1782

January–March

• January 7 - The first American commercial bank opens.
• January 15 - Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the United States Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.
• January 23 - The Laird of Johnstone invites people to buy marked plots of land which, when built upon, form the planned town of Johnstone, Scotland, to provide employment for his thread and cotton mills.
• February 5 - The Spanish defeat British forces and capture Menorca.
• February 18 - Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Shirley's Gold Coast expedition lands at Elmina on the Dutch Gold Coast. The British expedition fails to take the fort here but over the next several weeks seizes, with minimal resistance, four small Dutch forts.
• February 27 - The British House of Commons votes against further war in America, paving the way for the Second Rockingham ministry and the Peace of Paris.
• March 8 - Gnadenhutten massacre: In Ohio, 29 Native American men, 27 women, and 34 children are killed by white militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by another Native American group.
• March 14 - Battle of Wuchale: Emperor Tekle Giyorgis pacifies a group of Oromo near Wuchale.
• March 27 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• March 31 - Mission San Buenaventura is founded in Las Californias, part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

  April–June

• April 6 - Rama I overthrows King Taksin of Siam in a coup d'état, and moves the political capital from Thonburi, across the Chao Phraya River to Rattanakosin Island, the historic center of Bangkok.

• April 12 - Battle of the Saintes: A British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats a French fleet under the Comte de Grasse, in the West Indies.
• April 19 - John Adams secures recognition of the United States as an independent government by the Dutch Republic. During this visit, he also negotiates a loan of five million guilders, financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink.
• April 21 - A Lak Mueang is erected on Rattanakosin Island, located on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River, by order of King Rama I, an act considered the founding of the capital city of Bangkok.
• May 17 - The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Repeal of Act for Securing Dependence of Ireland Act, a major component of the reforms collectively known as the Constitution of 1782, which restore legislative independence to the Parliament of Ireland.
• June 18 - In Switzerland, Anna Göldi is sentenced to death for witchcraft.
• June 20 - The bald eagle is chosen as the emblem of the United States of America. On the same day, the Confederation Congress adopts the design for the Great Seal of the United States.

  July–September

• July - Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, receives a visit from Pope Pius VI.
• July 1 - Raid on Lunenburg: American privateers attack the British settlement at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
• July 16-August 29 - The Masonic Congress of Wilhelmsbad, Germany, one of history's most important ever secret society congresses, takes place. High-degree Freemasons from the whole of Europe spend the time deliberating the fate of the rite of Strict Observance, and hierarchy of the governing bodies of world Freemasonry, at the Hanau-Wilhelmsbad spa.
• July 16 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail premieres at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
• August 7
• * George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers' merit in battle.
• * Étienne Maurice Falconet's Bronze Horseman statue of Tsar Peter the Great is unveiled in Saint Petersburg.
• August 21 - A fire breaks out in Constantinople at 9:00 in the evening and burns for two and a half days, destroying thousands of buildings and one-half of the city, and killing hundreds of people.
• September 7 - Correspondents to the Jewish Calendar, 5543.
• September 17 - 1782 Central Atlantic hurricane devastates a British Royal Navy fleet off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland with the loss of 3,500 lives.

  October–December

• October 10 - Welsh actress Sarah Siddons, the pre-eminent star of the English stage, makes a triumphant return to the theatre in the title role of David Garrick's new play, Isabella, or The Fatal Marriage.
• October 18
• * The first franking privilege is granted for official correspondence to be sent at no charge to and from members of the Confederation Congress, at government expense, during periods when the Congress is in session.
• * John Adams returns to Paris as the first United States Minister to France.
• November 4 - Elias Boudinot of New Jersey is elected the new President of the Congress of the Confederation.
• November 30 - American Revolutionary War: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles.
• December 12 - American Revolutionary War: Action of 12 December 1782: A naval engagement off Ferrol, Spain, in which the British ship commanded by James Luttrell successfully attacks a convoy of French and American ships attempting to supply the United States.
• December 14 - The Montgolfier brothers first test fly a hot air balloon in France; it floats nearly.
• December 16 - British East India Company: Hada and Mada Miah lead the first anti-British uprising in the subcontinent against Robert Lindsay and his contingents in Sylhet Shahi Eidgah.

  Date unknown

• Chief Kamehameha I of Hawaii gains control of the northern part of the island of Hawaii, after defeating his cousin Kīwalaʻō.
• Princess Yekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova is the first woman in the world to direct a scientific academy, the Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• London creates the Foot Patrol for public security.
• The British Parliament extends James Watt's patent for the steam engine to the year 1800.
• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates Washington, North Carolina.
• In China, the Siku Quanshu is completed, the largest literary compilation in China's history. The books are bound in 36,381 volumes with more than 79,000 chapters, comprising about 2.3 million pages, and approximately 800 million Chinese characters.
• Foundation of the first theater in the Baltic, the Riga City Theater.
• Saint Petersburg, Russia has 300,000 inhabitants.