On This Day

January 1847 in History

Events in History

  • Jan 1 Michigan is 1st state to abolish capital punishment
  • Jan 1 Neth's Haarlem's Current newspaper starts publishing

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Jan 4 Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government

Inventor/Industrialist Samuel Colt
Inventor/Industrialist
Samuel Colt

Book releaseHistoric Publication

Jan 4 Manuscripts of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" and Anne Brontë's "Agnes Grey" sent to publisher T.C. Newby (published December 1847)

Writer Emily Brontë
Writer
Emily Brontë
  • Jan 9 1st San Francisco newspaper published (California Star)
  • Jan 15 1st Swedish magazine in US, Skandinavia, published in NYC
  • Jan 16 John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory
  • Jan 24 1,500 New Mexican Indians & Mexicans defeated by US Colonel Price
  • Jan 30 Yerba Buena renamed San Francisco

Birthdays in History

  • Jan 4 Hendrik Goeman Borgesius, Dutch politician
  • Jan 20 William R. Pettiford, African American minister and banker, founder of the Alabama Penny Savings Bank, born in Granville county, North Carolina (d. 1914)

Deaths in History

  • Jan 11 Caroline von Wolzogen [von Lengefeld], German author, dies at 83
  • Jan 14 Gov Bent, 5 others in US occupation, killed by revolt in New Mexico
  • Jan 30 Virginia Clemm Poe, American wife of writer Edgar Allan Poe, dies of tuberculosis at 24