Significant Events
- Jan 9 Daguerreotype photo process announced at French Academy of Science
- Jan 10 Tea from India 1st arrives in UK
- Aug 19 Details of Louis Daguerre's 1st practical photographic process are released in Paris
- Sep 5 The First Opium War begins in China
- Nov 25 Cyclone slams south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 people
1839 in Sport
- Feb 26 1st Grand National steeplechase race held at Aintree Racecourse, Jem Mason aboard Lottery wins in Liverpool, England (disputed)
Did You Know?
Slaves aboard a Spanish schooner La Amistad revolt to secure their freedom while being transported from one Cuban port to another
On July 2, 1839
World Leaders in 1839
Martin Van Buren
8th US President
William Lamb
British Prime Minister
Famous People in 1839
Charles Dickens
Novelist
George Armstrong Custer
John D. Rockefeller
Paul CézanneFamous Weddings
- Jan 29 English naturalist and "On the Origin of Species" author Charles Darwin (42) marries Emma Wedgwood (41)
- Jun 18 Dutch prince Willem Alexander (later William III) weds cousin Princess Sophia
- Jul 25 British PM William Gladstone (29) weds Catherine Glynne (27) in England
Famous Deaths
- Jan 12 Joseph A Koch, Aust painter/cartoonist/etcher/illustrator, dies at 70
- Jan 19 Georg Abraham Schneider, German horn player and composer, dies at 68
- Feb 1 Giuseppe Valadier, Italian architect/archaeologist, dies at 76
- Feb 7 Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b. 1799)
- Feb 15 Chevalier de Lorimier, Quebec notary (b. 1803)