Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and erase Poland from the map for 123 years. 1773–1775: Pugachev's Rebellion, the largest peasant revolt in Russian history. 1773: East India Company starts operations in Bengal to smuggle opium into China. 1775: Russia imposes a reduction in autonomy on the Zaporizhian Cossacks of Ukraine. 1775–1782: First Anglo-Maratha War. 1775–1783: American Revolutionary War. 1776: Several Kongsi Republics are founded by Chinese settlers in the island of Borneo. They are some of the first democracies in Asia. 1776–1777: A Spanish-Portuguese War occurs over land in the South American frontiers. 1776: Illuminati founded by Adam Weishaupt. 1776: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. 1776: Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations. 1778: James Cook becomes the first European to land on the Hawaiian Islands. 1778: Franco-American alliance signed. 1778: Spain acquires its first permanent holding in Africa from the Portuguese, which is administrated by the newly-established La Plata Viceroyalty. 1778: Vietnam is reunified for the first time in 200 years by the Tay Son brothers. The Tây Sơn dynasty has been established, terminated the Lê dynasty 1779–1879: Xhosa Wars between British and Boer settlers and the Xhosas in the South African Republic. 1779–1783: Britain loses several islands and colonial outposts all over the world to the combined Franco-Spanish navy. 1779: Iran enters yet another period of conflict and civil war after the prosperous reign of Karim Khan Zand. 1780: Outbreak of the indigenous rebellion against Spanish colonization led by Túpac Amaru II in Peru. 1781: The city of Los Angeles is founded by Spanish settlers. 1781–1785: Serfdom is abolished in the Austrian monarchy (first step; second step in 1848). 1782: The Thonburi Kingdom of Thailand is dissolved after a palace coup. 1783: The Treaty of Paris formally ends the American Revolutionary War. 1783: Russian annexation of Crimea. 1785–1791: Imam Sheikh Mansur, a Chechen warrior and Muslim mystic, leads a coalition of Muslim Caucasian tribes from throughout the Caucasus in a holy war against Russian settlers and military bases in the Caucasus, as well as against local traditionalists, who followed the traditional customs and common law (Adat) rather than the theocratic Sharia. 1785–1795: The Northwest Indian War is fought between the United States and Native Americans. 1785–1787: The Maratha-Mysore War concludes with an exchange of territories in the Deccan. 1786–1787: Mozart premieres The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni 1787: The Tuareg occupies