February 5 » South Carolina becomes the second state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
February 9 » Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
February 14 » The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USSRanger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
February 23 » American Revolutionary War: Baron von Steuben arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to help to train the Continental Army.
December 15 » American Revolutionary War: British and French fleets clash in the Battle of St. Lucia.
December 29 » American Revolutionary War: Three thousand British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell capture Savannah, Georgia.
Day of death January 16, 1785
The temperature on January 16, 1785 was about 2.0 °C. Wind direction mainly south east. Weather type: betrokken mist. Source: KNMI
January 7 » Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.
January 20 » Invading Siamese forces attempt to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, but are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong river by the Tây Sơn in the Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút.
January 27 » The University of Georgia is founded, the first public university in the United States.
November 28 » The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed, by which the United States acknowledges Cherokee lands in what is now East Tennessee.
When copying data from this family tree, please include a reference to the origin: W. van Soom, "Family tree Van Soom", database, Genealogy Online (https://www.genealogieonline.nl/stamboom-van-soom/I95033.php : accessed March 1, 2026), "Maria Verstraeten (± 1745-1785)".
Copy warning
Genealogical publications are copyright protected. Although data is often retrieved from public archives, the searching, interpreting, collecting, selecting and sorting of the data results in a unique product. Copyright protected work may not simply be copied or republished.
Please stick to the following rules
Request permission to copy data or at least inform the author, chances are that the author gives permission, often the contact also leads to more exchange of data.
Do not use this data until you have checked it, preferably at the source (the archives).
State from whom you have copied the data and ideally also his/her original source.