Events January– March January 1 – The foundation of Fort George, Bombay is laid by Colonel Keating, principal engineer, on the site of the former Dongri Fort. February 1 – Thomas Jefferson's home at Shadwell, Virginia is destroyed by fire, along with most of his books. February 14 – Scottish explorer James Bruce arrives at Gondar, capital of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) and is received by the Emperor Tekle Haymanot II and Ras Mikael Sehul. February 22 – Christopher Seider, an 11-year-old boy in Boston in the British Province of Massachusetts Bay, is shot and killed by a colonial official, Ebenezer Richardson. The funeral sets off anti-British protests that lead to the massacre days later. March 5 – Boston Massacre: Eleven American men are shot (five fatally) by British troops, in an event that helps start the American Revolutionary War five years later. March 21 – King Prithvi Narayan Shah shifts to the newly constructed Basantapur Palace in the capital Kathmandu as the first King of Unified Kingdom of Nepal March 26 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew aboard complete the circumnavigation of New Zealand. April–June April 12 – The Townshend Acts were repealed by Britain's Parliament by the efforts of Prime Minister Frederick North, with the exception of the increased duties on imported tea. The American colonists, in turn, stopped their embargo on British imports. April 18 (April 19 by Cook's log) 18:00 – First voyage of James Cook: English explorer Captain James Cook and his crew become the first recorded Europeans to encounter the eastern coastline of the Australian continent. Land was sighted at Point Hicks, and named after Lieutenant Hicks who first observed landform at 6am. April 20 – Battle of Aspindza: Georgian king Erekle II defeats the Ottoman forces, despite being abandoned by an ally, Russian General Totleben. April 29 – First voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook drops anchor on in a wide bay, about 16 km (10 mi) south of the present city of Sydney, Australia. Because the young botanist on board the ship, Joseph Banks, discovers 30,000 specimens of plant life in the area, 1,600 of them unknown to European science, Cook names the place Botany Bay on May 7. May 7 – Fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette arrives at the French court. May 16 – Marie Antoinette marries Louis-Auguste (who later becomes King Louis XVI of France).