1797 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 3 - The Treaty of Tripoli (a peace treaty between the United States and Tripoli) is signed at Algiers.
• January 7 - The parliament of the Repubblica Cisalpina adopts the Italian gree-white-red tricolour as official flag. It is the birthday of the flag of Italy.
• February 14 - The Battle of Cape St. Vincent (1797), part of the Wars of the French Revolution.
• February 18 - Spanish Governor Chacon peacefully surrenders the colony of Trinidad and Tobago to a British naval force.
• February 22 - Attempted invasion of Britain in Fishguard by French forces
• February 26 - The Bank of England (national bank of Britain) issues the first one pound note (discontinued March 11 1988).
• March 4 - John Adams succeeds George Washington as the President of the United States of America.
• May 12 - First Coalition: Napoleon I of France conquers Venice ending the 1070 years of independence of city.
• July 24 - Horatio Nelson wounded at Tenerife - injury causes a loss of one arm.
• September 7 - Treaty of Campo Formio ends the War of the First Coalition.
• October 21 - In Boston Harbor, the 44-gun United States Navy frigate USS Constitution is launched to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli (in 1805 the Tripoli peace treaty was signed on Constitution's deck).

• Large-scale mutinies in Royal Navy

Ongoing events

• French Revolution (1789-1799)
• French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-First Coalition

Births

• January 31 - Franz Schubert, Austrian pianist and composer
• February 15 -Henry Engelhard Steinway, German-American piano manufacturer
• March 22 - Wilhelm I, King of Prussia and German Emperor (d. 1888)
• March 27 - Alfred de Vigny, French author (d. 1863)
• May 18 - Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, (d. 1854)
• July 20 - Sir Paweł Edmund Strzelecki, Polish explorer and geologist (d. 1873)
• August 30 - Mary Wollstonecroft (later Mary Shelley), English writer
• October 3 - Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1870)
• November 14 - Sir Charles Lyell, British geologist.
• December 13 - Heinrich Heine, German poet (d. 1856)

Deaths

• February 11 - Antoine Dauvergne, French composer (b. 1713)
• March 2 - Horace Walpole, English politician and writer (b. 1717)
• March 26 - James Hutton Scottish geologist (b. 1726)
• July 9 - Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher (b. 1723)
• August 3 - Jeffrey Amherst, British military commander (b. 1717)
• November 16 - Frederick William II of Prussia (b. 1744)