria Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria reigned as Prince-Elector and Count palatine from 1742, as Duke of Jülich and Berg from 1742 and also as Prince-Elector and Duke of Bavaria from 1777, until his death. He was a member of the House of Palatinate-Sulzbach, a branch of the House of Wittelsbach
Feb 18 Johann Hedwig a German botanist notable for his studies of mosses , in particular the observation of sexual reproduction in the cryptogams.
Feb 19 Jean-Charles de Borda a French mathematician, physicist, political scientist, and sailor.
Feb 20 Georg Christian Unger a German architect who was a pupil of the architect Carl von Gontard and served Frederick II of Prussia. Among his works were the Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam and the Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin
Feb 22 Heshen from the Manchu Niohuru clan and an official of the Qing dynasty who was favoured by the Qianlong Emperor. Born Shanbao , his given name was later changed to Heshen. His courtesy name was Zhizhai. He was a member of the Plain Red Banner, and known as the most corrupt official in Chinese history. Heshen was born as the son of a Manchu military officer and was selected to go to the most privileged school for Manchu aristocratic boys. He lost his mother when he was young and it was said he and his younger brother had a hard life under his stepmother. However, it was reported that Heshen was an excellent student, knowing several languages including Mandarin, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan. In 1772, he began work in the Imperial Palace, assigned as an imperial bodyguard and was stationed at the gates to the Forbidden City
Feb 24 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg a German scientist, satirist, and Anglophile. As a scientist, he was the first to hold a professorship explicitly dedicated to experimental physics in Germany. Today, he is remembered for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modeled on the English bookkeeping term "scrapbooks", and for his discovery of the strange tree-like patterns now called Lichtenberg figures
Mar 18 Adam Friedrich Oeser a German etcher, painter and sculptor.
Apr 3 Pierre Charles Le Monnier a French astronomer. His name is sometimes given as Lemonnier
Apr 4 Antoni Barnaba Jabłonowski a Polish noble and political activist.
Apr 5 Johann Christoph Gatterer a German historian who was a native of Lichtenau. He was the father of cameralist Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer and poet Magdalena Philippine Engelhard
Apr 6 Alexander Bezborodko the Grand Chancellor of Russia and chief architect of Catherine the Great's foreign policy after the death of Nikita Panin.
Apr 17 Richard Jupp an 18th-century English architect, particularly associated with buildings in and around London.
Apr 19 Pieter Hellendaal an Anglo-Dutch composer, organist and violinist. He was sometimes distinguished with the suffix "The Elder", after the maturity of his musician son, Pieter Hellendaal the Younger
Apr 27 Louis-Marie-Joseph Maximilian Caffarelli du Falga a French commander and scholar. His younger brothers Marie-François Auguste de Caffarelli du Falga and Louis-Marie-Joseph Caffarelli were also generals
May 2 Henri-Joseph Rigel a German-born composer of the Classical era who spent most of his working life in France. He was born in Wertheim am Main where his father was musical intendant to the local prince. After an education in Germany, where his teachers included Niccolò Jommelli, Rigel moved to Paris in 1767. He quickly acquired a reputation in musical circles and published harpsichord pieces, string quartets, symphonies and concertos. He began composing for the Concert Spirituel, most notably four hiérodrames : La sortie d'Egypte , La destruction de Jericho , Jephté and Les Macchabées. These show the influence of Christoph Willibald Gluck, and Gluck himself praised La sortie d'Égypte. Between 1778 and 1799 Rigel also wrote 14 operas, including the opéra comique Le savetier et le financier
May 4 Tipu Sultan a ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and a scholar, soldier, and poet. Tipu was the eldest son of Sultan Hyder Ali of Mysore and his wife Fatima Fakhr-un-Nisa. Tipu introduced a number of administrative innovations during his rule, including his coinage, a new Mauludi lunisolar calendar, and a new land revenue system which initiated the growth of Mysore silk industry. Tipu expanded the iron-cased Mysorean rockets and wrote the military manual Fathul Mujahidin, considered a pioneer in the use of rocket artillery. He deployed the rockets against advances of British forces and their allies in their 1792 and 1799 Siege of Srirangapatna
May 9 Claude Balbastre a French composer, organist, harpsichordist and fortepianist. He was one of the most famous musicians of his time
May 18 Pierre Beaumarchais a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, horticulturalist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary.
May 26 James Burnett Lord Monboddo a Scottish judge, scholar of linguistic evolution, philosopher and deist. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics. In 1767 he became a judge in the Court of Session. As such, Burnett adopted an honorary title based on the name of his father's estate and family seat, Monboddo House. Monboddo was one of a number of scholars involved at the time in development of early concepts of evolution. Some credit him with anticipating in principle the idea of natural selection that was developed into a scientific theory by Charles Darwin
Jun 6 Patrick Henry an American attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786
Jun 7 Increase Sumner an American lawyer, jurist, and politician from Massachusetts. He was the fifth governor of Massachusetts, serving from 1797 to 1799. Trained as a lawyer, he served in the provisional government of Massachusetts during the American Revolutionary War, and was elected to the Confederation Congress in 1782. Appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court the same year, he served there as an associate justice until 1797
Jun 7 Princess Victoire of France the seventh child and fifth daughter of King Louis XV of France and his Queen consort Maria Leszczyńska. As the daughter of the king, she was a Fille de France
Jun 7 Barbara Campanini a famous Italian ballerina, one of the most important ballet dancers of the 18th century.
Jun 10 Chevalier de Saint-Georges a champion fencer, a virtuoso violinist and conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. Born in Guadeloupe, he was the son of George Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy planter, and Nanon, his African slave. During the French Revolution, Saint-Georges was colonel of the 'Légion St.-Georges,' the first all-black regiment in Europe, fighting on the side of the Republic. Today the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is best remembered as the first classical composer of African ancestry
Jun 18 Johann André a German musician, composer and music publisher. He was born and died in Offenbach am Main
Jul 7 William Curtis an English botanist and entomologist, who was born at Alton, Hampshire.
Aug 2 Douglas Hamilton 8th Duke of Hamilton a Scottish peer.
Aug 3 Hendrik Kobell an 18th-century landscape and marine painter, etcher, draftsman and watercolorist from the Northern Netherlands.
Aug 4 John Bacon (sculptor) a British sculptor.
Aug 5 Richard Howe 1st Earl Howe a British naval officer, notable in particular for his service during the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary Wars. He was the brother of William and George Howe
Aug 6 Marcus Elieser Bloch a German medical doctor and naturalist. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the 18th century
Aug 12 Feliks Oraczewski a Polish writer, educational and political activist.
Aug 15 Barthélemy Catherine Joubert a French general. He joined the royal French army in 1784 and rose rapidly in rank during the French Revolutionary Wars. Napoleon Bonaparte recognized his talents and gave him increased responsibilities. Joubert was killed while commanding the French army at the Battle of Novi in 1799
Aug 15 Giuseppe Parini an Italian Enlightenment satirist and poet of the neoclassic period.
Aug 16 Vincenzo Manfredini an Italian composer, harpsichordist and a music theorist.
Aug 21 Johann Julius Walbaum a physician, naturalist and taxonomist. He was the first to describe many previously unknown species from remote parts of the globe, such as the Great Barracuda , the Chum salmon from the Kamchatka River in Siberia, and the curimatá-pacú from the São Francisco River in Brazil. He was also the first to observe gloves as a preventative against infection in medical surgery. In 1758, the gloves he observed were made from the cecum of the sheep, rather than rubber, which had not yet been discovered
Aug 29 Pope Pius VI born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, reigned from 15 February 1775 to his death in 1799.
Aug 31 Nicolas-Henri Jardin born in Germain des Noyers, Dept. Seine-et-Marne, France, and worked seventeen years in Denmark as an architect to the royal court. He introduced neoclassicism to Denmark
Sep 7 Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier a French natural scientist and contributor to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers.