1676 in England

← 1675 1674 1673 1676 in England → 1677 1678 1679
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See also:	Other events of 1676

Events from the year 1676 in the Kingdom of England.

Incumbents

• Monarch - Charles II

Events

• 18 February - Isaac Newton observes to Robert Hooke that "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".^[1]
• 2 March - First performance of George Etherege's play The Man of Mode.^[1]
• 26 May - Fire in Southwark destroys 625 houses.^[2]
• September to November - Major influenza epidemic; the first to be recorded as such.^[2]
• 11 December - First performance of William Wycherley's play The Plain Dealer.^[1]

Undated

• Construction begins on Trinity College Library in Cambridge, designed by Sir Christopher Wren.^[2]
• The Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, designed by Wren, is completed.
• Consecration of the first Greek Orthodox church in England, at Hog Lane, London.^[2]
• The first fossilised bone of what is now known to be a dinosaur is discovered by Robert Plot, the femur of a Megalosaurus from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton.^[3]

Births

• 19 January - John Weldon, composer (died 1736)
• baptised 30 January - Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane, courtier and landowner (died 1744)
• 14 June - Sir John Rogers, 2nd Baronet, lawyer and politician (died 1744)
• 21 June (Old Style) - Anthony Collins, philosopher (died 1729)
• 26 August - Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1745)
• 14 November - Benjamin Hoadly, clergy (died 1761)
• 29 November - Sir Henry Bunbury, 3rd Baronet, politician (died 1733)
• 30 December - John Philips, poet (died 1709)

Deaths

• 4 March - Sir Edward Turnour, Speaker of the House of Commons (born 1617)
• 22 March - Lady Anne Clifford, literary patron (born 1590)
• 23 May (bur.) - William Samwell, architect (born 1628)
• 12 July - Henry Stubbe, writer and scholar (born 1632; drowned)
• 10 September - Gerrard Winstanley, religious reformer (born 1609)
• 11 October - Anthony Terill, theologian (born 1623)
• 25 December -
  • Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice (born 1609)
  • William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, soldier, politician and writer (born 1592)
• Chesten Marchant, last monoglot speaker of the Cornish language

References

1. "1676: Science." The People's Chronology. Ed. Jason M. Everett. Gale Group, Inc., 2006. eNotes.com. 2006. 11 Oct, 2007
2. Palmer, Alan & Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 193–194. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
3. Sarjeant, William A.S. (1997). "The earliert discoveries". In Farlow, James O.; Brett-Surman, Michael K. (eds). The Complete Dinosaur. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 3–11. ISBN 0-253-33349-0.

See also