Street in New York City. Former New York City mayor John Cruger Jr. is elected the Chamber's first president. May 10 – Massacre of St George's Fields: John Wilkes is imprisoned for writing an article for The North Briton, severely criticizing King George III of Great Britain. This action provokes protesters to riot; in the Southwark district of London, troops fire on the mob, killing seven. May 15 – After the Treaty of Versailles, the island of Corsica is ceded by Genoa to France. June 14 – The largest mass meeting ever held in New England, up to this time, takes place at the Old South Church to support a petition demanding that the British remove a ship which has been hindering navigation in Boston Harbor. June 20 – Russo-Turkish War (1768–74): Russia captures the fortress of Bar. July–September July 1–3 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, on his circumnavigation westbound, sails through the Bougainville Strait and along the north shore of Bougainville Island in the Solomons. July 14 – The massacre of Polish people (most likely by the Russian) at the village of Balta, now a part of Ukraine but at the time an Ottoman Empire town on the frontier with Poland, leads to the Russo-Turkish War. July 18 – "The Liberty Song", the first American patriotic song, is published in the Boston Gazette and includes the refrain "In freedom we're born". July 25 – The Imperial Court of China's Emperor Qianlong and his three senior grand councilors, Fuheng, Yenjisan and Liu T'ung-hsun, issues a directive to officials in the Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces warning them about the need to respond to rumors of sorcery. August 7 – The palace of the Ottoman Grand Vizier is destroyed by a fire in Constantinople August 26 – James Cook departs from Plymouth aboard on his first voyage of discovery. August 27 – Almost all merchants and traders in the British colony of New York sign a pact not to import British manufactured goods as long as the Townshend Acts are in effect, nor to do business with nonassociators to the pact. August 30 – A fire burns much of the Library of the Vatican. September 16 – Louis XV of France appoints René de Maupeou as Chancellor (an office he will hold until 1790), and orders him to crush the judicial opposition. September 22–29 – The Massachusetts Convention of Towns, assembling