| 1730–1807 | UK [newspapers] | The Daily Advertiser is launched in London, England. With its dependence on advertisements, this may be regarded as the first modern newspaper. |
| 1770–1780 | America [statistics and demography] | The estimated population of the American colonies is 2,780,369 including 575,420 black slaves. |
| 1776–1779 | Pacific [exploration] | English explorer James Cook explores the Pacific Ocean. In 1778, he discovers Hawaii, where the indigenous population treat him as a god. Later that year, he passes through the Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, searching for the northwest passage to the Atlantic. |
| 1778 | England [fiction] | The English writer Fanny Burney publishes anonymously Evelina, her first and best novel. |
| 1778 | Japan [painting] | The Japanese artist and poet Yosa Buson paints the hand scroll The Narrow Path into the Back Country. |
| 1778 | UK [plays] | The comedy School for Scandal by the Irish writer Richard Brinsley Sheridan is performed, in London, England. |
| 1778 | France [sex and sexuality] | The French government sets up state control of brothels, with compulsory registration and medical inspection of prostitutes. |
| 1778 | India [colonization] | The British governor-general in India, Warren Hastings, captures the French base of Chandernagore in Bengal, and an expedition under Hector Munro takes Pondicherry in the Carnatic. |
| 1778 | France [earth sciences] | In Epoques de la nature/Epochs of Nature, French scientist George-Louis Leclerc, Compte de Buffon, reconstructs geological history as a series of stages – the first to recognize such stages. It contradicts the doctrine that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. |
| 6 February 1778 | France, America, UK [American Revolution] | France and the American colonists sign a treaty of amity and commerce and a treaty of alliance. In response, Britain declares war on France. |
| 30 May 1778 | France [births and deaths] | Voltaire, celebrated French philosopher and writer, whose major works include Candide (1758) and the Dictionnaire philosophique/Philosophical Dictionary (1764), dies in Paris, France (83). |
| 2 July 1778 | France [births and deaths] | Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher whose writings provided inspiration to the leaders of the French Revolution, dies in Ermenonville, France (66). |
| 3 July 1778 | Prussia, Habsburg Monarchy, Saxony, Austria-HM [wars] | Prussia, in alliance with Saxony, declares war on the Habsburg Monarchy following the Austrian occupation of Lower Bavaria. Skirmishes between Prussia and Austria continue until May 1779. |
| 27 July 1778 | UK, France [American Revolutionary War (1775–83)] | A French fleet under Louis Guillouet, comte d'Orvilliers, wins a narrow victory over a British fleet under Augustus Keppel off Ushant, in the English Channel. This crucial British defeat enables units of the French Brest fleet to be sent to America and the West Indies. |
