| 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. |
| 1797 | USA [painting] | The US artist John Trumbull completes his painting The Declaration of Independence, one of the best-known images of the period. |
| 1797 | England [art] | The English wood engraver Thomas Bewick publishes Land Birds, one of his finest set of engravings. It is the first part of his work A History of British Birds. The second part appears in 1804. |
| 1797 | USA [births and deaths] | Sojourner Truth, freed slave turned orator, famous for her ‘Ain't I a Woman?’ speech, born in Ulster County, New York (–1883). |
| 1797 | Switzerland [educational theory] | The Swiss educationalist Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi publishes Meine Nachforschungen über den Gang der Natur in der Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts/My Inquiry into the Course of Nature in the Development of Mankind. |
| 1797 | England [manufacturing] | English bone china is developed by English pottery manufacturer Josiah Spode. |
| 1797 | England [transport] | English engineer Richard Trevithick builds high-pressure working models of stationary and moving steam locomotives. |
| 31 January 1797 | Austria [births and deaths] | Franz Schubert, Austrian composer, born in Vienna, Austria (–1828). |
| 6 June 1797 | Genoa [political events] | Napoleon Bonaparte establishes the French-dominated Ligurian Republic in Genoa, Italy. |
| 30 August 1797 | England [births and deaths] | Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English writer, author of Frankenstein, born in London, England (–1851). |
| 17 October 1797 | France, Austria-HM, Italy, Venice, Belgium, Greece-Ottoman, Germany [treaties] | The Treaty of Campo Formio is signed by France and Austria after Napoleon Bonaparte's successful campaign in Italy and Tyrol. The Cisalpine and Ligurian republics are recognized, as is French possession of the Ionian Islands off the Greek coast. Austria occupies the Venetian lands east of the River Adige, including Istria, Dalmatia, and Venice, and cedes the Austrian Netherlands to France. Peace between the Holy Roman Empire and France is to be negotiated at a conference to be held at Rastatt, Germany. |
| 16 November 1797 | Prussia, France [political events] | Frederick William III succeeds his father, Frederick William II, as king of Prussia and continues his father's policy of neutrality in the war against revolutionary France. |
| 26 December 1797 | England [births and deaths] | John Wilkes, outspoken English journalist and politician who championed radical principles of political and civil liberty, dies in London, England (70). |
