Historic Discovery
Feb 17 Charles Lyell makes his presidential address to the Geographical Society, London and announces that Richard Owen has concluded from Darwin's fossils that extinct species were related to current species in the same locality
Event of Interest
Mar 3 US President Andrew Jackson and Congress recognize the Republic of Texas
- Mar 4 Chicago becomes incorporated as a city
President Inaugurated
Mar 4 Martin Van Buren inaugurated as the 8th President of the United States
- Mar 4 Weekly Advocate changes its name to the Colored American
Event of Interest
Mar 12 British poet laureate Robert Southey writes in reply to 20 year-old Charlotte Brontë "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be." [1]
Event of Interest
May 6 US blacksmith John Deere creates the first steel plough in Grand Detour, Illinois
- May 9 "Sherrod" burns in the Mississippi River below Natchez, Mississippi; 175 die
- May 10 Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
- May 25 The Patriots of Lower Canada (Quebec) rebel against the British for freedom.
- May 31 Astor Hotel opens in NYC, it later becomes the Waldorf-Astoria
- Jun 11 The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, fueled by ethnic tensions between English-Americans and Irish-Americans
- Jun 13 1st Mormon missionaries to British Isles leave Kirtland, Ohio
Historic Invention
Jun 17 Charles Goodyear obtains his 1st rubber patent
- Jun 18 Spain gets new Constitution
Queen Victoria
Jun 20 Queen Victoria at 18 ascends British throne following death of uncle King William IV. She rules for 63 years till 1901.
- Jul 4 Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool
- Jul 13 Queen Victoria is 1st monarch to live in present Buckingham Palace
Opening of Euston Station
Jul 20 Euston railway station opens in London as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR), the city's 1st intercity railway station
- Jul 25 The first commercial use of an electric telegraph successfully demonstrated by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone between Euston and Camden Town in London
- Jul 27 US Mint opens in Charlotte, North Carolina
- Aug 5 1st ascent of Mt Marcy (5,344') highest in Adirondack, NY
- Aug 28 Pharmacists John Lea & William Perrins manufacture Worcestershire Sauce
The American Scholar
Aug 31 Ralph Waldo Emerson gives his famous "The American Scholar" speech to Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, declares American literary independence from Europe
- Sep 6 Oberlin Collegiate Institute of Ohio goes co-ed (4 women, 30 men)
Tiffany & Co Founded
Sep 18 Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young co-found a "stationery and fancy goods emporium" in New York City, later renamed in 1853 as "Tiffany & Co."
- Oct 1 "Racer's" Hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico
- Oct 1 US imposes treaty on Winnebago Indians in Wisconsin
- Oct 9 Meeting at the U.S. Naval Academy establishes the U.S. Naval Institute.
- Oct 9 Steamboat "Home" sinks off Okracoke, North Carolina, killing 100
- Oct 31 Collision of river boat Monmouth & Trement on Mississippi; 300 die
- Nov 7 In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy shot dead (age 34) by pro-slavery mob while attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.
- Nov 8 Mount Holyoke Seminary in Massachusetts founded - 1st US college founded for women
Pitman Shorthand: An Invention of Note
Nov 15 Isaac Pitman introduces his shorthand system of writing, Pitman shorthand
Music History
Dec 5 Hector Berlioz's "Requiem" premiere at Les Invalides, conducted by François Habeneck
Abolitionists
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies