Events from the year 1676 in England
Incumbents
Monarch – Charles II
Events
18 February – Isaac Newton communicates to Robert Hooke that “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.
2 March – The inaugural performance of George Etherege’s play The Man of Mode.
26 May – A devastating fire in Southwark results in the destruction of 625 houses.
September to November – A significant influenza epidemic occurs; it is the first to be documented as such.
11 December – The premiere of William Wycherley’s play The Plain Dealer.
Undated
The construction of Trinity College Library in Cambridge commences, designed by Sir Christopher Wren.
The Royal Greenwich Observatory in London, also designed by Wren, is completed during the summer.
The first Greek Orthodox church in England is consecrated at Hog Lane, London.
Robert Plot discovers the first fossilized bone, which is now recognized as belonging to a dinosaur, specifically the femur of a Megalosaurus found in a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton.
Births
- 4 January – Sir William Lowther, 1st Baronet, Member of Parliament (died 1705)
- 19 January – John Weldon, composer (died 1736)
- baptised 30 January – Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane, courtier and landowner (died 1744)
- 14 June – Sir John Rogers, 2nd Baronet, lawyer and politician (died 1744)
- 21 June (Old Style) – Anthony Collins, philosopher (died 1729)
- 26 August – Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (died 1745)
- 14 November – Benjamin Hoadly, clergy (died 1761)
- 29 November – Sir Henry Bunbury, 3rd Baronet, politician (died 1733)
- 30 December – John Philips, poet (died 1709)
Deaths
- 4 March – Sir Edward Turnour, Speaker of the House of Commons (born 1617)
- 22 March – Lady Anne Clifford, literary patron (born 1590)
- 23 May (buried) – William Samwell, architect (born 1628)
- 12 July – Henry Stubbe, writer and scholar (born 1632; drowned)
- 10 September – Gerrard Winstanley, religious reformer (born 1609)
- 11 October – Anthony Terill, theologian (born 1623)
- 25 December – Matthew Hale, Lord Chief Justice (born 1609)
- William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, soldier, politician and writer (born 1592)
- Chesten Marchant, last monoglot speaker of the Cornish language