On This Day

February 1837 in History

Events in History

  • Feb 8 1st US Vice-President chosen by Senate, Richard Johnson (Van Buren admin)
  • Feb 10 Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is fatally injured in a duel with French officer Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès (1/29 OS)
  • Feb 11 American Physiological Society organizes in Boston
  • Feb 13 Riot in New York due to a combination of poverty and increase in the cost of flour

Event of interestEvent of Interest

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

Geologist Charles Lyell
Geologist
Charles Lyell
  • Feb 25 1st US electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport

Birthdays in History

  • Feb 5 Dwight Lyman Moody, American evangelist (Student Volunteer Movement)
  • Feb 7 James Murray, Scottish lexicographer and philologist (Oxford English Dictionary), born in Denholm, Scotland (d. 1915)
  • Feb 9 Jose Burgos, Filipino Catholic priest, born in Vigan, Philippines
  • Feb 17 Francis Jay Herron, American Major General (Union Army), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (d. 1902)
  • Feb 17 Sam[uel] van Houten, Dutch (lib) minister (child labor laws)
  • Feb 24 Rosalía de Castro, Santiago de Compostela Galician writer and poet ('Séculos Escuros') (d. 1885)
  • Feb 26 Charles Woeste, Belgian count, Minister of Justice, born in Brussels, Belgium (d. 1922)

Deaths in History

  • Feb 7 Gustav IV Adolf, King of Sweden (1792-1809), dies at 58
  • Feb 10 Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet and writer (Eugene Onegin), killed in a duel at 37
  • Feb 12 Ludwig Borne [Loeb Baruch], German-Jewish writer, dies at 50
  • Feb 13 Mariano José de Larra, Spanish journalist and writer (b. 1809
  • Feb 19 Georg Büchner, German playwright (b. 1813)