Events

• March 4 – Vermont
  Vermont
  Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
  
   is admitted as the 14th U.S. state
  U.S. state
  A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
  
  .
• March 9 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant
  Pierre Charles L'Enfant
  Pierre Charles L'Enfant was a French-born American architect and civil engineer best known for designing the layout of the streets of Washington, D.C..-Early life:...
  
   arrives in Georgetown
  Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
  Georgetown is a neighborhood located in northwest Washington, D.C., situated along the Potomac River. Founded in 1751, the port of Georgetown predated the establishment of the federal district and the City of Washington by 40 years...
  
   and begins designing the federal capital city.
• August 26 – John Fitch
  John Fitch (inventor)
  John Fitch was an American inventor, clockmaker, and silversmith who, in 1787, built the first recorded steam-powered boat in the United States...
  
   is granted a patent for the steamboat
  Steamboat
  A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
  
   in the United States.
• September 9 – Washington, D.C.
  Washington, D.C.
  Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
  
   is officially named.
• September 25 – Mission Santa Cruz
  Mission Santa Cruz
  Mission Santa Cruz was established in 1791 and named for the feast of the Exultation of the Cross, the name that the explorer Gaspar de Portolà gave to the area when he camped on the banks of the San Lorenzo River on October 17, 1769, and erected a wooden cross...
  
   is founded by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén
  Fermín Lasuén
  Father Padre Fermín de Francisco Lasuén de Arasqueta was a Spanish missionary to Alta California, the second presidente and founder of the California Franciscan Mission Chain....
  
  , becoming the 12th mission in the California mission chain.
• October 9 – Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
  Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad
  Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad is in the Salinas Valley near Soledad, in central Monterey County, California. The mission was founded on October 9, 1791 for the increasing settlement of upper Las Californias Province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and for the Indian Reductions to convert...
  
   is founded by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén
  Fermín Lasuén
  Father Padre Fermín de Francisco Lasuén de Arasqueta was a Spanish missionary to Alta California, the second presidente and founder of the California Franciscan Mission Chain....
  
  , becoming the 13th mission in the California mission chain.
• December 15 – Ratification by the states of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution
  United States Constitution
  The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
  
   is completed, creating the United States Bill of Rights
  United States Bill of Rights
  The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
  
  . Two additional amendments remain pending, and one of these is finally ratified in 1992, becoming the Twenty-seventh Amendment
  Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
  The Twenty-seventh Amendment prohibits any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of the Congress from taking effect until the start of the next set of terms of office for Representatives...
  
  .

Undated

• The first American ship reaches Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
  .
• An ordinance is written barring the game of baseball within 80 yards of the Meeting House in Pittsway, Massachusetts (first known reference to the game of baseball in North America).

Further reading

• Lists of Foreigners Who Arrived at Philadelphia, 1791-1792. The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 24, No. 2 (1900), pp. 187-194.
• Bernard C. Steiner. A Frenchman's Impressions of Maryland and Virginia in 1791. The Sewanee Review, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan., 1904), pp. 52-72.
• Journal of John Mair, 1791. The American Historical Review, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Oct., 1906), pp. 77-94.
• Journal of William Loughton Smith, 1790-1791. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 51, (Oct., 1917 - Jun., 1918).
• Joseph W. Barnwell. Washington's Southern Tour, 1791, by Archibald Henderson. The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1925), pp. 59-64.
• Samuel C. Williams. The Southwest Territory to the Aid of the Northwest Territory, 1791. Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 37, No. 2 (JUNE, 1941), pp. 152-157.
• J. Paul Selsam. France and Pennsylvania: an exchange of greetings in 1791. Pennsylvania History, Vol. 14, No. 1 (January, 1947), pp. 13-22.
• Richard K. Murdoch. Documents Pertaining to the Georgia-Florida Frontier, 1791-1793. The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Apr., 1960), pp. 319-338.
• S. W. Jackman. A Young Englishman Reports on the New Nation: Edward Thornton to James Bland Burges, 1791-1793. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1961), pp. 85-121.
• Harold Kirker. The New Theater, Philadelphia, 1791-1792. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Mar., 1963), pp. 36-37.
• Silvio A. Bedini. Benjamin Banneker and the Survey of the District of Columbia, 1791. Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., Vol. 69/70, The 47th separately bound book (1969/1970), pp. 7-30.
• Jack D. L. Holmes, J. Leitch Wright Jr. Luis Bertucat and William Augustus Bowles: West Florida Adversaries in 1791. The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Jul., 1970), pp. 49-62.
• Betty Wood. White Women, Black Slaves and the Law in Early National Georgia: The Sunbury Petition of 1791. The Historical Journal, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1992), pp. 611-622.
• Leroy V. Eid. American Indian Military Leadership: St. Clair's 1791 Defeat. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Jan., 1993), pp. 71-88.
• Tim H. Blessing. The Lewistown riots, 1791-1793: a micro-analytic approach. Pennsylvania History, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Summer 2004), pp. 285-321