Events in History
- Jan 1 The Cobble Hill Tunnel in Brooklyn is completed
Event of Interest
Jan 10 Poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning begin corresponding
- Jan 23 Uniform US election day for President & VP authorized
Historic Publication
Jan 29 American writer Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" 1st published in The Evening Mirror newspaper (New York City)
Edgar Allan Poe
2,000-year-old Glass Treasure Shattered by a Drunk
Feb 7 The Portland Vase, thought to date to the 1st century BC is shattered into more than 80 pieces by a drunken visitor to the British Museum
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- Feb 15 William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, 1st uses 72 inch (183 cm) reflector
Event of Interest
Mar 1 US President John Tyler signs a resolution annexing the Republic of Texas
John Tyler
President Inaugurated
Mar 4 James K. Polk inaugurated as 11th US President
James Knox Polk
Treaty of Waitangi
Mar 11 The Flagstaff War: In New Zealand, Chiefs Hone Heke and Kawiti lead 700 Māoris to chop down the British flagpole and drive settlers out of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka because of breaches of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
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- Mar 14 -5.3°F (-20.7°C) in Groningen
- Mar 17 Bristol man Henry Jones patents self-raising flour
- Mar 17 Rubber band patented by Stephen Perry of London
- Mar 26 Joseph Francis from NYC, patents a corrugated sheet-iron lifeboat
- Mar 26 Patent awarded for adhesive medicated plaster, precursor of band-aid
- Mar 28 Mexico drops diplomatic relations with US
- Apr 2 H L Fizeau & Leon Foucault take 1st photo of the Sun
- Apr 10 More than 1,000 buildings damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Apr 29 Macon B. Allen & Robert Morris Jr are 1st African Americans to open a law practice in the US
- May 2 Argentinian Domingo Sarmiento publishes his anti-tyranny work "Facundo Civilización y Barbarie"
- May 3 1st African American lawyer, Macon B Allen, admitted to the bar in Massachusetts
- May 3 Fire kills 1,600 in popular theater in Canton, China
- May 14 Utrecht-Arnhem Railway opens
- May 20 1st legislative assembly convenes in Hawaii
- May 20 HMS Erebus and HMS Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sail from the River Thames in England, beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage. All hands are lost.
- May 28 Fire in Quebec, Canada, 1,500 houses destroyed
- Jun 1 Homing pigeon completes 11,000 km trip (Namibia-London) in 55 days
Event of Interest
Jun 10 Andrew Jackson's African Grey parrot "Poll" is removed from his funeral for swearing at The Hermitage, Tennessee. Funeral attendee William Menefee Norment recorded: "Before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering, a wicked parrot that was a household pet got excited and commenced swearing so loud and long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house”
Andrew Jackson
- Jun 12 George Abernethy becomes 1st governor of Oregon Country
Event of Interest
Jul 3 Pioneering French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin opens his magic theatre in Paris
Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin
Event of Interest
Jul 4 Henry David Thoreau moves into his shack on Walden Pond
Henry David Thoreau
- Jul 4 Texas Congress votes for annexation to US
- Jul 14 1st postmasters' provisional stamps issued, NYC
- Jul 19 Fire in NYC destroys 1,000 homes and kills many
- Aug 4 Emigrant ship Cataraqui wrecks in Bass Strait with the loss of 400 lives, only nine survive, Australia's deadliest maritime civil disaster [1]
- Aug 6 The Russian Geographical Society is founded in Saint Petersburg
- Aug 28 Scientific American magazine publishes its first issue
- Sep 10 King Willem II opens Amsterdam Stock exchange
Scientific Discovery
Sep 13 English chemist Michael Faraday discovers the 'Faraday effect', the influence of a magnetic field on polarized light
Michael Faraday
- Sep 23 Hunger strike in Hague
- Oct 9 The eminent and controversial Anglican, John Henry Newman, is received into the Roman Catholic Church
- Oct 10 Naval School (now called US Naval Academy) opens at Annapolis
- Oct 13 Texas ratifies a state constitution
- Nov 4 First nationally observed uniform election day in US
- Nov 29 The Sonderbund is defeated by the joint forces of other Swiss cantons under General Guillaume-Henri Dufour.
- Dec 2 US President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the United States should aggressively expand into the West, a widely held belief termed "manifest destiny" by newspaper editor John O'Sullivan
- Dec 6 Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity is founded at Yale College.
Event of Interest
Dec 17 German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt arrives in Port Essington after a nearly 4,800 km (3,000 mi) overland journey to explore Australia's Northern Territory
Ludwig Leichhardt
Birthdays in History
- Jan 7 Louis III, last king of Bavaria (1913-18)
- Jan 7 Paul Deussen, German philosopher (Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft), born in Oberdreis, Germany (d. 1919)
- Jan 13 Félix Tisserand, French Astronomer (d. 1896)
- Jan 14 Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, British statesman, born in London, United Kingdom (d. 1927)
- Jan 15 Ella Flagg Young, American educator & 1st woman pres. (National Educational Association), born in Buffalo, New York (d. 1918)
- Jan 17 Lucas Lindeboom, Dutch vicar/evangelist (Vredebond)
- Jan 22 Jacob Verdam, Dutch philologist
- Jan 22 Paul Vidal de la Blanche, French geographer
- Feb 3 Ernest von Wildenbruch, German playwright (Sedan)
- Feb 15 Elihu Root, American statesman (R)/US Secretary of State (1905-09)/Nobel Peace Prize (1912), born in Clinton, New York (d. 1937)
- Feb 26 Alexander III, Russian tsar (1881-94), born in the Winter Palace, St Petersburg, Russian Empire (3/10 NS)
- Mar 3 Georg Cantor, German mathematician (discover transfinite numbers)
- Mar 7 Daniel David Palmer, Canadian founder of chiropractic (1897 Palmer School of Chiropractic), born in Port Perry, Canada West (d. 1913)
- Mar 10 Alexander III A Romanov, Russian tsar (1881-94)
- Mar 19 Willem H de Beaufort, Dutch historian/politician
Wilhelm Röntgen
Mar 27 Wilhelm Röntgen, German physicist who discovered X-rays (Nobel 1901), born in Lennep, Rhine Province (d. 1923)
Wilhelm Röntgen
- Apr 5 Jules Cambon, French ambassador, to U.S. (1897), Spain (1902–07) and Germany (1907–14), born in Paris (d. 1935)
- Apr 17 Isabel Barrows, American editor and penologist (Conference on Negro Question), born in Irasburg, Vermont (d. 1913)
- Apr 24 Carl Spitteler, Swiss poet (Prometheus & Epimetheus; Nobel 1919), born in Liestal, Switzerland (d. 1924)
- May 1 [Robert] Lawson Tait, Scottish-born pioneering surgeon performed first salpingectomy for ectopic pregnancy, born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 1899)
- May 7 Jacob van Stolk Azn, timber merchant/art collector
- May 15 Ilya Mechnikov, Russian zoologist and bacteriologist known as the "father of natural immunity" (Nobel 1908), born in Ivanovka, Kharkov Governorate, Russian Empire
- May 30 Amadeus/Amadeo I, duke of Aosta and King of Spain (1870-73), born in Turin, Italy (d. 1890)
- Jun 9 Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto (d. 1914)
- Jun 17 Hendrik Peter Staal, Dutch reformed officer and politician, born in Zwolle, Netherlands (d. 1920)
- Jun 18 Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1922)
- Jun 22 Tom Dula, American folk character (Tom Dooley) (d. 1868)
- Jun 22 Richard Seddon, longest serving Prime Minister of New Zealand (1893-1906), born in Eccleston, England (d. 1906)
- Jul 4 Thomas John Barnardo, British social worker, born in Dublin, Ireland (d. 1905)
- Jul 18 Tristan Corbière, French poet, born in Morlaix, Brittany, France (d. 1875)
- Aug 9 Xavier Mellery, Belgian painter and illustrator, born in Laken, Belgium (d. 1921)
- Aug 9 André Bessette, Canadian Roman Catholic religious figure, born in Mont-Saint-Grégoire, Quebec, Canada (d. 1937)
- Aug 16 Gabriel Lippmann, French physicist and inventor, born in Bonnevoie, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg (d. 1921)
- Aug 20 Albert Chmielowski, Polish Catholic Saint, born in Igołomia, Małopolskie, Congress Poland (d. 1916)
- Aug 22 William Lewis Douglas, 42nd Governor of Massachusetts, born in Plymouth, Massachusetts (d. 1924)
- Aug 24 James C. Calhoun, American soldier, brother-in-law of George Armstrong Custer (d. 1876)
- Aug 25 Ludwig II, Mad king of Bavaria (1864-86), born in Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Germany (d. 1886)
Mary Ann Nichols
Aug 26 Mary Ann Nichols, English victim of Jack the Ripper, born in London (d. 1888)
Mary Ann Nichols
- Sep 1 Paul S Methuen, English fieldmarshal/governor of Natal/Malta
- Oct 17 Franz Ehrle, German prefect of Vatican library
- Oct 28 Zygmunt Florenty Wróblewski, Polish physicist and chemist, born in Grodno, Russian Empire (d. 1888)
- Nov 3 Edward Douglass White, American politician and jurist (9th Chief Justice of the United States), born in Thibodaux, Louisiana (d. 1921)
- Nov 4 Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, Indian independence activist and revolutionary, born in Shirdhon village, Panvel taluka, Raigad district, British India (d. 1883)
John Thompson
Nov 10 John Thompson, 4th Prime Minister of Canada (C: 1892-94), born in Halifax, Nova Scotia (d. 1894)
John Thompson
- Nov 14 Ulisse Dini, Italian mathematician and politician (Fondamenti per la teorica delle funzioni di variabili reali), born in Pisa, Grand Duchy of Tuscany (d. 1918)
- Nov 18 John F Mellaerts, Flemish social worker (1st Belgian farm gilde)
- Nov 25 José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Portuguese novelist, born in Póvoa de Varzim (d. 1900)
- Dec 12 Bruce Price, American architect, born in Cumberland, Maryland (d. 1903)
- Dec 23 Emmanuel-Persillier Lachapelle, Canadian physician and founder of Hôpital Notre-Dame, Montreal), born in Sault-au-Récollet, Montreal
- Dec 23 Gustave Ador, Swiss politician and 36th President of the Swiss Confederation (1919), born in Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland (d. 1928)
Weddings in History
Wedding of Interest
Jan 2 Explorer and medical missionary David Livingstone (31) weds Mary Moffat
David Livingstone
Wedding of Interest
Sep 25 Confederate army Nathan Bedford Forrest (24) weds Presbyterian minister's daughter Mary Ann Montgomery (18) in Hernando, Mississippi
Nathan Bedford Forrest
Deaths in History
- Feb 13 Henrik Steffens, Norwegian-German philosopher, dies at 71
- Feb 14 Joseph Lakanal, French Politician and Educator, dies at 82
- Mar 18 Johnny Appleseed [John Chapman], American pioneer nurseryman (introduced apple trees to Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois), dies at 70
- Apr 2 Philip Charles Durham, Royal Navy Admiral (b. 1763)
- Apr 12 Hendrik Marcus de Kock, Dutch general and politician (Lieutenant Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies 1826-30), dies at 65
- Apr 18 Nicolas Théodore de Saussure, Swiss chemist, dies at 77
- Apr 25 Thomas Duncan, Scottish painter, dies at 37
- May 2 August Pauly, German writer (Real Encyclopedia), dies at 48
- May 12 August Wilhelm Schlegel, German poet, translator and critic, dies at 77
- May 12 János Bacsanyi, Hungarian poet (b. 1763)
- May 15 Samuel I Wiselius, Dutch lawyer/businessman/writer, dies at 76
- May 19 Maria EJ Versfelt, mistress of general Moreau/marshal Ney, dies at 68
Andrew Jackson
Jun 8 Andrew Jackson, American soldier and statesman (D) seventh US President (1828-37), dies at 78
Andrew Jackson
Charles Grey
Jul 17 Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (Whig: 1830-34), dies at 81
Charles Grey
Elizabeth Fry
Oct 12 Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer, social reformer and Quaker Minister, dies of a stroke at 65
Elizabeth Fry
- Oct 18 Jean-Dominique, comte de Cassini, French astronomer, dies at 97
- Oct 25 Carel H Verhuell, Dutch/French vice-admiral, dies at 81
- Oct 27 Jean Charles Athanase Peltier, French Physicist (Peltier effect 1834), dies at 60
- Nov 3 Johan G Verstolk van Soelen, Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, dies at 69
- Dec 3 Gregor MacGregor, Scottish con-man (b. 1786)