Events January–March January 1 – Burmese Konbaung Dynasty annexed Mrauk U Kingdom of Arakan. January 1 – The first issue of the Daily Universal Register, later known as The Times, is published in London. January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. January 11 – Richard Henry Lee is elected as President of the U.S. Congress of the Confederation. January 20 – Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút: Invading Siamese forces, attempting to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong River, by the Tây Sơn. January 27 – The University of Georgia in the United States is chartered by the Georgia General Assembly meeting in Savannah. The first students are admitted in Athens, Georgia in 1801. February 9 – Sir Warren Hastings, who has been governing India on behalf of King George III as the Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William (later British India), resigns. Sir John Macpherson administers British India until General Charles Cornwallis arrives 19 months later. February 27 – The Confederation Congress votes an $80,000 expense to establish diplomatic relations with Morocco. March 7 – Scottish geologist James Hutton first presents his landmark work, Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. General Henry Knox is appointed as the Confederation Congress's Secretary of War, with added duties as the Secretary of Navy, both functions now of the U.S. Department of Defense. March 10 American engineer James Rumsey sends a letter to George Washington informing of his plans to create a successful steamboat. Thomas Jefferson is appointed the new U.S. Minister to France, and Benjamin Franklin's request for permission to return home is accepted. April–June April 19 – The Commonwealth of Massachusetts cedes all of its claims to territory west of New York State to the United States Confederation Congress. The area will become the southern portions of Michigan and Wisconsin. April 21 – The Empress Catherine the Great of the Russian Empire issues the Charter to the Towns, providing for "a coherent, unified system of administration" for new governments organized in Russia. April 26 – John Adams is appointed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom,