Historical Events in 1817

Jan 18 José de San Martín leads a revolutionary army over the Andes to attack Spanish royalists in Chile

Jan 25 Gioachino Rossini's opera "La Cenerentola" (Cinderella) premieres in Rome

Jan 31 Franz Grillparzer's "Die Ahnfrau" premieres in Vienna
Feb 5 1st US gas co incorporated, Baltimore (coal gas for street lights)
Feb 7 Baltimore becomes the 1st American city lit by gas street lamps with the first turned on at Market and Lemon Streets (currently Baltimore and Holliday Streets)
Mar 2 1st Evangelical church building dedicated, New Berlin, Pennsylvania
Mar 3 Mississippi Territory is divided into Alabama Territory & Mississippi

Mar 4 James Monroe is inaugurated as the 5th President of the United States

Mar 8 The New York Stock Exchange is founded
Mar 25 Tsar Alexander I recommends formation of Society of Israeli Christians
Apr 15 1st American school for the deaf opens (Hartford, Connecticut)
Apr 15 The American Asylum [now American School for the Deaf (ASD)], 1st permanent US school for deaf founded by Rev. Thomas Gallaudet, Dr. Mason Cogswell, and teacher Laurent Clercn (West Hartford, Connecticut,)
Apr 22 Curacao prohibits use of white paint due to fierce sunlight
May 7 Japanese Emperor Kōkaku abdicates in favour of his son Emperor Ninkō
May 15 Ambonese uprising against Dutch authority (modern Indonesia), under Thomas Matulesia (aka Kapitan Pattimura)
May 15 First private mental health hospital opens in the US, Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
May 16 Mississippi River steamboat service begins
Jun 8 An uprising involving three hundred workers in the English town of Pentrich begins but is quashed almost immediately
Jul 4 Chief Engineer James Geddes begins construction on the Erie Canal, (Rome, New York), one of the first great engineering works in North America
Jul 12 1st flower show held in Dannybrook, County Cork, Ireland
Jul 12 Karl Drais von Sauerbronn demonstrates bicycle course
Aug 18 60-70ft sea serpent sightings reported offshore in Gloucester, Massachusetts
Sep 9 Alexander Twilight, probably first African American to graduate from a US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College

Sep 22 John Quincy Adams becomes US Secretary of State

Oct 9 University of Gent officially opens
Oct 20 1st Mississippi "Showboat" leaves Nashville on maiden voyage
Nov 21 US soldiers attack Miccosukee Tribe village of Fowltown, Georgia, beginning what becomes known as the First Seminole War
Nov 25 First sword swallower in US performs (NYC)
Dec 10 Mississippi admitted as 20th state of the Union
Dec 16 Leaders of Molukkas uprising hanged in Ambon