| 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. |
| 1799–1825 | [maths] | The French mathematician and physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace publishes the five-volume Traité de mécanique céleste/Celestial Mechanics, which applies calculus to the motions of celestial bodies and Isaac Newton's theories of the Solar System to show how its stability is implicit in the law of gravitation. |
| 1800–1850 | USA [consumer products] | A revolution in retail and wholesale trade occurs: specialization transforms the urban retail market, replacing the general store with individual stores for hardware, groceries, dry goods, furnishing, books, tobacco, and so on. Cash-only sales policies are instituted around 1806. |
| 1807 | UK [tools] | English inventors Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier receive a patent for an improved version of Nicolas-Louis Robert's papermaking machine. Their new ‘Fourdrinier machine’ allows production of paper in continuous sheets. |
| 1807 | UK [weapons] | Scottish clergyman Alexander Forsyth invents the percussion ignition for guns; he uses an explosive chemical charge which detonates when struck by a hammer. It allows operation in wet weather and leads to the development of breech loaders. |
| 1807 | Germany [philosophy] | The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel publishes Phänomenologie des Geistes/Phenomenology of Spirit. His first major work, it gives a sketch of his elaborate metaphysical system. |
| 1807 | France [photography] | French inventor Nicéphore Niépce makes two heliotrope (sundrawing) prints of an engraved portrait – the first photomechanical reproduction process. |
| 1807 | England [poetry] | The English poet William Wordsworth publishes Ode: Intimations of Immortality, and Poems, in Two Volumes. |
| c. 1807 | England [energy] | English chemist Humphry Davy develops the first useable arc lamp; a 2,000-cell battery creates an electric arc across a gap of 100 mm/4 in between two charcoal conductors. |
| 1807 | UK [energy sources] | German promoter Frederick Winsor's National Light and Heat Company lights one side of Pall Mall, London, England, with gas lamps – the first street-lighting in the world. |
| 19 January 1807 | USA [births and deaths] | Robert E Lee, Confederate general who commands the Southern armies during the American Civil War, born in Stratford, Westmoreland County, Virginia (–1870). |
| 8 February 1807 | France, Russian Empire, Prussia [Napoleonic Wars (1803–15)] | The French emperor Napoleon I's army catches up with the retreating Russian and Prussian forces at Eylau in eastern Prussia; an indecisive battle causes heavy losses to both sides. |
| 29 May 1807 | Ottoman Empire [political events] | The Ottoman sultan Selim III is deposed by janissaries (members of his bodyguard) opposed to his reforms and is replaced by Mustafa IV. |
| 4 July 1807 | France, Sicily, Naples [births and deaths] | Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian soldier whose conquest of Sicily and Naples helps to unify Italy, born in Nice, France (–1882). |
| 7 July 1807 | Prussia, France [treaties] | The Treaty of Tilsit (Prussia) ends the war between France and Russia. The French emperor Napoleon I, having defeated Austria and now Russia and Prussia, is the master of continental Europe. Russia agrees to the establishment of a Grand Duchy of Warsaw (as a French satellite in eastern Europe), recognizes the Confederation of the Rhine (association of German states under French protection), agrees to close all ports to British ships, and, by a secret agreement, Tsar Alexander I agrees to coerce Denmark, Sweden, and Portugal into joining the alliance against Britain. In return he is given a free hand against Sweden in Finland and the Ottoman Empire in the Danubian provinces (Moldavia and Wallachia). |
| 17 August - 18 August 1807 | USA [ships and shipping] | US engineer Robert Fulton's paddleboat Steamboat, the first commercial paddle steamer, makes a 240 km/150 mi trial run on the Hudson River from Albany to New York City. Completed in 32 hours (sailing ships take 4 days), averaging 7.6 kph/4.7 mph, it is equipped with side paddles and a Boulton and Watt engine. The following year it is refurbished and renamed the Clermont and begins to ply the Hudson River. |
| 14 October 1807 | Prussia [legislation] | In an attempt to modernize Prussian agriculture, the medieval feudal system of tenure, in which peasants are tied to their landlords and the land they work, is ended by an Act of Emancipation. |
