*Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, issues a decree abolishing the historic punishments against unmarried women in Germany for "sex crimes", particularly the Hurenstrafen practices of public humiliation.
*Isaac Barré, a member of the British House of Commons for Wycombe and a veteran of the French and Indian War in the British American colonies, coins the term "Sons of Liberty" in a rebuttal to Charles Townshend's derisive description of the American colonists during the introduction of the proposed Stamp Act. MP Barré notes that "They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and unhospitable country... And yet, actuated by the principles of true English liberty, they met all these hardships with pleasure, compared with those they suffered in their own country, from the hands of those who should have been their friends." American colonists adopt the term for their own organization after reading the accounts of Barré's speech.
February 14 - Spain's five-member "special junta", appointed by Prime Minister Jerónimo Grimaldi, delivers its report regarding "ways to address the backwardness of Spain's commerce with its colonies and with foreign nations". The report provides detailed orders to be delivered to José de Gálvez, the visitador general in charge of New Spain.
March 9 - After a public campaign by the writer Voltaire, judges in Paris posthumously exonerate Jean Calas of murdering his son. Calas had been tortured and executed in 1762 on the charge, though his son may have committed suicide.
March 24 - Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, requiring private households in the thirteen American colonies to house British soldiers if necessary.
April–June
April 4 - At Fort Tombecbe, near what is now the town of Epes, Alabama, representatives of the British Empire and of the Choctaw Indian tribe in Mississippi sign a peace treaty in the wake of French cession of claims to the British. A boundary is fixed between land to be occupied by the Choctaws and for lands which British settlers can use; in addition, the British agree to provide a police official and a gunsmith at Fort Tombecbe for the Choctaws to use for trespassing complaints and for weapons repairs. By 1775, however, the Choctaws are outnumbered in Mississippi.
April 5 - After completing the portion of the Mason–Dixon line marking the semi-circular boundary between Pennsylvania and Delaware, English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon begin the two and a half year process of plotting out the 230-mile boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland along the latitude of 39°43′20″ N.
April 14 - Three days after getting the news that the Stamp Act has passed, American colonists invade the British Army arsenal near the New York City Hall and sabotage guns inside by spiking them.
April 26 - At Saint Petersburg, German engineer Christian Kratzenstein presents to the Russian Academy of Sciences a perfected version of the arithmetical machine originally invented by Gottfried Leibniz. Kratzenstein claims that his machine solves the problem with the Leibniz machine has with calculations above four digits, perfecting the flaw where the machine is "prone to err whenever it is necessary to make a number of 9999 move to 10000", but the machine is not developed further.
May 18 - Not long after British rule has started over the formerly French colony of Quebec, an accidental fire destroys one quarter of the town of Montreal.
May 26 - During a stroll in the park "on a fine Sabbath afternoon" at Glasgow Green, Scottish engineer James Watt receives the inspiration that provides the breakthrough in his development of the steam engine; he recounts later that "The idea came into my mind, that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication was made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel, it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder... I had not walked further than the Golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."
July 12 - On orders of Chief Pontiac, War Chief Wahpesah of the Kickapoo people releases British Indian Affairs negotiator George Croghan from 35 days of detention. At the same time, Pontiac authorizes a Shawnee Chief, Nanicksah, to sign a treaty with the British on behalf of the Great Lakes tribes, settling the French and Indian War.
July 21 - Having eliminated all of his rivals for leadership of Persia, Karim Khan Zand returns in triumph to his home in Shiraz and makes it his capital, then begins construction of citadels, mosques, schools and other buildings.
July 23 - Headed by Odawa Chief Pontiac and George Croghan, a party of Great Lakes tribesmen and British soldiers travel along the Wabash River and obtain the release of all white prisoners of war remaining in the Miami people and Odawa villages between Ouiatenon and Detroit.
July 30 - At Yale College, eight students attack the residence of Yale's President Thomas Clap because of his promotion of "New Light"Calvinist doctrine; and "with Evil Intent" and "with Strong hand burst and take off the gates of the yard of the mansion house and Carry away and with Screaming and Shouting... throw into said House Numbers of large stones with Cattles Horns into the windows of said House." The students plead guilty and pay nominal fines, and Clap resigns at the end of the 1765–66 school year.
October 17 - The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a Mr. McCullough, the Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest at the Stamp Act. A Dr. Huston is appointed to the position.
November 1 - The Stamp Act goes into effect in the thirteen American colonies.
December 12 - The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that Dr. Huston, the recently instated Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest at the Stamp Act.
