- Jan 1 British government demands Falkland islands
- Jan 1 Curacao census: 2,602 whites, 6,531 free people, 5,894 slaves
- Jan 2 Re-establishment of British rule on the Falklands.
- Jan 3 Britain seizes control of Falkland Islands in South Atlantic
- Jan 15 HMS Beagle anchors at Goeree Tierra del Fuego
- Jan 23 Joseph Pease, a Quaker, admitted to Parliament on his affirmation
- Mar 17 Phoenix Society forms (NY)
- Mar 20 US & Siam sign commercial treaty
- Apr 9 1st US tax-supported public library in Peterborough, New Hampshire
- Apr 24 Jacob Evert & George Dulty patent 1st soda fountain
- May 2 Russian Tsar Nicolas I bans public sale of serfs
- May 11 "Lady-of-the-Lake" strikes iceberg & sinks in North Atlantic; kills 215
- Jun 3 4th national black convention meets (Philadelphia)
Meeting of Interest
Jun 5 Ada Lovelace (future 1st computer programmer) meets Charles Babbage
Ada Lovelace
Charles Babbage
- Jun 27 Prudence Crandall, a white woman, arrested for conducting an academy for black females at Canterbury, Connecticut
- Jun 28 Three missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society obtain permission from Chief Moshoeshoe (Moshesh) to found a mission station in Basutoland (now Lesotho)
- Jul 8 Russia and Turkey sign defense treaty
- Jul 23 Cornerstones are laid for the construction of the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio.
- Jul 24 HMS Beagle departs Maldonado Uruguay
- Aug 3 HMS Beagle reaches river mouth of Rio Negro
- Aug 10 Chicago incorporates as a village of about 200
- Aug 12 The town of Chicago is incorporated (population 350)
- Aug 24 HMS Beagle reaches Bahia Blanca, Argentina
- Aug 28 Britain's Slavery Abolition Act gains royal assent
Fighting The Scourge of Child Labour
Aug 29 Britain’s 1st Factory Act becomes law "to regulate the Labour of Children and young Persons in the Mills and Factories of the United Kingdom"
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Event of Interest
Sep 20 Charles Darwin arrives in Buenos Aires after travelling through the Argentine interior with guachos
Charles Darwin
- Oct 2 NY Anti-Slavery Society organized
- Oct 29 1st US college fraternity to have a fraternity house founded
- Nov 8 Train derails at Hightstown New Jersey; 2 die
- Nov 12 The great Leonid Meteor shower was recorded
- Nov 18 Netherlands & Belgium sign Treaty of Zonhoven
- Dec 3 Oberlin College in Ohio, the first truly coeducational college, opens
- Dec 4 American Anti-Slavery Society formed by Arthur Tappan in Philadelphia