This Year in History:
1785
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. The two men nearly crashed into the Channel along the way, however, as their balloon was weighed down by extraneous supplies such as anchors, a nonfunctional hand-operated […]
In a letter dated May 23, 1785, Benjamin Franklin reveals his design for what would later be called bifocal glasses. The Pennsylvania inventor, printer, author, diplomat and American Founding Father had grown tired of alternating between two different pairs of glasses to help his near or far vision. So he came up with an idea […]
On July 6, 1785, the Continental Congress establishes the dollar as the official currency of the newly established United States, paving the way for a national monetary system. The fledgling nation had just won the Revolutionary War, and the creation of a national currency marked one of its first steps in stabilizing and establishing its […]
