– Brabant Revolution: Brabant revolutionaries cross the border from the Dutch Republic into the Austrian Netherlands; the first public reading of the Manifesto of the People of Brabant declares the independence of the Austrian Netherlands. October 27 – Battle of Turnhout: The Austrian army is beaten by Brabant revolutionaries. November 6 – Pope Pius VI creates the first diocese in the United States at Baltimore, and appoints John Carroll the first Roman Catholic bishop in the United States. November 20 – New Jersey ratifies the United States Bill of Rights, the first state to do so. November 21 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the 12th U.S. state. November 26 – A national Thanksgiving Day is observed in the United States, as recommended by President George Washington and approved by Congress. December 11 – The University of North Carolina, the oldest public university in the United States, is founded. December 23 – A leaflet circulated in France accuses the Marquis de Favras of plotting to rescue the royal family. Date unknown Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, decrees that all peasant labor obligations be converted into cash payments. The Qajar dynasty establish themselves as rulers in Iran. The Traité Élémentaire de Chimie (Elementary Treatise of Chemistry), an influential chemistry textbook by Antoine Lavoisier, is published; translated into English in 1790, it comes to be considered the first modern chemical textbook. German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovers the element uranium, while studying the mineral pitchblende. The Bengal Presidency first establishes a penal colony, in the Andaman Islands. Famine in Ethiopia. Thomas Jefferson returns from Europe, bringing the first macaroni machine to the United States. Influenced by Dr. Benjamin Rush's argument against the excessive use of alcohol, about 200 farmers in a Connecticut community form a temperance movement in the United States. Fort Washington (Cincinnati, Ohio) is built to protect early U.S. settlements in the Northwest Territory. Former slave Olaudah Equiano's autobiography The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, one of the earliest published works by a black writer, is published in London. Peggy of Castletown, Isle of Man, the world's oldest surviving private yacht, is built. The pedal powered tricycle is invented by two Frenchmen, named Blanchard and Maguier. Births January 3 – Carl Gustav Carus, German physiologist (d. 1869) January 4 – Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (d. 1839) January 12 – Ettore Perrone di San