1788 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: Cyrus Griffin
• Congress of the Confederation

  Governors

• Governor of Connecticut: Samuel Huntington
• Governor of Delaware: Thomas Collins
• Governor of Georgia: George Mathews , George Handley
• Governor of Maryland: William Smallwood , John E. Howard
• Governor of Massachusetts: John Hancock
• Governor of New Hampshire: John Langdon
• Governor of New Jersey: William Livingston
• Governor of New York: George Clinton
• Governor of Pennsylvania: Benjamin Franklin , Thomas Mifflin
• Governor of South Carolina: Thomas Pinckney
• Governor of Virginia: Edmund Randolph , Beverley Randolph

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Oliver Wolcott
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: Benjamin Lincoln
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Pierre Van Cortlandt
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: Thomas Gadsden

  Events

• January 2 - Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 4th U.S. state under the new government.
• January 9 - Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 5th U.S. state.
• January 22 - the Continental Congress, effectively a caretaker government, elects Cyrus Griffin as its last president.
• February 1 - Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patent the steamboat in Georgia.
• February 6 - Massachusetts ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 6th U.S. state.
• March 21 - Great New Orleans Fire kills 25% of the population and destroys 856 buildings, including St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, leaving most of the town in ruins. At the time New Orleans was a Spanish colony that would be secretly given to France in 1800. Not until 1803 would New Orleans as part of the Louisiana Purchase become part of the United States.
• April 7 - American pioneers establish the town of Marietta, the first permanent American settlement outside the original Thirteen Colonies.
• April 13 - A riot, the Doctors' Mob, begins. Residents of Manhattan are angry about grave robbers stealing bodies for doctors to dissect. The rioting is suppressed on the 15th.
• April 28 - Maryland ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 7th U.S. state.
• May 23 - South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 8th U.S. state.
• June 21 - New Hampshire ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 9th U.S. state, the Constitution goes into effect.
• June 25 - Virginia ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 10th U.S. state under the new government.
• July 26 - New York ratifies the United States Constitution and becomes the 11th U.S. state.
• November 15 - Cyrus Griffin resigns as President of the Continental Congress after only two delegates arrived for the final session.

  Ongoing

• Articles of Confederation in effect
• Northwest Indian War

  Births

• April 14 - David Gouverneur Burnet, politician
• September 15 - Gerard Brandon, 4th and 6th Governor of Mississippi from 1825 till 1826 and from 1826 till 1832.
• September 21 - Margaret Taylor, First Lady of the United States
• November 8 - Jabez W. Huntington, United States Senator from Connecticut from 1840 till 1847.
• Date unknown - Sacagawea, interpreter and guide on the Lewis and Clark Expedition

  Deaths

• January 9 - Benedict Swingate Calvert, judge
• February 28 - Thomas Cushing, 1st Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
• March 29 - Charles Wesley