1760 – 1770s

Events in the 1760s 6

• 1681 – 1767 Georg Philipp Telemann Prolific German Baroque composer The most prolific composer in history, writing over 3,000 works. Highly celebrated in his time, his reputation was later overshadowed by Bach.
• 1683 – 1764 Jean-Philippe Rameau French Baroque composer & theorist The dominant figure of French Baroque music and opera. His treatise on harmony laid the foundations of modern Western music theory.
• 1686 – 1768 Domenico Scarlatti Baroque keyboard innovator Italian composer who wrote over 550 keyboard sonatas that pushed the boundaries of technique and anticipated the Classical style.
• 1760 – 1788 Hutton — deep geological time The Earth is inconceivably old — "no vestige of a beginning" James Hutton of Edinburgh, through observation of Scottish rock formations, concluded in his Theory of the Earth (1788) that geological processes — erosion, deposition, uplift — operate extremely slowly and have been doing so for an immense time. His famous phrase "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end" introduced the concept of deep time. His work was essential for Darwin, who needed vast geological time for evolution to operate.
• 1760 – 1842 Luigi Cherubini Classical opera composer Italian composer based in Paris, known for his operas and sacred music. Beethoven considered him the greatest living composer.
• 1766 Cavendish discovers hydrogen Inflammable air — the lightest element In 1766, Henry Cavendish described hydrogen as a distinct element (he called it "inflammable air"), demonstrating its properties by producing it from metal and acid. In 1783 he showed that water is formed when hydrogen burns in oxygen — overturning the ancient idea of water as an element and establishing the chemical composition of the most abundant compound on Earth.