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1841  Jan 20, The island of Hong Kong was ceded to Great Britain from China as part of the concessions from the Opium War. It became a capitalist bastion as opposed to the rest of China. (It returned to Chinese control in July 1997.) The 1942 treaty of Nanking ceded Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity. The British won the first Opium War and forced China to open markets to foreign trade.
 (WSJ, 10/26/95, p.A-1)(SFEC, 11/10/96, Par p.14)(SFC, 3/11/97, p.A12)(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)(AP, 1/20/98)(HN, 1/20/99)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)

1841  Jan 26, Britain formally occupied Hong Kong, which the Chinese had ceded to the British.
 (AP, 1/26/98)

1841  Jan 28, Henry Morton Stanley was born and christened John Rowland to an unwed and impoverished mother in Wales. A leading explorer and colonizer of Africa, Stanley is best known for locating the missing British missionary and explorer David Livingstone in Central Africa in 1871. He was on assignment for the New York Herald and immortalized the moment he found Livingstone on November 11, 1871, with the words: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Stanley, who was adopted as a youth by Louisiana cotton merchant Henry Hope Stanley, served in both the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War and became an American citizen in the 1860s. Stanley resumed his British citizenship in 1892, served in Parliament from 1895-1900, was knighted in 1899 and died in London on May 10, 1904.
 (HNQ, 6/4/98)

1841  Feb 18, The 1st continuous filibuster in US Senate began and lasting until March 11.
 (MC, 2/18/02)

1841  Feb 24, John Phillip Holland, inventor of the modern submarine, was born. [see Feb 29]
 (HN, 2/24/98)

1841  Feb 25, Pierre Auguste Renoir (d.1919), French painter, was born. He was an Impressionist painter, father of Jean Renoir, and founder of the French Impressionist movement. He was the son of a Paris tailor and began his career as a porcelain painter in the Sevres china factory. His paintings included "Luncheon of the Boating Party," "Self-portraits" (1875 & 1899) and "Sleeping Girl With a Cat" (1880). [see 1894, J. Renoir]
 (HFA, '96, p.22)(WSJ, 8/13/96, p.A9)(DPCP 1984)(HN, 2/25/99)

1841  Feb 27, [Eleanor] Agnes Lee, daughter of US general Robert E. Lee, was born.
 (MC, 2/27/02)

1841  Feb 29, John Philip Holland (b.1840), inventor of the modern submarine, was born in Liscannor, County Clare, into a family that had survived the Great Potato Famine. Following his immigration to America in 1873, Holland settled in Paterson, New Jersey where he taught school and, with financial backing from the Irish Fenian Society, began developing his first submarine. In 1881, Holland launched the Fenian Ram, a 31-foot-long submersible powered by a 15-horsepower internal combustion engine. With Holland at the controls, the Ram dived 64 feet beneath New York Harbor that summer, only to be seized by the Fenians when they lost interest in the project. In 1895, the J.P. Holland Torpedo Boat Company, won a contract from the U.S. Navy to build a submarine. After one discouraging failure, the second submarine, the Holland VI, passed her sea trials and was purchased by the U.S. Navy on April 11, 1900 for $150,000. [see Feb 24]
 (HN, 2/29/00)

1841   Mar 1, Blanche K. Bruce, senator of Mississippi 1875-1881, was born in Farmville, Va.
 (HN, 3/1/98)(SC, 3/1/02)

1841  Mar 4, Dion Boucicault's "London Assurance" premiered in London.
 (SC, 3/4/02)
1841  Mar 4, Longest presidential inauguration speech (8,443 words) to date was made by William Henry Harrison.
 (SC, 3/4/02)

1841  Mar 8, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (d.1935), 59th Supreme Court Justice (1902-1932), the "Great Dissenter," was born in Boston. "To have doubted one's own first principles, is the mark of a civilized man."
 (AP, 3/8/98)(HN, 3/8/98)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(AP, 3/6/00)

1841  Mar 9, The rebel slaves who seized a Spanish slave ship, the Amistad, two years earlier were freed by the Supreme Court despite Spanish demands for extradition.
 (HN, 3/9/99)

1841  Mar 20, Edgar Allen Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, considered the first detective story, was published. [see April 14, 20, 1841]
 (HN, 3/20/01)

1841  Mar 22, Cornstarch was patented by Orlando Jones.
 (MC, 3/22/02)

1841  Mar 27, The first U.S. steam fire engine was tested in New York City.
 (HN, 3/27/98)

1841  Mar 31, 1st performance of Robert Schumann's 1st Symphony in B.
 (MC, 3/31/02)

1841  Apr 4, President William Henry Harrison (68), 9th President of the US, succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.
 (A&IP, ESM, p.59,96b)(AP, 4/4/97)(MC, 4/4/02)

1841  Apr 6, Cornerstone was laid for 2nd Mormon temple at Nauvoo, Missouri.
 (MC, 4/6/02)

1841  Apr 10, The NY Tribune began publishing under editor Horace Greeley (1811-1872). The abolitionist newspaper editor founded The New York Tribune with support from powerful political friends. Under Greeley's direction, The Tribune took a strong stand against slavery, the South and slave owners in the years leading up to the Civil War. The Tribune and Greeley also crusaded against liquor, gambling, prostitution and capital punishment. One of the founders of the Republican Party, Greeley was also an eccentric who dabbled in many of the fads of his day.
 (HNPD, 2/3/99)(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.W12)(AP, 7/21/98)(MC, 4/10/02)

1841  Apr 14, Edgar Allen Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue," published. [see Mar 20, Apr 20]
 (MC, 4/14/02)

1841  Apr 20, Edgar Allen Poe’s first detective story, "Murders in Rue Morgue," was published. Poe published in this year 2 secret messages, as the work of W.B. Tyler, that were not deciphered until 1992 and 2000. [see Mar 20, Apr 14 1841]
 (HN, 4/20/98)(SFC, 12/1/00, p.A3)(MC, 4/20/02)

1841  May 1, The 1st emigrant wagon train left Independence, Missouri, for California.
 (MC, 5/1/02)

1841  Jun 14, The first Canadian parliament opened in Kingston.
 (AP, 6/14/97)

1841  Jun 28, The ballet "Giselle," also called Les Wilis, was premiered in Paris. It was the brain-child of Theophile Gautier, a leading voice of the Romantic Age. It told of a dance-loving peasant girl who dies of a broken heart when Albrecht, a philandering nobleman, betrays her.
 (SFEM, 3/28/99, p.12)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A20)

1841  Jul 5, Thomas Cook (b.1808) opened the 1st travel agency.
 (MC, 7/5/02)

1841  Jul 17, The British humor magazine Punch was first published.
 (AP, 7/17/97)

1841  Jul 27, Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (b.1814), poet, novelist, died.
 (MC, 7/27/02)

1841  Sep 8, Antonin Dvorak (d.1904), Czech composer and violinist, was born in Nelahozeves. His work included the "New World Symphony."
 (WUD, 1994 p.444)(HN, 9/8/00)(MC, 9/8/01)

1841  Sep 9, The Great Lakes steamer "Erie" sank off Silver Creek, NY, and 300 people were killed.
 (MC, 9/9/01)

1841  Sep 19, The first railway to span a frontier was completed between Stousbourg and Basle, in Europe.
 (HN, 9/19/98)

1841  Sep 28, Georges Clemenceau, premier of France during World War I, was born. He served as premier from 1906-09 and 1917-1920.
 (HN, 9/28/98)(MC, 9/28/01)

1841  Sep 30, Samuel Slocum patented the stapler.
 (MC, 9/30/01)

1841  Nov 2, War between Anglos and Afghans again flared. In a revolt against British rule a British envoy was killed. By Jan 1842 the British army decided to withdraw with its 4,500 Anglo-Indian troops and 10,000 camp followers. The column was wiped out by Ghilzai tribesmen with their long-barrelled rifles called jezails.
 (WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)(HN, 11/2/98)

1841  Nov 4, The 1st wagon train arrived in California.
 (MC, 11/4/01)

1841  Nov 9, Edward VII, King of England, was born. He succeeded his mother Victoria and served from 1901-1910.
 (HN, 11/9/00)

1841  Nov 16, Life preservers made of cork were patented by Napoleon Guerin in NYC.
 (MC, 11/16/01)

1841  Nov 18, Georg Chistoph Grosheim (77), composer, died.
 (MC, 11/18/01)

1841  Nov 25, 35 Amistad survivors returned to Sierra Leone, Africa. [see Jun 28, 1839]
 (MC, 11/25/01)

1841  Nov, Nancy Kelsey was the first American woman to walk into California.
 (Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.16)

1841  Dec 6, Robert Schumann's 4th Symphony in D, premiered.
 (MC, 12/6/01)

1841  Dec 31, Alabama became the 1st state to license dental surgeons.
 (MC, 12/31/01)

1841  Theodore Chasseriau (1819-1856), Dominican-born artist, created his portrait "Comtesse de LaTour-Mauberg."
 (WSJ, 11/26/02, p.D8)

1841  Catharine Beecher wrote her "Treatise on Domestic Economy."
 (SFEM, 6/28/98, p.30)

1841  John Lloyd Stephens published "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan" with illustrations by Frederick Catherwood. He tells of his plans to purchase the ruins of the great Maya cities of Quirigua and Palenque and transporting them to New York.
 (RFH-MDHP, p.217, illustrations)(ON, 12/99, p.8)

1841  Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Dutch artist, authored "Thoughts and Recollections of a Landscape Artist."
 (WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)

1841  Charles Mackay published his work "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds." The book described John Law’s early 18th century Mississippi Project, the South Sea Bubble, and the Tulip mania of the 17th century. It was republished in 1996 in paperback.
 (WSJ, 3/5/96, p. A-12)

1841  J.L. Stephens wrote in his book: "There is but one side to politics in Guatemala, both sides have a beautiful way of producing unanimity of opinion, by driving out of the country all who do not agree with them."
 (NG, 6/1988, p.798)

1841  The comedy "London Assurance" was written by 19-year-old Dion Boucicoult of Ireland.
 (WSJ, 5/1/97, p.A16)

1841  In Philadelphia Volney B. Palmer began the first advertising agency. He sold newspaper space to out-of-town advertisers.
 (SFC, 7/5/97, p.E3)

1841  At Yale Univ. the Scroll and Key society was founded.
 (USAT, 1/15/97, p.6D)

1841  John Quincy Adams (74), former US president, defended "the Mendi people," a group of Africans who rebelled and killed the crew aboard the slave ship Amistad, while en route to Cuba. They faced mutiny charges upon landing in New York but Adams won their acquittal before the Supreme Court. In thanks they bestowed to him an 1838 English Bible. In 1996 the Bible was stolen from the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy, Mass.
 (WSJ, 1/3/97, p.A7)

1841  Thomas Fitzpatrick and Joe Meek led a band of settlers out of Independence, Missouri, heading west to the Oregon Territory. It was the beginning of a flood of emigration west.
 (HT, 3/97, p.37)

1841  John Sutter built a fort on the Sacramento River.
 (HNQ, 11/18/00)

1841  The Russian fur traders sold Fort Ross, Bodega and all their ranches and livestock in California to John Sutter. They had made a settlement at Fort Ross (an archaic form of Russia) in order to develop a source of provisions for themselves and their Sitka, Alaska settlement.
 (WCG, p.58)(SFEC, 3/23/97, p.T15)

1841  Princess Helena, wife of the governor-general of Siberia and the Russian colonies on the Pacific Coast, christened the highest mountain, an extinct volcano, on Dr. Bale’s Rancho "Mount Saint Helena," reportedly after her patron saint, mother of Constantine the Great.
 (Article on Calistoga by Sybbil McCabe, 7/95)

1841  Dr. Edward Turner Bale was granted the lands between Rutherford and Calistoga, Ca. which he named Rancho Carne Humana. He later built the Bale Grist Mill. [see 1846]
 (WCG, 7/95, p.21)

1841  The valley stretching north from Sonoma, Ca. was referred to as "Valle de la Luna."
 (SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-3)

1841  In a letter to his cousin, William Darwin Fox, Charles Darwin wrote: "if your half-bred African Cat should die... I should be very much obliged for its carcase."
 (NH, 5/96, p.7)

1841  The compound dimethylmercury was first synthesized. It can pass through latex gloves and is deadly.
 (SFC, 6/13/97, p.A9)

1841  Lord Elgin died in Paris at age 75. In 1966 Judith Grant authored "A Pillage of Art." In 1985 Epaminondas Vranopoulos authored "The Parthenon and the Elgin Marbles." In 1998 William St. Claire authored "Lord Elgin and the Marbles."
 (ON, 11/99, p.4)

1841  In Austria the Salzburg Cathedral’s Music Society founded the Mozarteum to preserve the memory of Mozart and to promote the instruction and performance of music.
 (StuAus, April ‘95, p.91)

1841  In Metlach, Germany, the firm of Villeroy & Boch Pottery was founded. They made many types of wares, including the famous Mettlach steins and are still in business.
 (SFC, 5/22/96, Z1, p7)

1841-1845 John Tyler, elected as Vice-President under Harrison, became the 10th President of the US upon Harrison’s unexpected death.
 (A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)

1841-1846 The Mormon Temple at Nauvoo, Ill., was built.
 (SFEC, 8/29/99, p.T3)

1841-1869 Approximately 400,000 settlers crossed the American West on the Oregon Trail during this period. The influx of settlers began after legendary mountain men Thomas Fitzpatrick and Joe Meek guided a small band of settlers out of Independence, Missouri, in 1841, heading west toward the Oregon Territory, 2,000 miles distant. The route they used, pieced together from Indian and trapper paths, would become known as the Oregon Trail. By the time the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, some 400,000 settlers had travelled west on the Oregon Trail.
 (HNQ, 4/18/99)

1841-1870 Frederic Bazille, painter. He painted The Family Reunion.
 (AAP, 1964)

1841-1912 Gerard H. Hansen, Norwegian physician. He discovered the leprosy-causing Mycobacterium leprae (aka Hansen’s disease).
 (WUD, 1994, p.644)

1841-1921 Of the 11 U.S. presidents serving between 1841 and 1921, seven of them were born in Ohio. The presidents and their places of birth were: Ulysses S. Grant, Point Pleasant; Rutherford B. Hayes, Delaware; James A. Garfield, Orange; Benjamin Harrison, North Bend; William McKinley, Niles; William H. Taft, Cincinnati; Warren G. Harding, Morrow County. These were the only Ohio-born presidents. Three of them, Garfield, McKinley and Harding died in office. Four of the seven presidents hailing from Ohio died while in office. They were William Henry Harrison, the 9th president, who died one month after his inauguration in 1841; the 20th president, James Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881; William McKinley, the 25th president, who was assassinated in 1901; and Warren G.  Harding, who died suddenly in 1923.
 (HNQ, 5/9/98)(HNQ, 6/7/99)

1842  cJan 1, Maj. Gen. William G.K. Elphinstone ordered a 90-mile retreat from Kabul through the snowy passes to Jalalabad.
 (SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C8)

1842  cJan 2-12, Akbar Khan, Afghan hero, was victorious against the British. Out of 4,500 (16,500) soldiers and 12,000 dependents only one survivor, of a mixed British-Indian garrison, reached the fort in Jalalabad, on a stumbling pony. The British retreated from Kabul to Jalalabad. The incident is the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s novel "Flashman." [see Jan 13]
 (WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(www.afghan, 5/25/98)(WSJ, 9/20/01, p.A12)

1842  Jan 7, Gioacchino Rossini's "Stabat Mater" premiered in Paris.
 (MC, 1/7/02)

1842  Jan 13, Dr. William Brydon, badly wounded, reached Jalalabad as the only survivor of a 16,000 person retreat from Kabul. In the 1st British-Afghan War British troops retreating from Kabul were ambushed and nearly all slaughtered at the Khyber Pass, even though the Afghans had promised them safe passage during their withdrawal from the Afghan capital.  [see Jan 2-12]
 (SSFC, 10/28/01, p.C8)(MC, 1/13/02)

1842  Feb 15, The 1st adhesive postage stamps in US were made available by a private delivery company in NYC.
 (440 Int’l., 2/15/99)

1842  Feb 21, 1st known sewing machine was patented in US by John Greenough in Wash, DC. [see 1830,1833]
 (MC, 2/21/02)

1842  Feb 24, Arrigio Enrico Boito, composer (Mefistofele), was born.
 (MC, 2/24/02)

1842  Feb 26, Camille Flammarion, Mars researcher and popularizer of astronomy, was born.
 (SC, 2/26/02)

1842  Mar 3, 1st performance of Felix Mendelssohn's 3rd "Scottish" Symphony.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1842  Mar 3, 1st US child labor law regulating working hours was passed  in Massachusetts.
 (SC, 3/3/02)

1842  Mar 9, Giuseppe Verdi's 3rd opera "Nabucco," premiered in Milan. It became his 1st big hit.
 (WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A20)(MC, 3/9/02)

1842  Mar 15, Maria Luigi Cherubini (81), Italian composer (Dies Irae), died.
 (MC, 3/15/02)

1842  Mar 18, Stephane Mallarme (d.1898), French essayist and symbolist poet, was born. "Every soul is a melody which needs renewing."
 (AP, 7/17/98)(HN, 3/18/01)

1842  Mar 22, Mykola Vytal'yevich Lysenko, composer, was born.
 (MC, 3/22/02)

1842  Mar 23, Stendhal [Marie-Henri Beyle], French author (Lamiel), died at 59.
 (SS, 3/23/02)

1842  Mar 30, Dr. Crawford W. Long of Jefferson, Ga., first used ether as an anesthetic during a minor operation.
 (AP, 3/30/97)

1842  Apr 3, Hermann Karl Vogel, German astronomer, was born.
 (HN, 4/3/01)

1842  Apr 29, Karl Millocker, conductor, composer (Beggar Student), was born in Austria.
 (MC, 4/29/02)

1842  May 5, Johann Nepomuk Fuchs, composer, was born.
 (MC, 5/5/02)
1842  May 5, City-wide fire burned for over 100 hours in Hamburg, Germany.
 (MC, 5/5/02)

1842  May 12, Jules Massenet Montaud (d.1912), French composer, was born. His work included "Manon," "Thais" and "Le Cid."
 (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A24)

1842  May 13, Composer Sir Arthur Sullivan was born in London. He collaborated with Sir William Gilbert in writing 14 comic operas that included "HMS Pinafore."
 (AP, 5/13/99)(HN, 5/13/99)

1842  May 14, 1st edition of London Illustrated News.
 (MC, 5/14/02)

1842  May 15, Emanuel ADMJ Count de las Cases (76), French historian (Napoleon), died.
 (MC, 5/15/02)

1842  Jun 24, Ambrose Bierce (d.1914), American writer, satirist, was born in Meigs County, Ohio. He wrote "The Friend's Delight" and "The Devil's Dictionary."
 (SFEC, 11/8/98, BR p.3)(AP, 6/24/99)(HN, 6/24/99)

1842  Aug 9, The United States and Canada signed the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, resolving a border dispute between Maine and Canada's New Brunswick.
 (AP, 8/9/97)(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 9/30/99)

1842  Aug 29, Britain & China signed the Treaty of Nanking and ended the Opium war. The Treaty of Nanking opened the port of Shanghai to foreigners. The 1997 Chinese film "The Opium War" was directed by Xie Jin. It was about the events leading up to the Treaty of Nanking.
 (AMNHDT, 5/98)(SFC, 5/20/98, p.E3)(MC, 8/29/01)

1842  Aug 31, US Naval Observatory was authorized by an act of Congress.
 (MC, 8/31/01)
1842  Aug 31, Micah Rugg patented a nuts & bolts machine.
 (MC, 8/31/01)

1842  Sep 2, A letter by Abraham Lincoln (31) in the Sangamon Journal satirized the Illinois State Auditor’s call for state taxes to be paid in silver or gold. This in part led auditor James Shields to challenge Lincoln to a duel.
 (ON, 11/02, p.11)

1842  Sep 4, Work on Cologne cathedral resumed after 284-year hiatus.
 (MC, 9/4/01)

1842  Sep 5, Jesse James, legendary outlaw of the American West, was born. [see 1847]
 (HN, 9/5/00)

1842  Sep 20, Lord James Dewar, physician who invented the vacuum flask and cordite, the first smokeless powder, was born.
 (HN, 9/20/98)

1842  Sep 24, Branwell Bronte, the brother of the Bronte sisters and the model for Hindley Earnshaw in Emily's novel "Wuthering Heights," died of tuberculosis. Emily and Anne died the same year.
 (HN, 9/24/00)

1842  Oct 15, Karl Marx became editor-in-chief of Rheinische Zeitung.
 (MC, 10/15/01)

1842  Nov 4, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in Springfield, Ill.
 (AP, 11/4/97)(HN, 11/4/98)

1842  Nov 14, Walter Williams (d.1959), claimed to be last survivor of Civil War, was born.
 (MC, 11/14/01)

1842  Nov 17, A grim abolitionist meeting was held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment under the Fugitive Slave Bill (1793) of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts. Four hundred dollars was collected to buy his freedom, and plans to storm the jail were prepared as an alternative to secure his release.
 (HN, 11/17/98)
1842  Nov 17, Gaetano Donizetti's Opera "Linda di Chamounix" was produced (London).
 (MC, 11/17/01)

1842  Nov 22, Mount St Helen's in Washington state erupted. Mount St. Helens began 15 years of intermittent eruptions and then became relatively quiet for 123 years.
 (MC, 11/22/01)(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)

1842  Dec 1, Midshipman Philip Spencer (18) on the brig-of-war Somers, the 1st US naval officer condemned for mutiny, was hanged. Spencer was the son of John Canfield Spencer, the Sec. of War under Pres. John Tyler. In 2003 Buckner F. Melton Jr. authored "A Hanging Offense," an account of the "Somers affair."
 (MC, 12/1/01)(WSJ, 4/25/03, W6)

1842  Dec 7, The New York Philharmonic gave its first concert.
 (AP, 12/7/97)

1842  Dec 9, Mikail Glinka's his epic opera "Russlan & Ludmilla," premiered in Petersburg. It was based on Pushkin's Russianized version  of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso."
 (WSJ, 9/21/95, p.A-20)(MC, 12/9/01)

1842  Sidney Lanier (d.1881), poet, was born in Macon, Georgia.
 (WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A24)

1842  Walt Whitman (23) published his poem "A Sketch" in The New York New World.
 (SFC, 3/3/99, p.E4)

1842  Charles Dickens published his description of the Five Points district of New York City in "American Notes for General Circulation."
 (AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.H)

1842  John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood returned to Mexico and later produced a 2nd book titled: Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," which described their discovery of 44 additional ruined cities in southeastern Mexico.
 (ON, 12/99, p.8)

1842  "Around the World in 80 Days" was written by Jules Verne. It featured the illustrious science-fiction adventurer Phileas Fogg. In 1956 it was made into a film.
 (Hem., 2/96, p.43)(TOH, 1982, p.1956)

1842  Verdi composed his 3rd opera, Nabucco, which became his 1st big hit.
 (WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A20)

1842  The governor’s mansion in Jackson, Miss., was built.
 (WSJ, 10/14/97, p.A22)

1842  The Maclay Bill in New York State barred all religious instruction from public schools and provided no state money to parochial schools.
 (WSJ, 3/17/97, p.A18)

1842  The Wadsworth Athenium museum was established in Hartford.
 (WSJ, 2/2/99, p.A20)

1842  Abolitionists raised money to help the freed slaves of the Amistad return home. When Cinque, the leader of the revolt, reached home, he found that his family had been captured and sold into slavery.
 (SFEC,12/797, DB p.44)

1842  Christian Johann Doppler, mathematician at Prague, proposed the Doppler effect whereby a sound passing by a stationary observer will appear to change in pitch as it approaches and passes.
 (JST-TMC,1983, p.10)

1842  In Indiana Rev. Edward Sorin inherited 3 log cabins and envisioned the future development of Notre Dame. In 2001 Marvin R. O’Connell authored the biography "Edward Sorin."
 (WSJ, 11/8/01, p.A22)

1842  Richard Owen, British Paleontologist, coined the name "Dinosauria," (terrible reptiles) to describe the large fossil reptiles.
 (T.E.-J.B. p.24)

1842  John C. Fremont met Kit Carson on a Mexican river steamboat.
 (WSJ, 1/10/00, p.A24)

1842  John C. Fremont, on a mission for the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, scaled a 13,570 foot Wyoming peak, later named after him, and claimed it was the highest in the Rockies.
 (SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.5)

1842  Gold was found near South Pass, Wyoming, but the prospector was killed by Indians and the location stayed secret.
 (SFC, 8/18/98, p.A8)

1842  Mount St. Helens began 15 years of intermittent eruptions and then became relatively quiet for 123 years.
 (SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A15)

1842  The steamboat Lexington burned off Long Island Sound and 150 people were killed. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow missed the boat and lived to tell. The incident was covered in the 1996 book "The Sea Hunters" by Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo.
 (SFC, 11/11/96, p.E2)

1842  Francisco Morazan (b.1799), Central American statesman and soldier, died. He served as the president of the United Provinces of Central America.
 (ON, 12/99, p.5)

1842  The British forced their way through the Khyber Pass. They recaptured Kabul and burned down the Great Bazaar in retribution before marching back to India.
 (WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A14)

1842  France claimed the Marquesas Islands.
 (SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)

1842-1843 John James Audubon made his last mammal-painting expedition up the Missouri River. He made sketches and collected specimens for his book: "The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America." The work was later completed by his 2 sons and Rev. John Bachman.
 (WSJ, 11/27/95, p.A-1)(WSJ, 8/28/01, p.A12)

1842-1910 William James, US psychologist and philosopher. He and Charles Saunders Pierce first developed the ideas of pragmatism, the principle that the meaning of an idea was to be found in the examination of its consequences in action. This was later developed by John Dewey. His work included "The Will To Believe." James’ brother, Henry, was a novelist and critic. "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudice." In 1998 Linda Simon published "Genuine Reality: A Life of William James."
 (WUD, 1994, p.762)(AP, 5/10/97)(WSJ, 2/6/98, p.A20)(AP, 4/25/98)

1842-1912 Jules Massenet, French composer. He composed "Manon," "Herodiade" (1881), the oratorios "Marie Magdaleine" and "Eve," and a sequel to Mozart’s "Le Nozze di Figaro" entitled "Cherubin."
 (WSJ,3/13/95, p.A-12)

1842-1912 Karl May, German writer, specialized in stories about noble Indians struggling to survive against the advance of modern society.
 (SSFC, 3/11/01, DB p.35)

1842-1914 Ambrose Bierce, writer and newspaper columnist in San Francisco, author of the Devil’s Dictionary. He was born in Horse Cave Creek, Ohio, and disappeared in revolution torn Mexico. He was one of the first Union volunteers and fought at Shiloh and Chickamauga, and won a battlefield commission for carrying a wounded officer to safety under fire.
 (SF E&C, 1/15/1995, A-15)(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-16)

1842-1916 Clara Louise Kellogg, the first American prima donna of importance. She is discussed in the 1997 book "The American Opera Singer" by Peter G. Davis.
 (WSJ, 11/6/97, p.A20)

1842-1924 Alfred Marshall, English economist. He was the chief founder of the neoclassical school of economics. This school studies both human behavior and wealth to understand human choices. He introduced such concepts as consumer's surplus, quasi-rent, elasticity of demand and the representative firm.
 (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)

1843  Jan 2, Wagner's opera "Der Fliegende Holländer" premiered in Dresden.
 (MC, 1/2/02)

1843  Jan 4, Gaetano Donizetti's opera "Don Pasquale," premiered in Paris.
 (MC, 1/4/02)

1843  Jan 11, Francis Scott Key (63), poet of "The Star-Spangled Banner," died in Baltimore.
 (HN, 1/11/99)(MC, 1/11/02)

1843  Jan 29, William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States (1897-1901), was born in Niles, Ohio. McKinley was the last Civil War veteran to serve as President of the United States. He had served with the 23rd Regiment, Ohio Volunteers, eventually rising to the rank of brevet major. He saw action at South Mountain, Antietam, Winchester and Cedar Creek. For a time he served on Rutherford B. Hayes' staff. McKinley was elected the 25th president in 1896. He led the country in the Spanish-American War. He died in Buffalo, New York, on September 14, 1901, after being shot by an anarchist assassin on September 6.
 (AP, 1/29/98)(HNQ, 11/13/98)

1843  Feb 11, Giuseppe Verdi's Opera "I Lombardi," premiered in Milan.
 (MC, 2/11/02)

1843  Feb 19, Adelina Patti, opera soprano (Lucio), was born in Madrid, Spain.
 (MC, 2/19/02)

1843  Mar 3, US Congress appropriated $30,000 "to test the practicability of establishing a system of electro-magnetic telegraphs."
 (SC, 3/3/02)

1843  Mar 25, Seventeen Texans, who picked black beans from a jar otherwise filled with white beans, were executed by a Mexican firing squad. After months of raiding, captivity and escapes in Northern Mexico, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered the execution of one tenth of the 176 Texas freebooters of the Mier Expedition. The event was later depicted by artist Theodore Gentilz.
 (HNPD, 3/27/00)

1843  Apr 3, A comet in the night sky led William Miller and his 50,000 New York religious cult, the Millerites, to proclaim the end of the world. They put on white robes and prepared to go to heaven from their rooftops. When nothing happened Miller concluded that he had made a mistake.
 (SFC, 3/28/97, p.A12)

1843  Apr 4, Hans Richter, composer, was born.
 (MC, 4/4/02)

1843  Apr 5, Queen Victoria proclaimed Hong Kong a British crown colony.
 (HN, 4/5/99)

1843  Apr 14, Joseph Franz Karl Lanner (42), Austria, composer, violist, died.
 (MC, 4/14/02)

1843  Apr 15, Henry James (d.1816), US novelist, writer and critic, was born in England. His older brother was William James, the psychologist and philosopher. His first 40 years are documented by Sheldon M. Novick in "Henry James: The Young Master." There is also a 5-vol. biography by William Edel. His novels included "The Princess Casamassima," a work about the folly of radical politics. "It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature."
 (WUD, 1994, p.762)(WSJ, 10/17/96, p.A20)(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)(HN, 4/15/98)(AP, 8/3/98)

1843  May 9, Belle Boyd, Confederate spy, was born. She helped 'Stonewall' Jackson during his Valley campaign.
 (HN, 5/9/99)

1843  May 18, United Free Church of Scotland formed.
 (SC, 5/18/02)

1843  May 22, The 1st wagon train with over 1000 people departed Independence, Missouri for Oregon. Known as the "Great Emigration," the expedition came two years after the first modest party of settlers made the long, overland journey to Oregon.
 (MC, 5/22/02)

1843  May 28, Noah Webster (84), lexicographer (Webster's Dictionary), died.
 (MC, 5/28/02)

1843  May 29, Emile Pessard, composer, was born.
 (SC, 5/29/02)

1843  Jun 1, Sojourner Truth left NY to beg in her career as antislavery activist. And dat’s the truth!
 (DTnet, 6/1/97)
1843   Jun 1, It snowed in Buffalo and Rochester N.Y., and also in Cleveland Ohio.
 (DTnet, 6/1/97)

1843  Jun 4, Charles C. Abbott, American naturalist, was born. He wrote "Days Out of Doors."
 (HN, 6/4/00)

1843  Jun 7, Susan Elizabeth Blow, US pioneer in kindergarten education, was born.
 (SC, 6/7/02)

1843  Jun 15, Edvard Grieg (d.1907), Norwegian composer, was born. He was best known for his "Peer Gynt" suite. In 1999 over 40 unknown pieces from 1858-1862 were found in Bergen, Germany. Grieg studied at Leipzig during this period.
 (WUD, 1994, p.622)(SFC, 2/23/99, p.B3)(HT, 6/15/00)

1843  Jun 17, The monument at Bunker Hill had its final dedication. It was begun in 1825.
 (HT, 3/97, p.33)(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)

1843  Jun 21, In Britain the Royal College of Surgeons was founded from the original Barber-Surgeons Company.
 (Camelot, 6/21/99)

1843  Jun 26, Hong Kong was proclaimed a British Crown Colony. [see Apr 5]
 (MC, 6/26/02)

1843  Jul 12, Mormon leader Joseph Smith said God encourages polygamy.
 (MC, 7/12/02)

1843  July 18, Virgil Earp was born in Kentucky.
 (MesWP)

1843  Oct 13, The Jewish organization B’nai B’rith was founded in New York City.
 (AP, 10/13/97)

1843  Oct 30, A. G. Henri Regnault, French water colors painter, was born.
 (MC, 10/30/01)

1843  Nov 13, Mt. Rainier in Washington State erupted.
 (MC, 11/13/01)

1843  Nov 27, Balfe's opera "Bohemian Girl" was produced in London.
 (MC, 11/27/01)

1843  Dec 4, Manila paper (made from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
 (MC, 12/4/01)
1843  Dec 4, Robert Schumann's "Das Paradied und die Peri," premiered in Leipzig.
 (MC, 12/4/01)

1843  Dec 11, Robert Koch, physician and medical researcher, was born.
 (HN, 12/11/00)

1843  Dec 13, "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens was published and 6,000 copies were sold. [see Dec 19]
 (MC, 12/13/01)

1843  Dec 19, British author Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol, the delightful tale of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and his miraculous Yuletide transformation. Although the story was conceived and written in only a few weeks because his growing family was in need of money, Dickens' tale of Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and the Spirit of Christmas established a literary genre and captivated readers. In a review, William Makepeace Thackeray called A Christmas Carol "...a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness." Dickens went on to write many more Christmas stories, but his first remains the favorite. [see Dec 13]
 (AP, 12/19/97)(HNPD, 12/19/98)

1843  Thomas Haliburton of Windsor, Nova Scotia, published a novel that described local boys playing hurley, an early form of hockey, behind Kings Edgehill School.
 (WSJ, 1/23/02, p.A1)

1843  William Hickling Prescott authored "History of the Conquest of Mexico."
 (ON, 10/00, p.5)

1843  Isabella Van Wagenen, abolitionist, renamed herself Sojourner Truth. She dictated her autobiography "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth" to Olive Gilbert, a white abolitionist. In 1996 Neil Irvin Painter wrote her biography "Sojourner Truth A Life, A Symbol."
 (SFEC, 12/1/96, BR p.5)

1843  James Wilson, a Scottish businessman, founded "The Economist," a magazine devoted to free trade and laissez-faire principles from its very beginning.
 (WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)(Econ, 6/28/03, p.13)

1843  The Fruitlands utopia in rural Massachusetts was begun by Bronson Alcott, his wife Abby, Englishman Charles Lane and others. Members called themselves the Consociate Family. It was marked by anti-materialistic credos, anti-hierarchical family structures, home-schooling and a vegan diet. Louisa May Alcott later recalled her experiences there in "Little Women."
 (SFC, 12/7/99, p.C1)(ON, 7/03, p.11)

1843  In NYC the population grew to 350,000 and 16 day policemen kept order.
 (WSJ, 11/3/98, p.A20)

1843  Heinrich Schwabe, German amateur astronomer, published his results of a 17 year study on the number of sun spots. His results showed that sunspot activity varied over a period of eleven and a half years. Sunspot activity recorded since this time indicates the period to average 11.2 years and to vary from 7.5 to 16 years. This activity correlates to agricultural activity and the price of wheat.
 (SCTS, p.103)

1843  Belgian police were the 1st to take mug shots of criminals.
 (SFEC, 10/22/00, Z1 p.2)

1843  In Canada James McDermott was convicted and hanged for the murder Dr. Thomas Kinnear and his lover, Nancy Montgomery. Kinnear’s servant, 16-year-old Grace Marks, was sentenced to life imprisonment for aiding and abetting her fellow servant, James McDermott, in the murder. In 1996 Margaret Atwood wrote a novel: "Alias Grace" based on the incident.
 (SFEC, 11/3/96, BR p.1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A14)

1843  The Tivoli Gardens opened in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 (SFEC, 2/20/00, p.T8)

1843  In Iceland a nationalist movement re-establishment the Althing.
 (HNQ, 4/28/00)

1843  Gaspard G. Coriolus, French civil engineer, died. He had discovered the effect whereby bodies in free motion appear to rotate clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
 (PacDis, Fall/’96, p.10)(WUD, 1994, p.325)

1843-1844 A prophecy of the Adventist movement known as Millerism, which was based on the preaching of William Miller, was the Second Coming of Christ between 1843-44.
 (HN, 9/29/99)

1843-1848 In France the Chateau de Boursault was built by the widow Clicquot. She contributed to the development of the champagne-making process.
 (Hem., 10/97, p.104)

1843-1901  President William McKinley: "I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a badge of honor ... it is a symbol of despair. Cheap prices make for cheap goods; cheap goods make for cheap men; and cheap men make for a cheap country!" Memorial platters were made with his final words: "It is God’s way, his will be done."
 (AP, 10/16/97)(SFC,11/26/97, Z1 p.7)

1844  Jan 15, The University of Notre Dame received its charter from the state of Indiana.
 (AP, 1/15/98)

1844  Jan 30, Richard Theodore Greener became the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.
 (HN, 1/30/99)

1844  Feb 17, Aaron Montgomery Ward, mail order business founder, was born.
 (HN, 2/17/98)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.8)

1844  Feb 21, Charles-Marie Widor, composer, professor (Paris Conservatory), was born in Lyons, France.
 (MC, 2/21/02)

1844  Feb 27, Dominican Republic gained independence from Haiti (National Day). [see Nov 6]
 (MC, 2/27/02)

1844  Feb 28, A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others. On the new warship, USS Princeton, the shipboard cannon called the "Peacemaker" exploded during a demonstration firing. Also aboard the ship was President John Tyler, additional cabinet members and hundreds of distinguished guests. The cannon weighed 27,000 pounds, had a 15-foot-long barrel and could hurl a 225-pound ball six miles.
 (AP, 2/28/98)(HNQ, 11/29/98)

1844  Mar 6, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, orchestrator, composer, was born. His work included: Flight of the Bumble Bee, Sadko, Mlada, Capriccio Espagnol, The Tsar's Bride, Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia.
 (MC, 3/6/02)

1844  Mar 7, Anthony Comstock, anti-vice "crusader," was born in New Canaan, Ct.
 (MC, 3/7/02)

1844  Mar 9, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Ernani," premiered in Venice.
 (MC, 3/9/02)

1844  Mar 10, Pablo Martin M de Sarasate y Navascuez, composer (Spanish Dances), was born.
 (MC, 3/10/02)

1844  Mar 28, Jose Zorilla's "Don Juan Tenorio," premiered in Madrid.
 (MC, 3/28/02)

1844  Apr 4, Charles Bulfinch (80), 1st US professional architect (Mass State House), died.
 (MC, 4/4/02)

1844  Apr 6, Joseph Ludwig, composer, was born.
 (MC, 4/6/02)

1844  Apr 8, Ignaz Franz von Mosel (72), composer, died.
 (MC, 4/8/02)

1844  Apr 12, Texas became a US territory.
 (MC, 4/12/02)

1844  Apr 16, Anatole France (d.1924), French novelist and essayist, was born. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1921. His love for Madame de Caillavet, whose salon helped make him famous, formed the backdrop for his novel "Le Lys Rouge," (The Red Lily). "All the historical books which contain no lies are extremely tedious."
 (WSJ, 2/20/96, p.A-14)(AP, 10/11/98)(HN, 4/16/01)

1844  May 1, Whig convention nominated Henry Clay as presidential candidate.
 (MC, 5/1/02)
1844  May 1, Samuel Morse sent the 1st telegraphic message. [see Jan 6, 1838, May 24, 1844]
 (MC, 5/1/02)

1844  May 2, Elijah McCoy, black inventor, held over 50 patents, was born.
 (MC, 5/2/02)

1844  May 3, Richard D'Oyly Carte, opera impresario (Gilbert & Sullivan operas, Ivanhoe), was born in England.
 (MC, 5/3/02)

1844  May 21, Henri Rousseau (d.1910), French painter (Dream), was born in Laval.
 (HN, 5/21/01)

1844  May 22, Mary Cassatt, impressionist painter, was born in Alleghany City (later Pittsburgh). [see May 22, 1845]
 (HFA, ‘96, p.30)(AHD, p.209)(HN, 5/22/98)(WSJ, 11/5/98, p.A20)

1844  May 24, Samuel F.B. Morse, before a crowd of dignitaries in the chambers of the Supreme Court, tapped out the message, "What hath God wrought?" to his partner in Baltimore, Alfred Vail, who invented the telegraphic printing technique in 1844. Congress had appropriated $30,000 for the experimental line built by Ezra Cornell between Washington and Baltimore. American portrait artist Samuel F.B. Morse developed the technology for electrical telegraphy in the 1830s, the first instantaneous form of communication. Using a key to hold open an electrical circuit for longer or shorter periods, an operator would tap out a message in a code composed of dots and dashes. Public demonstrations of the equipment were made in February 1838, but it was necessary for Morse to secure financial backing to build the first telegraph line to carry the signal over distance. In 1843, Congress appropriated the funds for a 37-mile line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. After underground telegraph wires proved unsuccessful, Morse switched to pole wires.
 (AP, 5/24/97)(HN, 5/24/98)(HNPD, 2/6/99)(HNQ, 5/27/00)

1844  May 25, The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appeared in the Baltimore "Patriot."
 (AP, 5/25/97)

1844  Jul 29, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (53), composer, died.
 (MC, 7/29/02)

1844  Jun 6, The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded in London.
 (AP, 6/6/97)

1844  Jun 15, Charles Goodyear (b.1800) received a patent for the vulcanization of rubber, his process to strengthen rubber.
 (AP, 6/15/97)(MC, 6/15/02)

1844  Jun 26, Julia Gardiner and President John Tyler were married in New York City.
 (HN, 6/26/98)

1844  Jun 27, Mormon Joseph Smith (38) and his brother, Hyram, were again imprisoned. A mob stormed the Carthage, Ill. prison and the brothers were killed. [see 1846] James Strang laid claim to being his rightful successor but Brigham Young soon took control of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Strang then began evangelizing in the Midwest and East with some success. His followers were later called "Strangites."
 (Smith., Aug. 1995, p.86)(SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(AP, 6/27/97)

1844  Jul 3, Dankmar Adler, architect and engineer, was born.
 (HN, 7/3/01)
1844  Jul 3, Ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiated a commercial treaty with China that opened five Chinese ports to U.S. merchants and protected the rights of American citizens in China.
 (HN, 7/3/98)

1844  Jul 22, William Archibald Spooner, Anglican clergyman whose slips of the tongue caused words and syllables to be transposed and gave rise to the term "spoonerisms," was born in London.
 (AP, 7/22/02)

1844  Jul 25, Thomas Eakins (d.1916), American painter, was born.
 (SFC, 5/6/97, p.E4)(WUD, 1994, p.447)(HN, 7/25/02)

1844  Aug 8, Brigham Young was chosen to head the Mormon church following the killing of Joseph Smith in Illinois.
 (AP, 8/8/97)(HN, 8/8/98)

1844  Sep 5, Iron ore was discovered in Minnesota's Mesabi Range.
 (MC, 9/5/01)

1844  Oct 11, Henry Heinz, manufacturer, founder of H.J. Heinz Co., was born.
 (HN, 10/11/00)

1844  Oct 12, George Washington Cable, writer and reformer, was born.
 (HN, 10/12/00)

1844  Oct 15, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (d.1900), German philosopher, poet, and critic, was born. He wrote 13 books and was driven to madness by a number of factors, but one was the bland, dishonest complacency of his contemporaries, who ignored him while honoring writers who seem like comic book figures today... He shrilled against Christianity and its empty moral claims. In 1998 two biographies were published: "Nietzsche in Turin: An Intimate Biography" by Lesley Chamberlain;  and "The Good European: Nietzsche’s Work Sites in word and Image" by David Farell Krell and Donald L. Bates. In 2000 Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins authored "What Nietzsche Really Said." "No one is such a liar as the indignant man." "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." "The time for me hasn't come yet. Some are born posthumously."
 (V.D.-H.K.p.279)(SFEC, 2/8/98, BR p.9)(AP, 3/19/98)(HN,10/15/98)(AP, 12/3/98) (SFEC, 4/23/00, BR p.4)

1844  Oct 23, Sarah Bernhardt, French actress, was born. [see Oct 22]
 (HN, 10/23/00)

1844  Nov 6, Spain granted independence to the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic won independence from next door Haiti after 2 occupations. [see Feb 27]
 (SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-9)(MC, 11/6/01)

1844  Nov 23, Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were declared independent from Denmark.
 (AP, 11/23/02)

1844  Nov 25, Carl Benz, pioneer of early motor cars, was born.
 (HN, 11/25/98)

1844  Nov, Commandante General Mariano G. Vallejo dismissed his soldiers at the Sonoma garrison in California claiming that he could not afford to pay them any longer.
 (SFEM, 6/9/96, p.24-28)

1844  Dec 4, James K. Polk was elected 11th president of US. His wife, Sarah, recognized that James was insufficiently impressive to draw attention on appearance and therefore began the tradition of having "Hail to the Chief" played when he made a public showing.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.46)(SFC, 7/14/96, Z  1 p.2)(MC, 12/4/01)

1844  Dec 11, The 1st dental use of nitrous oxide was at Hartford, Ct.
 (MC, 12/11/01)

1844  Dec 18, Ludwig J. von Brentano, German economist, was born.
 (MC, 12/18/01)

1844  Edward Hicks began his painting "The Peaceable Kingdom." It was completed in 1846, Hicks painted the same scene over 100 times with major and minor variations.
 (WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A28)

1844  John Rubens Smith painted his watercolor: Southwest View of Sanderson’s Franklin House, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. [see 1875-1844, Smith]
 (Civil., Jul-Aug., ‘95, p.72)

1844  Robert Chambers, co-founder of the largest mass-circulation publishing house in Britain, anonymously authored "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." It was a history of the cosmos from the formation of the solar system to the development of life on Earth. In 2001 James A. Secord authored "Victorian Sensation," an analysis of Vestiges and its era.
 (SSFC, 3/11/01, BR p.5)

1844  John Middleton published a paper describing how a fluorine test could be used to determine the geologic age of fossil bones.
 (RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.30)

1844  Henry David Thoreau translated the Lotus Sutra from French to English and published it in the Transcendentalist journal Dial..
 (SSFC, 7/8/01, p.B5)

1844  Robert Schumann published his Op. 48 which included Dichterliebe, a song of a poet’s love. Its original form dated back to 1840.
 (SFC, 5/9/96, p.E-1)

1844  Edgar Allan Poe moved back to New York and took a job with the New York Evening Mirror.
 (SFEC, 1/12/97, p.T5)

1844  The Lincolns purchased a 1 1/2 story Greek Revival home at Eighth and Jackson in Springfield, Ill. Mary and Abraham Lincoln paid $1,200 in cash and land for the one-and-half-story, five-room, wood-clapboard structure. It was the only home the Lincolns ever owned. They spent the next 16 years enlarging and improving it.
 (SFEC, 3/22/98, p.T4)(HNQ, 5/6/01)
 
1844  The great auk, aka "penguin of the north," was hunted to extinction.
 (NH, 9/96, p.8)

1844  The maharaja of Jammu purchased Kashmir from the East India Company.
 (SFEC,12/14/97, p.T4)

1844  In New Zealand beginning in this year the Ngai Tahu people lost 80% (86 million acres) of South Island.
 (SFC, 10/5/96, p.A10)

1844-1845 The marriage of Friedrich V of Germany to and English Princess Elizabeth in Heidelberg is the nominal subject of a Turner (1775-1851) oil painting.
 (WSJ, 1/15/96, p. A-10)

1844-1885 Louis Riel, Canadian Metis leader, was born in Manitoba.
 (SFC, 1/22/98, p.B2)

1844-1906 Ludwig Boltzmann (d.1906), Austrian atomic physics engineer, was born. His Vienna tombstone read "Entropy is the logarithm of probability." [see 1838]
 (WUD, 1994, p.167)(WSJ, 7/28/98, p.A16)

1844-1913 August Bebel was an outstanding political figure in Western European Socialism and co-founder of the German Social Democratic Party. Bebel participated in the foundation of the Social Democratic Party in 1869 and was sentenced to prison for treason in 1872. As head of the Social Democrats he was chief opposition leader in the Reichstag in the 1890s and 1900s.
 (HNQ, 2/15/99)

1844-1914 Robert Jones Burdette, American clergyman and author: "There are two days in the week about which and upon which I never worry. Two carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday. ... And the other ... is Tomorrow."
 (AP, 12/20/00)

1844-1915 Anthony Comstock, self-appointed anti-vice crusader, devoted a lifetime to battling wickedness, to purify America and protect its youth from sin. [see 1870s]
 (HNPD, 2/5/99)

1844-1933 Celestine Chaumette from the French village of Chassignolles saved her personal letters. They were later found and published by British writer Gillian Tindall as "Voices from a French Village."
 (SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.4)

1845  Jan 7, Louis III (Ludwig II), last King of Bavaria (1913-1918), was born at Nymphenburg. He was also called the "Mad King" for his extravagant castles.
 (HN, 1/7/99)(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.T4)(MC, 1/7/02)

1845  Jan 23, Congress decided all national elections would be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The law was signed by Pres. John Tyler.
 (AP, 1/23/98)(WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A1)

1845  Jan 29, Edgar Allan Poe’s poem "The Raven" was first published, in the New York Evening Mirror.
 (AP, 1/29/98)

1845  Feb 14, Quinton Hogg, English philanthropist, was born. [see Feb 16]
 (HN, 2/14/01)

1845  Feb 15, William Parsons, Earl of Rosse, 1st used a 72" (183 cm) reflector.
 (440 Int’l., 2/15/99)

1845  Feb 16, Quinton Hogg, English philanthropist, was born. [see Feb 14]
 (HN, 2/16/01)

1845  Feb 26, Alexander III, Russian tsar (1881-94), was born in St Petersburg. [see Mar 10]
 (SC, 2/26/02)

1845  Mar 1, President Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas. Texas was annexed as a state of the US on Dec 29.
 (SFC, 4/28/97, p.A3)(AP, 3/1/98)

1845  Mar 3, Georg Cantor, German mathematician (discovers transfinite numbers), was born.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1845  Mar 3, For the first time, the U.S. Congress passed legislation on this day overriding a President's veto. President John Tyler was in office at the time.
 (HC, Internet, 3/3/98)
1845  Mar 3, Congress authorized ocean mail contracts for foreign mail delivery.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
1845  Mar 3, Florida became the 27th state.
 (AP, 3/3/98)

1845  Mar 4, James K. Polk was inaugurated as 11th President.
 (SC, 3/4/02)
1845  Mar 5, Congress appropriated $30,000 to ship camels to western US. [see 1855]
 (MC, 3/5/02)

1845  Mar 10, Hallie Quinn Brown, American educator, women's rights leader, was born.
 (HN, 3/10/01)
1845  Mar 10, Alexander III, Russian tsar, was born. [see Feb 26]
 (HN, 3/10/98)

1845  Mar 11, Seven hundred Maoris led by their chief, Hone-Heke, burned the small town of Kororareka in protest at the settlement of Maoriland by Europeans, in breach with the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
 (HN, 3/11/99)

1845  Mar 17, The rubber band was patented by Stephen Perry of London. [see May 17]
 (MC, 3/17/02)

1845  Mar 26, Joseph Francis patented a corrugated sheet-iron lifeboat in NYC.
 (SS, 3/26/02)
1845  Mar 26, Patent was awarded for adhesive medicated plaster, precursor of band aid.
 (SS, 3/26/02)

1845  Mar 27, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (d.1923), German scientist, was born. He discovered X-rays (Nobel-1901).
 (HN, 3/27/99)(MC, 3/27/02)

1845  Mar 28, Mexico dropped diplomatic relations with US.
 (MC, 3/28/02)

1845  Apr 2, H.L. Fizeau and J. Leon Foucault took the 1st photo of Sun.
 (MC, 4/2/02)

1845  Apr 10, Over 1,000 buildings were damaged by fire in Pittsburgh, Pa.
 (MC, 4/10/02)

1845  Apr 12, Henry M. Baron the Kock (65), officer, politician, died.
 (MC, 4/12/02)

1845  Apr 18, Wilhelm Gericke, composer, was born.
 (MC, 4/18/02)

1845  Apr, Elias Howe produced his 1st sewing machine.
 (ON, 11/00, p.8)

1845  May 10, During a celebrated round-the-world tour in 1844-46, the Constitution dropped anchor in the bay outside of Tourane, Cochin China. While there, an imprisoned French missionary requested the assistance of the ship’s captain, "Mad Jack" Percival. The Americans attempted to negotiate with the Cochin Chinese, to no avail. Frustrated, they set sail from Cochin and continued on their course on May 26 without further word about or from the missionary, who was eventually retrieved by his own countrymen.
 (HNQ, 10/18/02)

1845  May 12, Gabriel Urbain Faure, French composer, was born in Pamiers. His work included "Requiem" and "Ballade."
 (SC, Internet, 5/12/97)(MC, 5/12/02)
1845  May 12, August Wilhelm Schlegel (77), German poet, interpreter, critic, died.
 (MC, 5/12/02)

1845  May 17, The rubber band was patented. [see Mar 17]
 (MC, 5/17/02)

1845  May 22, Mary Cassatt (d.1926), American impressionist painter and printmaker, was born in Alleghany, Pa. Much of Cassatt’s early life was spent in Europe with her wealthy family. She attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1861 to 1865 and worked briefly with Charles Joshua Chaplin in Paris, but preferred working her own way and copying old masters. She was a close friend of and greatly influenced by Edgar Degas. He admired her entry in the Salon of 1874, and at his invitation she joined the Impressionists and afterward showed her works at their exhibits. Degas’ influence is apparent in Cassatt’s mastery of drawing and in her unposed, asymmetrical compositions. Initially, Cassatt was a figure painter whose subjects were groups of women drinking tea or on outings with friends. After the great exhibition of Japanese prints held in Paris in 1890, she brought out her series of 10 colored prints, such as "Woman Bathing," and "The Coiffure," in which the influence of the Japanese masters Utamaro and Toyokuni is apparent. Cassatt urged her wealthy American friends and relatives to buy Impressionist paintings, and in this way, more than through her own works, she exerted a lasting influence on American taste. She was largely responsible for selecting the works that make up the H.O. Havemeyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.30)(AHD, p.209)(FAMSF, Mar, 98)

1845  May 28, A fire in Quebec Canada destroyed 1,500 houses.
 (MC, 5/28/02)

1845  May, George Back led an arctic expedition of 129 men in two ships for the Royal Navy and all perished. The HMS Erebus and Terror sailed from England to navigate through the Arctic and find the elusive Northwest passage. After commissioning three unsuccessful search expeditions, the British Admiralty posted a reward for anyone who could ascertain the fate of the crewmen. Success was anticipated with Sir John Franklin commanding well-equipped crews and ships, but by 1847, the British Admiralty had received no reports of Franklin. [see Franklin Jun 11, 1847] In 1998 Andrea Barrett authored "The Voyage of the Narwhal," a novel based on an expedition to find the Franklin expedition.
 (WSJ, 2/10/95, p.A-7)(HNQ, 6/11/98)(WSJ, 9/11/98, p.W8)

1845   Jun 1, A homing pigeon completed a 11,000 km trip (Namibia-London) in 55 days.
 (DTnet, 6/1/97)

1845  Jun 8, Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tenn. His health had deteriorated over the last 30 years and in 1999 scientists cited lead poisoning from an 1813 wound as the primary cause of his health problems. Dr. Robert Remini later authored a 3-volume biography.
 (AP, 6/8/97)(SFC, 8/11/99, p.A2)

1845  Jun 23, The congress of the Republic of Texas voted to accept annexation by the US after 10 years as an independent republic. [see Jul 4, 1845]
 (MC, 6/23/02)

1845  Jul 4, American writer Henry David Thoreau began his 26 month experiment in simple living at Walden Pond, near Concord, Mass. He chose this day to move to a rustic hut in the peace and quiet of Walden Pond. He doubted that there was a spot in Massachusetts where one could not hear a train whistle. The Fitchburg trains passed Walden Pond about a hundred rods south of his cabin. He lived there until September 6, 1947. His writings about his thoughts and experiences there are still read and remembered by millions around the world. "I went to the woods because I wished to see if I could not learn what it [life] had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
 (Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.76)(NOHY, Weiner, 3/90, p.53)(AP, 7/4/97)(IB, 12/7/98)
1845  Jul 4, Texas Congress voted for annexation to US. [see Jun 23, 1845]
 (Maggio, 98)

1845  Jul 14, Fire in NYC destroyed 1,000 homes and killed many.
 (MC, 7/14/02)

1845  Jul 25, China granted Belgium equal trading rights with Britain, France and the United States.
 (HN, 7/25/98)

1845  Aug, The Irish potato crop was attacked by the Phytophthora infestans fungus. It was first noticed in County Fermanagh. it blackened the potato leaves and caused the tubers in the ground to putrefy. In this year 40% of the crop was infected.
 (WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A22)(USAT, 1/15/97, p.2D)

1845  Sep 7, Isabella Colbran, wife of Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, died.
 (MC, 9/7/01)

1845  Sep 8, A French column surrendered at Sidi Brahim in the Algerian War.
 (HN, 9/8/98)

1845  Sep, James Strang revealed his "Book of the Law of the Lord." He claimed to his followers to have unearthed three ancient-appearing brass plates of prophesy.
 (Smith., Aug. 1995, p.86)

1845  Oct 10, The U.S. Naval Academy opened in Annapolis, Md., with fifty midshipmen students and seven professors.
 (AP, 10/10/97)(HN, 10/10/98)(MC, 10/10/01)

1845  Oct 13, Texas ratified a state constitution.
 (AP, 10/13/97)

1845  Oct 19, Richard Wagner's opera "Tannhauser," premiered in Dresden.
 (MC, 10/19/01)

1845  Oct 22, Sarah Bernhardt (d.1923), legendary stage actress, was born in Paris. "Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich." [see Oct 23]
 (AP, 10/22/97)(AP, 2/20/00)(WUD, 1994 p.141)

1845  Nov 4, The 1st US nationally observed uniform election day was held.
 (MC, 11/4/01)

1845  Dec 2, Johannes Simon Mayr (82), composer, died.
 (MC, 12/2/01)

1845  Dec 27, Ether was 1st used in childbirth in US at Jefferson, Ga.
 (MC, 12/27/01)

1845  Dec 29, Texas (comprised of the present State of Texas and part of New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming) was admitted as the 28th state, with the provision that the area (389, 166 square miles) should be divided into no more than five states "of convenient size."
 (HN, 12/29/98)(AP, 12/29/97)

1845  The "Handbook for Travellers in Spain" was first published. It described Valencians as: "perfidious, vindictive, sullen, mistrustful, fickle, treacherous, smooth, empty of all good, snarling and biting like hyenas, and smiling as they murder."
 (SSFC, 11/30/02, p.C3)

1845  "King Rene’s Daughter," a play by Danish playwright Henrik Hertz, was first performed. It was used as the basis for Tchaikovsky’s opera "Iolanthe."
 (WSJ, 7/16/96, p.A9)

1845  Frederick Douglass, African-American abolitionist, published his autobiography and made a five week lecture tour of Ireland.
 (MT, 3/96, p.20)

1845  Prosper Merimee wrote his novella that later became the opera "Carmen" by Bizet.
 (SFC, 10/24/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 2/5/97, p.A16)

1845  Construction began on Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas and work continued until 1875. After the Civil War the fort served as a federal prison for deserters and political prisoners.
 (NH, 4/97, p.38)

1845  In Boston the Eastern Hotel became the first building heated by steam. Radiators were used.
 (SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.2)
1845  Boston outlawed bathing unless it was done under a doctor’s orders.
 (WSJ, 12/11/02, p.B1)

1845  The followers of William Miller (1782-1849) founded the Adventist Church.
 (HNQ, 9/29/99)

1845  In NYC a real police department was established.
 (WSJ, 11/3/98, p.A20)

1845  Richard Fox, an Irish immigrant, founded his National Police Gazette.
 (MT, Sum. ‘98, p.10)

1845  John L. O’Sullivan, a New York newspaperman, first used the term "Manifest Destiny" to describe the US move to annex Texas. John L. O'Sullivan was the editor of the Democratic Review in 1845 when he wrote of "Our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."
 (SFEM, 9/15/96, p.12)(SFEC, 10/20/96, Z  1 p.2)(HNQ, 4/3/01)

1845  Karl Marx, while working as a political journalist in Paris, was driven out and goes to Brussels, where he met Engels.
 (V.D.-H.K.p.258)

1845  The style of button-fly pants was introduced to the US "despite protests from the religious community, who saw the flap as a license to sin."
 (WSJ, 11/20/97, p.A20)

1845  The U.S. Naval Academy was founded at Fort Severn.
 (NG, Sept. 1939, J. Maloney p.391)

1845  New Braunfels, Texas, was founded by German settlers under the leadership of Prince Carl of Solm-Braunfels.
 (Sp., 5/96, p.56)

1845  Mosquito County in Florida changed its name to Orange County.
 (Hem, Mar. 95, p.27)

1845  Don Juan Forster, brother-in-law of the Mexican governor of California, bought the Mission of San Juan Capistrano for $710.
 (HT, 3/97, p.62)

1845  George Pray was a member of the first Univ. of Michigan graduating class. His diary was recently acquired.
 (MT, 3/96, p.14)

1845  Walter Potter, English taxidermist, opened his stuffed animal museum in Bramble, south of London. Admission was 2 cents.
 (SFC, 11/29/02, p.K8)

1845  Beriah Swift of Millbrook, N.Y., patented a coffee mill and built a factory to make the mills. He was joined by William and John Lane about 1880 and the company moved to Poughkeepsie.
 (SFC, 10/14/98, Z1 p.3)

1845  The first hypodermic syringe entered the market.
 (SFC, 4/13/98, p.A6)

1845  Christoph Buys, Dutch scientist, used a group of perfect pitch musicians as stationary observers and arranged for a group of trumpeters to pass by on a railway car to prove the Doppler effect.
 (JST-TMC,1983, p.10)

1845  An account of the murder of Joseph Smith, Mormon leader, was published at Nauvoo, Ill., by an eye-witness named William M. Daniels.
 (LSA., Fall 1995, p.18)

1845   Albert Tirrell was accused of murder in the Tirell-Bickkford case of this year and got an acquittal by his lawyer with the argument that the crimes were committed while his client was walking in his sleep.
 (LSA., Fall 1995, p.21)

1845  Emigrants, led by trapper Stephen Meek, took a disastrous shortcut from the Oregon Trail. Stephen H. L. Meek, trapper, mountain man and younger brother of famed Oregon pioneer Joseph Meek, led a group heading out to the Oregon Territory. However, by the time they reached Fort Laramie, Meek was told his services were no longer needed. He rode on ahead, speaking to the groups he found along the way, telling of a new route to the settlements in the Willamette Valley. It was shorter, he told them, and easier. For five dollars per wagon, he would guide them. By the time he reached Fort Boise on the Snake River, he’d managed to persuade around 200 families to take his cutoff. In 1967 Keith Clark and Lowell Tiller authored: "Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff, 1845" (Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, 1967).
 (HNQ, 5/20/01)

1845-1846 As Ireland’s potato crop was consumed by blight. The nation’s peasants, who relied on the potato as their primary food source, starved. The famine took as many as one million lives from hunger and disease and caused mass emigration. The British government responded to the calamity too late with too little aid, even though eyewitnesses reported the suffering in the press.
 (HNPD, 3/17/99)
1845-1848 John James Audubon (d.1851) completed his folio set titled "Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America." It is now kept at the Audubon Museum in Henderson, Kentucky.
 (WSJ, 11/27/95, p.A-1)

1845-1857 Mary E. Daly, Dublin, covered this period in her essay on Irish potato famine relief: "The Operations of Famine Relief."
 (WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A22)

1845-1849 James Knox Polk became President of the US. He offered Mexico $25 million for California, but the offer was declined. Polk then ordered General Zacharay Taylor, known as Old Rough and Ready, to Texas with troops and an eye on expansion.
 (A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(HFA, ‘96, p.46)

1845-1850 A fungus of the genus Phytophtora caused the Irish potato famine.
 (SFC, 8/1/00, p.A13)

1845-1855 Some 1.5 million people left Ireland and many of them made New York City their home. The 2003 film "Gangs of New York" depicted their struggle.
 (AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.49)

1845-1871 William Stanley Jevons gathers several long-time series of weekly data on securities, deposits and reserves from 1845-1871 into monthly cross-sections to show typical seasonal pattern. Oct. asset liquidations are coupled by Jevons to natural rhythms such as the desire to purchase the produce of the harvest.
 (WSJ, 9/28/95, p.A-18)

1845-1879 W.K. Clifford, mathematician, investigated the idea of space.
 (V.D.-H.K.p.270)

1845-1932 Albert Goodwin, a brilliant watercolorist who travelled widely.
 (Hem., 3/97, p.94)

1845-1929 Wilhelm von Bode, German art historian. He supervised the construction of a museum that later bore his name.
 (WSJ, 7/29/98, p.A13)

1845-1998 This period is covered in the 3-part TV series "The Irish in America: Long Journey Home" by Thomas Lennon.
 (WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A16)

1846  Jan 13, President James Polk dispatched General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas Border as war with Mexico loomed. At the outset of the Mexican-American War, the Mexican army numbered 32,000 and the American army consisted of 7,200 men. The American army had, since 1815, only fought against a few Indian tribes. Forty-two percent of the army was made up of recent German or Irish immigrants. In the course of the war, the total U.S. force employed reached 104,000.
 (HN, 1/13/99)(HNQ, 2/28/99)

1846  Jan 21, 1st edition of Charles Dickens' "Daily News."
 (MC, 1/21/02)

1846  Jan 25, The dreaded Corn Laws, which taxed imported oats, wheat and barley, were repealed by the British Parliament.
 (HN, 1/25/99)

1846  Feb 4, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith’s successor, led the Mormons overland from Nauvoo, Ill., to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Mormon pioneer Sam Brannon gathered some 250 Mormons aboard the ship, Brooklyn, and sailed from New York to San Francisco. [see 1847]
 (SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.29)

1846  Feb 5, The first Pacific Coast newspaper, Oregon Spectator, was published.
 (HN, 2/5/99)

1846  Feb 9, Wilhelm Maybach, German engineer, was born. He designed the first Mercedes automobile.
 (HN, 2/9/97)

1846  Feb 10, Led by religious leader Brigham Young, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Mormons, began an exodus from Nauvoo, Il., to Utah.
 (AP, 2/10/97)(AP, 2/10/99)

1846  Feb 10, British General Sir Hugh Gough decisively routed Tej Singh’s Sikhs in the Battle of Sobraon.
 (HN, 2/10/97)

1846  Feb 19, The Texas state government was formally installed in Austin.
 (AP, 2/19/98)

1846  Feb 21, Sarah G. Bagley became the first female telegrapher, taking charge at the newly opened telegraph office in Lowell, Mass.
 (AP, 2/21/00)

1846  Feb 23, The Liberty Bell tolled for the last time, to mark George Washington’s birthday. A hairline fracture had developed since 1817 and a failed attempt to repair it resulted in the crack.
 (HN, 2/23/98)(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.T5)
1846  Feb 23, Polish revolutionaries marched on Cracow, but were defeated.
 (MC, 2/23/02)

1846  Feb 24, Luigi Denza, composer, was born.
 (MC, 2/24/02)

1846  Feb 26, William Frederick Cody, aka "Buffalo Bill," was born in LeClaire, Scott County, Iowa. He was a "Wild West" frontiersman-turned-showman. Three weeks after the disaster at the Little Bighorn, Buffalo Bill claimed he had taken ‘the first scalp for Custer!’
 (HN, 2/26/98)(AP, 2/26/98)(MesWP)

1846  Mar 13, Friedrich Hebbel's "Maria Magdalena," premiered in Konigsberg.
 (MC, 3/13/02)

1846    Mar 16, Jurgis Bielinis, Lithuanian publisher and "king of the (underground) book carriers" was born in Purviskis. He died there Jan 18, 1918. This day was later declared "Book Carriers Day."
 (LHC, 3/16/03)

1846  Mar 17, Kate Greenway, painter and illustrator (Mother Goose), was born.
 (HN, 3/17/01)

1846  Mar 22, Randolph Caldecott, illustrator, was born.
 (HN, 3/22/01)

1846  Apr 15, The Donner family set out for California from Springfield, Ill.
 (SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)

1846  Apr 16, Domenico Dragonetti (83), composer, died.
 (MC, 4/16/02)

1846  May 4, Michigan ended its death penalty.
 (MC, 5/4/02)

1846  May 5, Henryk Sienkiewicz (d.1916), author (Quo Vadis, Nobel 1905), was born  in Poland: "The greater the philosopher, the harder it is for him to answer the questions of common people."
 (AP, 2/5/97)(MC, 5/5/02)

1846  May 8, The first major battle of the Mexican War was fought at Palo Alto, Texas, resulting in victory for Gen. Zachary Taylor’s forces.
 (AP, 5/8/97)(HN, 5/8/98)

1846  May 9, US forced Mexico back to Rio Grande in the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.
 (MC, 5/9/02)
1846  May 9, Gen. Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande and killed a number of US soldiers in a surprise attack. Mexico believed that France and Britain would support it in a war against the US.
 (WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)

1846  May 13, The US under Pres. Polk declared war against Mexico, 2 months after fighting began. This was in response to an incident where the Mexican cavalry surrounded a scouting party of American dragoons. $10 million was appropriated for war expenses by Congress. 50, 000 volunteers responded to the war effort and Gen. Taylor used his forces to capture the Mexican town of Monterey [in California] and then moved south to defeat Santa Anna’s armies at the Battle of Buena Vista.
 (WCG, p.59)(HFA, ‘96, p.48)(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)

1846  May 18, US troops attacked at the Rio Grande and occupied Matamoros.
 (SC, 5/18/02)

1846  May 24, General Zachary Taylor captured Monterey in the Mexican War.
 (HN, 5/24/98)

1846  May 29, Albert Gyorgy, earl Apponyi, Hungarian minister of Education, was born.
 (SC, 5/29/02)
 
1846  May 30, Peter Carl Faberge (d.1920), Russian master jeweller and goldsmith was born. His work includes the Imperial Coronation Easter Egg (1896-1908), an enamelled, diamond-studded golden egg about 5 inches long that opens to reveal a 3-inch-long replica of the carriage that took the czarina to her coronation in 1896; the rococo Imperial Catherine the Great Easter Egg (1908-1917) and the Rectangular Box with a monogram of tiny diamonds (1896-1908).
 (MC, 5/30/02)(SFC, 5/234/96, p.D1,10)

1846  May, Sarah Borginnis was very big--a red-haired behemoth anywhere from 6 to 7 feet tall, depending on whose account you read. She first appeared in history at the beginning of the Mexican War as she travelled with Zachary Taylor's army as a cook, laundress and occasional nurse. But it was in May 1846 during the siege of Fort Brown, Texas, that Sarah distinguished herself by calmly making coffee and bean soup in an open courtyard as Mexican explosive shells burst around her. In spite of receiving a "bullet through her bonnet and another through her bread tray," Sarah, who became known as "The Heroine of Fort Brown," made her rounds nursing soldiers and feeding the men.
 (HNQ, 5/17/99)

1846  Jun 13, Jose Noe, owner of a 4,000-acre ranch in the center of SF, was the last chief magistrate under Mexican rule. He became a city official when the Americans took over and is buried in Mission Dolores.
 (SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)

1846  Jun 14, Americans in Northern California rebelled against Mexican authorities in what is called the Bear Flag Revolt and proclaimed the Republic of California. Wagonmaster William B. Ide, leader of the Bear Flag Party, was urged to loot the Mexican stronghold but said: "Choose ye this day what you will be! We are robbers or we must be conquerors." Although the US had declared war against Mexico in May, word did not reach California until July. Commodore John Sloat raised the Stars and Stripes over the American Customs House in Monterey, and three days later it flew over the Sonoma Plaza. Ide was installed as president of the new republic.
 (WCG, p.59)(SFEM, 6/9/96, p.32)(AP, 6/14/97)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W36)
1846  Jun 14, William L. Todd, nephew of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln designed a flag for the Bear Flag Revolt with the words California Republic. With rusty nails and blackberry juice he painted a grizzly and a star on white cloth. The lower red border was said to come from the flannel petticoat of Nancy Kelsey, who sewed the flag. The Bear Flag Revolt got its name from the presence of a grizzly bear on the standard proposed for the independent California.
 (Pac. Disc., summer, ‘96, p.16)(HN, 6/14/99)

1846  Jun 15, The United States and Britain signed a treaty settling a boundary dispute between Canada and the United States in the Pacific Northwest at the 49th parallel. Great Britain and the U.S. agreed on a joint occupation of Oregon Territory. President Polk agreed to a compromise border along the 49th parallel. The debate over the northwestern border of the United States. The campaign slogan "54-40 or fight" referred to the debate over the northwestern border of the United States. The slogan "54-40 or fight" refers to the north latitude degree and minute where many Americans wanted to place the border between the U.S. and then Great Britain in the Pacific Northwest.
 (AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)(SFC, 1/25/99, p.A3)(HNQ, 3/28/00)
1846  Jun 15, Washington diplomats established a straight line border between the US and Canada in the northwest and thus established Point Roberts, Wa. as the westernmost corner of the US. The enclave is 4.9 sq. miles and allows Canadians to escape their country, its high taxes and buy GMCs - gasoline, milk and cheese.
 (SFC, 5/20/96, p.A-6)

1846  Jun 19, The New York Knickerbocker Club played the New York Club in the first baseball game at the Elysian Field, Hoboken, New Jersey.
 (HN, 6/19/98)

1846  Jun 27, Charles Stewart Parnell (d.1891), Irish nationalist hero, was born.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.32)(AHD, 1971, p.954)(HN, 6/27/98)

1846  Jun, In the Mexican-American War during the first month of battle, Taylor sent Samuel Walker, commander of a regiment of rangers, to Baltimore on a recruiting mission. Walker looked up Sam Colt and together they worked out the design for a new pistol. With financial assistance from Eli Whitney, the first 1000 guns were ordered by Walker without government permission. The Walker-Colt was very effective in Mexico and was the ancestor to the late Colt peacemaker.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.48)

1846  Jul 1, In Yerba Buena (later SF) Kit Carson helped Capt. John Fremont scale the walls on the site of Fort Point to claim the Presidio for the US.
 (SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)

1846  Jul 7, U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after Commodore Sloat reached Monterey and claimed California for the US.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.48)(AP, 7/7/97)

1846  Jul 9, Captain J.B. Montgomery raised the American flag over San Francisco. Montgomery claimed Yerba Buena (SF) for US.
 (SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W36)(MC, 7/9/02)

1846  Jul 21, Mormons founded the 1st English settlement in the San Joaquin Valley of Calif.
 (MC, 7/21/02)

1846  Jul 24, Louis Napoleon (67), French king of the Netherlands (1806-10), died.
 (MC, 7/24/02)

1846  Jul 31, San Francisco, known as Yerba Buena, had only 459 residents, and with the arrival of Sam Brannon and 230 Mormons became known as a Mormon town. [see 1848] Printer Brannon later published the first SF newspaper, the California Star.
 (SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 7/21/96, DB p.29)

1846  Aug 10, Congress chartered the Smithsonian Institution, named after English scientist James Smithson, whose bequest of $500,000 made it possible. The Smithsonian Institute was born and Joseph Henry became its first secretary. [see 1836]
 (AP, 8/10/97)(SFEC, 8/25/96, p.T6)

1846  Aug 13, The American flag was raised for the first time in Los Angeles.
 (AP, 8/13/97)

1846  Aug 18, U.S. forces led by Gen. Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe, N.M. As commander of the Army of the West during the Mexican War, Brig. Gen. Stephen Watts Kearny captured Santa Fe without a shot being fired. Kearny (1794-1848) then served as military governor of New Mexico for a month.
 (AP, 8/18/97)(HNQ, 4/23/00)

1846  Aug 22, The United States annexed New Mexico.
 (AP, 8/22/97)

1846  Aug, By the end of August the US Pacific Fleet with the help of General John C. Fremont, had occupied the entire state of California.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.48)

1846  Sep 4, Daniel Burnham, US architect, city planner and builder of skyscrapers, was born.
 (HN, 9/4/00)(MC, 9/4/01)

1846  Sep 10, Elias Howe (d.1867) of Spencer, Mass., received a U.S. patent for his first workable lockstitch sewing machine. Howe, a Massachusetts machinist, developed his sewing machine in 1843-45 and patented it in 1846. Although Howe’s machine sewed only short, straight lines, tailors and seamstresses saw it as a threat to their jobs. Unable to market his machine in America, Howe took it to Britain where he sold the rights to an English manufacturer in 1847. Upon his return to the United States, Howe discovered that his patent had been infringed upon by other sewing machine manufacturers, such as Isaac Singer. After a lengthy court battle, Howe’s patent was upheld and royalties from sewing machine sales made him a wealthy man.
 (CFA, ‘96, p.54)(AP, 9/10/97)(HNPD, 7/9/98)(HN, 9/10/98)

1846  Sep 19, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning eloped.
 (SFEC, 2/1/98, p.T8)(MC, 9/19/01)

1846  Sep 23, The planet Neptune was discovered by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle. Neptune was discovered after John Couch Adams of England and Urbain Jean Leverrier of France independently figured out where it should be.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.38)(AP, 9/23/97)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Par p.13)(ON, 9/01, p.9)

1846  Sep 25, American General Zachary Taylor’s forces captured Monterey, Mexico.
 (HN, 9/25/98)

1846  Sep 30, Dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in Boston, (Charleston) Massachusetts.
 (AP, 9/30/97)(HN, 9/30/01)

1846  Oct 6, George Westinghouse (d.1914) was born. Inventor and manufacturer Westinghouse, a leader in the development of electric power, also developed a long-distance transmission system for natural gas. Westinghouse held more than 400 patents including shock absorbers, electric brakes for subway cars, air brakes and railroad signals. He promoted the development and construction of electric transformers, enabling the introduction of high-tension systems using single-phase alternating currents.
 (HNQ, 7/6/99)(HN, 10/6/00)
1847  Oct 6, Charlotte Bronte’s novel "Jane Eyre" was published in London. [see Oct 16]
 (SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C21)(HN, 10/6/00)

1846  Oct 10, Alexis the Tocqueville wrote about the "Algerian problem."
 (MC, 10/10/01)
1846  Oct 10, Neptune's moon Triton was discovered by William Lassell. [see Sep 23]
 (MC, 10/10/01)

1846  Oct 15, Dr. William Thomas Green Morton made the 1st public use of ether in Boston. [see Oct 16]
 (MC, 10/15/01)

1846  Oct 16, Sulphurous ether was first administered in public at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston by Dr. William Thomas Green Morton during an operation performed by Dr. John Collins Warren. Morton was the 1st to take public credit for the use of ether in a medical procedure and applied for a patent on its use, which was later nullified. In 2001 Julie M. Fenster authored "Ether Day," an account of Dr. Morton and ether. [see Oct 15]
 (HN, 10/16/98)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A17)
1847  Oct 16, Charlotte Bronte's book "Jane Eyre" was published. [see Oct 6]
 (MC, 10/16/01)

1846  Oct 28, Auguste Escoffier, king of chefs and chef of kings, was born.
 (MC, 10/28/01)
1846  Oct 28, Pioneers suffered a blizzard in Sierra Nevada. 42 died.
 (MC, 10/28/01)

1846  Oct 31, Heavy snows trapped the Donner party in the eastern Sierras near what is now Truckee.
 (SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)(MC, 10/31/01)

1846  Nov 4, Benjamin F. Palmer of Meredith N.H. received a patent on an artificial human leg.
 (SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 11/4/01)

1846  Nov 5, Robert Schumann's 2nd Symphony in C, premiered.
 (MC, 11/5/01)

1846  Nov 16, General Zachary Taylor took Saltillo, Mexico. General, cried Brig. Gen. John Wool in despair, we are whipped! I know it, replied Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor, but the volunteers don't know it. Let them alone; we'll see what they do.
 (HN, 11/16/98)

1846  Nov 25, Carry Nation (Carrie) was born Carry Amelia Moore in Kentucky. After her first husband died a drunkard, she married David Nation and they moved to Medicine Lodge, Kansas. There, she was elected president of the local chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Even though Kansas was technically a dry state, Medicine Lodge had seven saloons. When Carry Nation's appeals to close the saloons were ignored, she took matters into her own hands--she drove a buggy, full of bricks and stones she had wrapped in newspapers, up to a saloon, smashed its mirrors, glasses, bottles and windows, and said to the proprietor as she left, "I have finished. God be with you." Nation repeated her barroom attacks across the state and the country. One of her last actions was at Washington's Union Depot, where she used three hatchets that she called Faith, Hope and Charity. Nation, who was arrested about 30 times for her saloon rampages, died in 1911.
 (HNPD, 11/25/98)

1846  Dec 6, Hector Berlioz' opera "La Damnation de Faust" was produced in Paris.
 (MC, 12/6/01)(WSJ, 7/1/03, p.D8)

1846  Dec 11, A herd of wild cattle stampeded the rear companies of the Mormon Battalion near Tombstone, Arizona. As a result of what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulls, approximately 12 bulls were killed, two mules were gored, and three men were wounded, including future California governor, Lieutenant George Stoneman.
 (HNQ, 2/12/02)

1846  Dec 16, In desperation 10 men and 5 women of the Donner Party left on snowshoes to cross the Sierra Nevada. The 5 women and 2 men survived. All but one of the dead were eaten. Of the 89 members in the whole group 42 died.
 (SFC, 7/20/96, p.C1)

1846  Dec 28, Iowa became the 29th state to be admitted to the Union.
 (AP, 12/28/97)

1846  Dec, In California the town of Francesca (now Benicia) planned to change its name to San Francisco. William A. Bartlett, the first American alcalde, or mayor of Yerba Buena, led the town council to beat Francesca and approve a name change to San Francisco.
 (SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)

1846  Edward Hicks completed his painting "The Peaceable Kingdom." [see 1844] He also did the portrait of "James Cornell's Prize Bull."
 (SFEM, 10/18/98, p.15)(WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A28)

1846  Barend Cornelis Koekkoek of Holland painted his "Portrait of a Young Lady."
 (WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)

1846  "The History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds" by British anatomist Richard Owen was published.
 (NH, 8/96, p.20)

1846  The pier at Monterey, California was built for trading vessels bringing goods around Cape Horn.
 (SFEC, 11/3/96, DB p.71)

1846  The International Mission Board was created as part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
 (AP, 12/30/02)

1846  The Seventh-Day Adventists broke from the Adventist Church, stressing legalism and Sabbatarianism, with strong views on diet, health and medicine.
 (HNQ, 9/29/99)

1846  In Woodstock, Conn., Henry Chandler Bowen (d.1896) built a summertime retreat. He had made a fortune as a silk importer in Brooklyn. The 19-room cottage was designed by Joseph Collins Wells and furnished by Thomas Brooks, a New York cabinet maker.
 (HT, 4/97, p.36)

1846  Trinity Church, a Gothic Revival-style building, was constructed at Broadway and Wall St. in NYC.
 (SFEC, 6/21/98, p.T4)

1846  Cuthbert Burrel came to California and served under Gen’l. John C. Fremont. His grandson, lawyer Harry Haehl, served under Gen’l. Douglas MacArthur and assisted in the revival of the Japanese merchant marine after WW II.
 (SFC, 1/29/98, p.B2)

1846   Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the influential Godey's Lady's Book, began a tireless campaign to establish a national Thanksgiving holiday in November. She was the editor and founder of the Ladies' Magazine in Boston. Her editorials in the magazine and letters to President Lincoln urging the formal establishment of a national holiday of Thanksgiving resulted in Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863, which designated the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day.
 (HNPD, 11/26/98)

1846  In California Gen’l. Vallejo married Dr. Edward Turner Bale’s niece, and bestowed upon him a land grant. Its last remnant in 1998 was the Old Bale Mill, south of Calistoga. [see 1841]
 (SFEC, 2/22/98, p.T5)(AP, 3/5/98)

1846  In California Robert Semple, a Kentucky-born printer, dentist, lawyer, physician and riverboat pilot, helped lead the Bear Flag Revolt. He helped take Gen’l. Vallejo prisoner and with financier Thomas O. Larkin paid Vallejo $100 to become co-owner of 5 sq. miles around Benicia. Larkin was the American ambassador to California
 (SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W26)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W36)

1846  Near San Rafael, Ca., a US military detachment was approached by 3 unarmed Mexicans, Jose de los Reyes Berryessa, Francisco de Haro and his twin brother Ramon. Captain Fremont was asked by trapper Kit Carson whether he should take the men as prisoners. Fremont responded that he had no room for prisoners and Carson shot the men dead and left their bodies to rot.
 (SFC, 6/5/98, p.A20)

1846  Lt. Harry Lumsden in the heat of India’s Punjab dyed his PJs a tawny color. They were made of cotton and called khaki in Hindi.
 (NH, 6/96, p.7)

1846  A US Treaty was signed with the Cherokee Nation in which the tribe gave up resistance to forced relocation.
 (WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)

c1846  General Winfield Scott called Robert E. Lee "the very best soldier I ever saw in the field" and suggested the U.S. government, in the event of war, insure his life for $5 million. Lee served on Scott’s staff in the Mexican War and inspired Scott’s praise with his reconnaissance skills and good judgement, which contributed significantly to his Mexican victories. In 1861 Scott offered Lee command of the Union army, but Lee declined, deciding to support the Confederacy.
 (HNPD, 8/15/99)

1846  Commander John Montgomery sent a 70-man detachment from the Portsmouth ashore at Yerba Buena, soon renamed San Francisco, and raised the American flag.
 (SFC, 5/7/97, p.A15)

1846  In Northern California Don Rafael Garcia gave a party for Joseph Revere, a newly arrived American military officer. The large ranch holders were called "Californios." The old families were named Peralta, Noe, Bernal, Castro, Berryessa, and all eventually lost their land.
 (SFC, 5/26/97, p.A11)

1846  The sons of Francisco de Haro, the first chief magistrate of Yerba Buena (later renamed San Francisco), were murdered by Americans under the command of Kit Carson.
 (SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)

1846  Texas was voluntarily annexed to the US.
 (WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)

1846  The Applegate Trail across northwest Nevada and northeast California was blazed as a southern approach to Oregon's Willamette Valley.
 (SFEC, 1/23/00, p.T7)

c1846  In Aroostook County, Maine, Scottish and Irish immigrants began planting potatoes.
 (WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A1)

1846  In Ireland people began starving to death due to the potato famine.
 (USAT, 1/15/97, p.2D)

c1846  In Mexico Santa Anna was recalled to serve as president and to lead the army.
 (WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W10)

1846  In Nepal the Kot Massacre took place. The Rana dynasty forced the Shah monarchy from power and then ruled for over 100 years.
 (SFC, 6/7/01, p.A12)

1846  A major immigration of Swedes to the US began and by the 1920s brought in 1.2 million people.
 (FB, 9/12/96, p.A2)

1846-1848 US troops invaded and captured Mexico City.
 (SFC, 12/10/96, p.A12)

1846-1848 Ireland experiences the terrible potato famine. About 1,200,000 people leave Ireland, mostly for the US.
 (Compuserve, Online Encyclopedia)

1846-1852 Lord John Russel was Prime Minister of England from 1846 to 1852 in his first term.
 (HN, 8/18/98)

1846-1854 Darwin devoted himself to the study of barnacles.
 (NH, 8/96, p.56)

1846-1859 Ownership of the San Juan Islands was not settled in the 1846 Oregon Treaty. The Pig War of 1859 forced an arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany. Six Royal Marines and 16 US soldiers died during the 13-year occupation from drownings, disease and suicides.
 (SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T8)

1846-1878 Pope Pius IX, Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti, allowed archeological excavations of the catacombs by G.B. de Rossi. Under Pius IX the child Edgardo Mortara was taken from the Jewish merchant, Momolo Mortara, in Bologna and raised as a foster son of the pope. The 6-year-old boy had been baptized by a Catholic servant and canonical law did not allow that he be raised by his Jewish parents. The story is told by David I. Kertzer in his 1997 book: "The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara."
 (ITV, 1/96, p.58)(SFEC, 8/31/97, BR p.9)(PTA, 1980, p.510)

1846-1911 Carry Nation, early leader of the American temperance movement, was famous for using a hatchet to destroy saloons in her home state of Kansas.
 (SFC, 1/7/98, Z1 p.6)

1846-1914 George Westinghouse, American inventor and manufacturer. He introduced the railroad airbrake in 1869. The device enabled the engineer to brake a train from the locomotive.
 ((WUD, 1994, p.1623)(THC, 12/2/97)

1847  Jan 3, California town of Yerba Buena was renamed to San Francisco. [see Jan 30]
 (MC, 1/3/02)

1847  Jan 10, General Stephen Kearny and Commodore Robert Stockton retook Los Angeles in the last California battle of the Mexican War.
 (HN, 1/10/99)

1847  Jan 16, John C. Fremont (1830-1890), the famed "Pathfinder" of Western exploration, was appointed governor of California. Fremont, explorer, soldier and politician, earned his nickname "The Pathfinder" because of his explorations of the Pacific Northwest, California, and Nevada during the 1840s.
 (HN, 1/16/99)(HNQ, 3/11/00)

1847  Jan 19, New Mexico Governor Charles Bent was slain by Pueblo Indians in Taos.
 (HN, 1/19/99)

1847  Jan 24, 1,500 New Mexican Indians and Mexicans were defeated by US Col. Price.
 (MC, 1/24/02)

1847  Jan 30, The California Star, founded by Sam Brannon, published the official name change of Yerba Buena to San Francisco on this day. Mayor Washington Bartlett had the town council approve the change. [see Jan 3]
 (SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)(SFC, 1/25/02, p.G6)

1847  Jan 30, Virginia Poe, wife and cousin of Edgar Allan Poe, died at age 24.
 (SFEC, 1/12/97, p.T5)

1847  Feb 11, American inventor Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio. He was the inventor of the first electric light bulb and pioneer of the motion picture industry. He also Invented at least 1,300 other items.
 (HN, 2/11/97)(AP, 2/11/97)

1847  Feb 14, Anna Howard Shaw, U.S. suffragette, was born.
 (HN, 2/14/98)

1847  Feb 16, Ludwig Philipp Scharwenka, German composer (Album Polonaise), was born.
 (MC, 2/16/02)

1847  Feb 19, The 1st rescuers finally reached the ill-fated Donner Party in the Sierras, where many resorted to cannibalism to survive.
 (HN, 2/19/99)(ON, SC, p.6)

1847  Feb 22, In the Battle of Buena Vista US troops beat Mexican army during the Mexican-American War. Mexican General Santa Anna (of Alamo infamy) surrounded the outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor ('Old Rough and Ready') at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demanded an immediate surrender. Taylor refused, reported to reply, "Tell him to go to hell," and early the next morning Santa Anna dispatched some 15,000 troops to move against the 5,000 Americans. The superior US artillery was able to halt one of the two advancing Mexican divisions. By the afternoon Taylor had lived up to his word as the Mexicans began to withdraw.
 (MC, 2/22/02)

1847  Feb 23, U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican Gen. Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico. The United States and Mexico had been at war over territorial disputes since May 1846.
 (AP, 2/23/98)(HN, 2/23/98)

1847  Feb 28, Colonel Alexander Doniphan and his ragtag Missouri Mounted Volunteers rode to victory at the Battle of Sacramento, during the Mexican War.
 (HN, 2/28/99)

1847  Mar 1, James Reed reached Donner Lake and found his two children alive along with 15 other survivors.
 (ON, SC, p.7)
1847  Mar 1, Michigan became the 1st English-speaking jurisdiction to abolish the death penalty (except for treason against the state).
 (SC, 3/1/02)

1847   Mar 3, The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell (teacher of the deaf, inventor: telephone; founder of Bell Telephone Company), was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. For two generations the family of Alexander Graham Bell was recognized as leading authorities on elocution and speech correction. Graham's father, Alexander Melville Bell's Standard Elocutionist went through nearly 200 editions in English.
 (SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(AP, 3/3/98)(HC, Internet, 3/3/98)(HNQ, 12/20/98)
1847  Mar 3, Post Office Department was authorized to issue postage stamps.
 (SC, 3/3/02)
 
1847  Mar 7, U.S. General Scott occupied Veracruz, Mexico. Pres. Polk decided to attack the heart of Mexico. He sent Gen. Winfield Scott, who landed at Veracruz and with his troops hacked their way to Mexico City. [see Mar 9]
 (HFA, '96, p.48)(HN, 3/7/98)

1847  Mar 9, US forces under General Winfield Scott invaded Mexico (Mexican-American War) 3 miles south of Vera Cruz. Encountering almost no resistance from the Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the last of Scott's 10,000 men came ashore without the loss of a single life. It was the largest amphibious landing in U.S. history until WW II. [see Mar 7]
 (MC, 3/9/02)

1847  Mar 11, Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman) died in Allen County,  Indiana. [see 1774/75-1845]
 (HFA, '96, p.26)(AHD, p.225)(MC, 3/11/02)

1847  Mar 29, Some 12,000 US forces led by General Winfield Scott occupied the city of Vera Cruz after Mexican defenders capitulated.
 (HFA, '96, p.26)(AP, 3/29/97)(MC, 3/29/02)

1847  Mar 31, Jarolslaw Zielinski, composer, was born.
 (MC, 3/31/02)

1847  Apr 10, American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer (d.1911) was born in Mako, Hungary. "What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business—except the journalist’s."
 (CFA, ‘96, p.44)(AP, 4/10/97)(AP, 8/30/98)

1847  Apr 18, U.S. forces defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war.
 (HN, 4/18/99)

1847  Apr, A census in San Francisco, Ca., counted 462 residents.
 (SFC, 1/30/97, p.A15)

1847  Apr, A cattle market began in Seville, Spain, that changed over the years to a week long celebration of Holy Week.
 (Hem, 4/96, p.51)

1847  May 7, The American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.
 (AP, 5/7/97)(HN, 5/7/98)

1847  May 14, Fanny Cacilia Mendelssohn Hensel (41), pianist, composer (sister of Felix), died.
 (MC, 5/14/02)

1847  May 20, Mary Lamb, writer, died.
 (MC, 5/20/02)

1847  May 25, Alphonse Goovaerts, composer, was born.
 (SC, 5/25/02)
1847  May 25, John Alexander Dowie [Elijah the Restorer], US evangelist, was born.
 (SC, 5/25/02)

1847  Jun 10, Chicago Tribune began publishing.
 (MC, 6/10/02)

1847  Jun 11, Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett, leader of English women's movement, was born.
 (SC, 6/11/02)
1847  Jun 11, A written record was found in 1859, indicating that Sir John Franklin died on this day, and that Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848. The crews' deaths have been attributed to either scurvy or lead poisoning originating from the solder on food tins. Both ships and the remains of most of the 129 crewmen have never been found. After commissioning three unsuccessful search expeditions, the British Admiralty posted a reward for anyone who could ascertain the fate of the crewmen of the HMS Erebus and Terror, who had sailed from England in May 1845 to navigate through the Arctic and find the elusive Northwest passage. Success was anticipated with Franklin commanding well-equipped crews and ships, but by 1847, the British Admiralty had received no reports of Franklin. Subsequent expeditions found evidence of the Franklin Expedition. Three graves dug into the permafrost were discovered in 1850, their headstones dated 1846. [see May 1845 and Franklin expedition 1850]
 (HNQ, 6/11/98)(HN, 6/11/99)

1847  Jun 22, The 1st doughnut with a hole in it was created.
 (SFC, 4/26/97, p.E4)(YarraNet, 6/22/00)

1847  Jun 27, New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.
 (AP, 6/27/97)

1847  Jul 1, The faces of founding fathers Benjamin Franklin and George Washington were pictured on the first U.S. government-sponsored postage stamps. Following a Congressional directive, the Post Office issued a Franklin five-cent stamp and a Washington 10-cent stamp.
 (HNQ, 5/16/98)(HN, 7/1/98)

1847  Jul 20, Max Liebermann, German impressionist painter, was born.
 (MC, 7/20/02)

1847  Jul 24, Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers, the first members of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.
 (AP, 7/24/97)(HN, 7/24/98)

1847  Jul 26, Liberia became the first African colony to become an independent state. A mutual agreement between the settlers and the society created the republic of Liberia. More than 10,000 free blacks had moved there. Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the Virginia-born son of free blacks, was elected the first president of Liberia, an African nation that grew out of the efforts of the American Colonization Society. Roberts made a state visit to the United States in 1851. The American Colonization Society supported setting up a colony for freed slaves in Africa as an alternative to American integration. The first group of colonists landed in Liberia in 1822, and founded Monrovia, the colony’s capital city, named in honor of President James Monroe. [see Aug 26]
 (HNPD, 7/26/98)(HN, 7/26/98)

1847  Aug 2, William A. Leidesdorff launched the first steam boat in San Francisco Bay.
 (HN, 8/2/98)

1847  Aug 8, Lt. Col. William M. Graham was killed in action at the head of the U.S. 11th Infantry at the Battle of Molino del Rey. On Mar 13, 1865, Graham was given a brevet brigadier generalcy.
 (HNQ, 4/1/01)

1847  Aug 20, General Winfield Scott won the battle of Churubusco on his drive to Mexico City. The Mexican War gave future civil war generals their first taste of combat.
 (HN, 8/20/98)

1847  Aug 24, Charlotte Bronte, using the pseudonym Currer Bell, sent a manuscript of "Jane Eyre" to her publisher in London.
 (HN, 8/24/00)

1847  Aug 26, Liberia was proclaimed an independent republic. Freed American slaves founded Liberia. They modelled their constitution after that of the US, copied the US flag, and named their capital Monrovia, after James Monroe, who financed early settlers. Over the decades 16,400 former slaves made the voyage. They assumed that the 16 native tribes were there to be exploited.
 (AP, 8/26/97)(SFC, 4/10/96, p.A-4)(SFC, 4/16/96, p.A-9)

1847  Sep 5, Jesse Woodson James (Jesse James) was born in Kearney, Mo, the son of a clergyman. At seventeen, James left his native Missouri to fight as a Confederate guerrilla in the Civil War. After the war, he returned to his home state to establish one of history’s most notorious outlaw gangs. With his younger brother Frank and several other ex-Confederates, including Cole Younger and his brothers, James robbed his way across the Western frontier targeting banks, trains, stagecoaches, and stores from Iowa to Texas. Eluding even the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, the gang escaped with thousands of dollars.
 (WUD, 1994 p.762)(USLC, 9/5/99)(MesWP)

1847  Sep 6, Henry David Thoreau left Walden Pond and moved back into town, to Concord, Massachusetts.
 (HN, 9/6/00)

1847  Sep 8, The US under Gen. Scott defeated Mexicans at Battle of Molino del Rey.
 (MC, 9/8/01)

1847  Sep 10, John Roy Lynch, first African-American to deliver the keynote address at a Republican National Convention, was born.
 (HN, 9/10/98)

1847  Sep 11, Stephen Foster’s "Oh! Susanna" was first performed in a saloon in Pittsburgh.
 (HN, 9/11/00)

1847  Sep 13, Milton Hershey, founder of the famous candy company, was born. [see Sep 13, 1857]
 (HN, 9/13/00)
1847  Sep 13, General Winfield Scott took Chapultepec, removing the last obstacle to U.S. troops moving on Mexico City.
 (HN, 9/13/98)

1847  Sep 14, U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott took control of Mexico City (the "Halls of Montezuma"). The Mexican forces fled with their leader, Santa Anna.
 (HFA, '96, p.48)(AP, 9/14/97)(MC, 9/14/01)

1847  Sep 25, Vinnie Ream, who sculpted President Abraham Lincoln from life shortly before he was assassinated, was born.
 (HN, 9/25/98)

1847  Oct 1, Maria Mitchell, American astronomer, discovered a new comet that was named after herself. She was elected the same day to the American Academy of Arts—the first woman to be so honored. The King of Denmark awarded her a gold medal for her discovery.
 (Alg, 1990, p.30)(HN, 10/1/98)

1847  Oct 2, Paul von Hindenburg, German Field Marshall during World War I whose brilliant victories on the Eastern Front promoted him to become the second president of the Weimar Republic, was born.
 (HN, 10/2/98)

1847  Oct 6, Charlotte Bronte’s novel "Jane Eyre" was published in London.
 (SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C21)(HN, 10/6/00)

1847  Oct 21, Giuseppe Giacosa (d.1906), Italian songwriter (libretti opera Puccini), was born.
 (MC, 10/21/01)

1847  Oct, financial pressures exert negative market influences as noted in a letter to the Economist in 1865.
 (WSJ, 9/28/95, p.A-18)

1847  Nov 4, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (b.1809), German pianist and composer, died at age 38. His work included: "Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream."
 (MC, 11/4/01)(WUD, 1994 p.895)(LGC, 1970, p.201)

1847  Nov 8, Bram Stoker, author, was born. His novels included "Dracula" (1897). [see Nov 24]
 (WUD, 1994 p.432)(HN, 11/8/00)

1847  Nov 21, Steamer "Phoenix" was lost on Lake Michigan. 200 people were killed.
 (MC, 11/21/01)

1847  Nov 22, In New York, the Astor Place Opera House, the city's first operatic theater, was opened.
 (HN, 11/22/98)

1847  Nov 24, Bram Stoker, Irish theater manager and author (Dracula), was born. [see Nov 8]
 (MC, 11/24/01)

1847  Nov 25, Friederich von Flotow's opera "Martha" was produced in Vienna.
 (MC, 11/25/01)

1847  Nov 26, Alfred de Musset's "Un Caprice," premiered in Paris.
 (MC, 11/26/01)

1847  Nov 28, In Bologna the church San Francisco dei Minori Conventuali opened with the premier of Rossini's "Tantum Ergo."
 (MC, 11/28/01)

1847  Nov, In Ireland Dennis Mahon, mayor of Strokestown, was shot dead in an ambush. He had thrown thousands of poor farmers off the land during the famine and had paid to have some 1000 small farmers shipped to North America so he could establish larger farms. He was killed after it was learned that half of the shipped people died enroute.
 (USAT, 1/15/97, p.2D)

1847  Dec 1, Julia Moore, poet, was born.
 (HN, 12/1/00)

1847  Dec 3, Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney established the North Star, an anti-slavery paper.
 (HN, 12/3/98)

1847  Dec 30, John Peter Altgeld, US Gov-Ill, was born in Germany. He pardoned some of the Haymarket anarchists.
 (MC, 12/30/01)

1847  Felix-Joseph Barrias created his painting "Gallic Soldier and his Daughter Imprisoned in Rome."
 (WSJ, 9/9/03, p.D6)

1847  Thomas Cole created his painting "Prometheus Unbound."
 (SFC, 1/1/01, p.A1)

1847  In the US the cookbook "The Carolina Housewife" by Sarah Rutledge was published.
 (SFC, 8/14/96, zz-1 p.1)

1847  "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte was published.
 (SFEC, 12/8/96, p.C21)

1847  Anthony Trollope published his first novel.
 (WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)

1847  Fratelli d’Italia, a song written to commemorate the bloody unification of Italy. It was chosen as the Italian National Anthem in 1946.
 (WSJ, 11/1/94, p. B1)

1847  The Verdi opera "Jerusalem" premiered at the Paris Opera.
 (WSJ, 1/27/98, p.A20)

1847  Swedish-born Jenny Lind (1820-1887), the greatest operatic and concert soprano of her age, was already the toast of Europe when she was approached by American showman P.T. Barnum in 1847. Even before hearing her voice, Barnum signed the "Swedish Nightingale" for 150 American concerts at the enormous sum of $150,000. With the help of Barnum's matchless marketing, Jenny Lind mania swept America, with crowds of the rich and famous and ordinary music lovers alike falling at her feet.
 (HN, 5/9/99)

1847  Jasper O’Farrell, surveyor-general of Northern California, laid out the streets of San Francisco. He designated the sand dune called O’Farrel’s Mountain as a public square (later Union Square).
 (SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.F2)

1847  In New Hampshire the North Conway railroad depot was established.
 (SFEC,11/16/97, p.T7)

1847  The American Medical Association was started.
 (SFC, 4/26/97, p.E4)

1847  The non-Indian population of California grew to some 15,000.
 (SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)

1847  Austrian doctor Ignaz Semmelweiss told his fellow doctors to start washing their hands.
 (SFEC, 12/8/96, Z  1 p.2)

1847  In Belgium Europe's oldest shopping center, the St. Hubertus Royal Galleries, opened in Brussels.
 (SFEC, 1/23/00, p.T14)

1847  Marx and Engels founded the Communist League in Brussels.
 (HNQ, 1/26/00)

1847  In France Cartier jewelers opened in Paris.
 (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)

1847  In Ireland the potato harvest was only 10% of normal and some 3 million people (40% of the populace) lined up for free food and soup.
 (USAT, 1/15/97, p.2D)

1847  In Ireland a new British Poor Law dumped the cost of relief on the already strapped Irish landlords.
 (WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)

1847  The Dutchy of Parma was governed until this year by Marie-Louise of Hapsburg.
 (SFEC, 9/15/96, p.T6)

1847-1882 Jesse James, American outlaw. [see Apr 3, 1882]
 (SFC, 5/3/97, p.E4)

1847-1901  Mary Catherwood, American novelist: "Next to the slanderer, we detest the bearer of the slander to our ears."
 (AP, 6/9/97)

1847-1911 In Portugal Queen Maria Pia lived.
 (WSJ, 2/10/98, p.A16)

1847-1919 Ralph Blakelock, artist. He suffered a breakdown and created a set of miniatures in watercolors on cardboard and paper while hospitalized in Middletown, N.Y.
 (WSJ, 3/19/97, p.A16)

1847-1931 Thomas Edison, American inventor, was born in Milan, Ohio. He obtained 1,100 [actually 1,093] patents in such fields as telegraphy, phonography, electric lighting, and photography. The Edison National Historic Site is located in west Orange, N.J.
 (AHD, 1971, p.414)(WSJ, 10/25/95, p.A-1)(WSJ, 1/17/97, p.A1)

1847-1935 Max Lieberman, a Berlin artist, was influenced but not smothered by the Impressionists.
 (WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A16)

1848  Jan 9, A people's uprising took place in Palermo, Sicily.
 (MC, 1/9/02)

1848  Jan 24, Gold was discovered by carpenter James Wilson Marshall at his partner Johann August Sutter's sawmill on the South Fork of the American River, near Coloma, California. John [James Wilson] Marshall, while inspecting the construction of a mill on the American River, being built for Capt. John Sutter, spotted a gold nugget. Marshall, Sutter and their workers tried to keep the discovery quiet but gold-seekers quickly began pouring into California, raising the state's non-Indian population to about 20,000 in 1848, 100,000 in 1849 and twice that amount by 1852.
 (HFA,'96,p.22)(SFC, 5/19/96,City Guide, p.16)(SFEC, 11/3/96, DB p.71)(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A17)(SFEC, 7/6/97, p.T3)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(HN, 1/24/99)(HNPD, 1/24/99)

1848  Jan, John Sutter got a "lease" for the land around the gold site from the Culumah Indians in exchange for "some shirts, hats, handkerchiefs, flour and other articles of no great value." He then tried to get the lease recorded with General Mason, the American military governor of California at Monterey. His messenger, Charles Bennett, stopped in Benicia on the way and displayed the gold after scoffing at talk of coal discoveries in Contra Costa County. No title was available because a treaty with Mexico was not yet signed.
 (SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.1)

1848  Feb 2, US and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico ceded one-third of its territory to the US including California, agreed to the Rio Grande as the boundary between Texas and Mexico and was awarded $15 million. 25,000 Mexicans and 12,000 Americans lost their lives in the 17-month old conflict.
 (HFA, ‘96, p.48)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A17)(HN, 2/2/99)
1848  Feb 2, The 1st ship load of Chinese arrived in SF.
 (MC, 2/2/02)

1848  Feb 5, Belle Starr, Western outlaw, was born.
 (HN, 2/5/99)

1848  Feb 14, James Polk became the first U.S. President to be photographed in office by Matthew Brady.
 (HN, 2/14/98)

1848  Feb 15, Sarah Roberts was barred from a white school in Boston.
 (440 Int’l., 2/15/99)

1848  Feb 18, Louis Comfort Tiffany (d.1933), American painter, stained-glass artist, and glass manufacturer, was born. He was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902), founder of the Tiffany & Co. jewelry business (1837).
 (HFA, ‘96, p.22)(AHD, p.1344)(HN, 2/18/98)(WSJ, 8/4/98, p.A13)

1848  Feb 23, John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), died of a stroke at age 80.  Samuel Flagg Bemis wrote a biography. In 1997 Paul C. Nagel published a biography.
 (AP, 2/23/98)(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)(MC, 2/23/02)

1848  Feb 24, King Louis-Philippe abdicated and the 2nd French republic was declared. [see Feb 26]
 (MC, 2/24/02)

1848  Feb 26, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published "The Communist Manifesto".
 (HN, 2/26/98)
1848  Feb 26, The Second French Republic was proclaimed.
 (AP, 2/26/98)

1848  Feb 27, Charles Hubert H. Parry, musicologist, composer (Jerusalem), was born in England.
 (MC, 2/27/02)

1848  Mar 1, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, US sculptor and designer of the 1907 $20 gold piece, was born.
 (SC, 3/1/02)

1848  Mar 4, Sardinia-Piemonte got a new Constitution.
 (SC, 3/4/02)

1848  Mar 9, Martin Pierre Joseph Marsick, composer, was born.
 (MC, 3/9/02)

1848  Mar 10, The Senate ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with Mexico.
 (AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)

1848  Mar 19, Wyatt Earp (Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp), later U.S. Marshal, was born the son of a Sheriff in Monmouth, Illinois. He fought at the Gunfight at the OK Corral and Paula Mitchell Marks later wrote "And Die in the West," an account of the incident.
 (HN, 3/19/98)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)(CHA, 1/2001)

1848  Mar 20, King Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicated to marry dancer Lola Montez.
 (MC, 3/20/02)

1848  Mar 23, Hungary proclaimed its independence of Austria.
 (HN, 3/23/99)

1848  Mar 29, Aleksei Kuropatkin, Russian general, minister of War, was born.
 (MC, 3/29/02)
1848  Mar 29, Niagara Falls stopped flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam in the Niagara River.
 (HN, 3/29/98)(MC, 3/29/02)
1848  Mar 29, John Jacob Astor (b.1763), America’s richest man, died. The fur and real estate magnate had a value in 1999 dollars totalled $78 billion. In 2001 Axel Madsen authored "John Jacob Astor: America’s First Multimillionaire.
 (HN, 7/17/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(SFEC, 5/23/99, Par p.7)(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.W10)(MC, 3/29/02)

1848  Apr 6, Jews of Prussia were granted equality.
 (MC, 4/6/02)

1848  Apr 8, Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (50), Italian composer, died.
 (MC, 4/8/02)

1848  Apr 25, A. Graham discovered asteroid #9: Metis.
 (SS, 4/25/02)

1848  Apr 28, The last slaves in French colonies were freed.
 (MC, 4/28/02)

1848  Apr, The ships Erebus and Terror of the Franklin Expedition to the Arctic were abandoned. [see Franklin expedition 1850]
 (HNQ, 6/11/98)

1848  May 5, Adalbert von Goldschmidt, composer, was born.
 (MC, 5/5/02)

1848  May 12, Sam Brannon, an elder of the Mormon Church in SF, announced the discovery of gold on the American River. He had just opened a store near the goldfields stocked with shovels and mining tools. He and members of the Mormon battalion were the first to profit in San Francisco from the Gold Rush.
 (SFC, 4/9/96, A-7)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.4)(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)

1848  Mar 19, Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was born in Monmouth, IL.
 (MesWP)
1848  May 19, The first department store opened. [see Sep 14]
 (DTnet, 5/19/97)
1848  May 19, Texas was awarded to the U.S.A. by Mexico thus ending the war.
 (DTnet, 5/19/97)

1848  May 23, Helmuth J.L. von Moltke, German general, chief of staff (WW I), was born.
 (MC, 5/23/02)

1848  May 29, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the union.
 (AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/98)
1848  May 29, Battle at Curtazone: Austrians beat Sardinia-Piemonte.
 (SC, 5/29/02)

1848  May 30, William Young patented the ice cream freezer.
 (HN, 5/30/98)
1848  May 30, Mexico ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
 (MC, 5/30/02)

1848  May, A Frenchman found gold in a ravine north of Coloma, Ca., and in a week the town of Rich Dry Diggings was founded. It later was renamed Auburn.
 (SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)

1848  Jun 5, Army officer John C. Fremont submitted his "Geographical Memoir" to the US Senate where the SF Bay entrance was called Chrysopylae (Golden Gate). He had in mind the Chrysoceras (Golden Horn) of Constantinople, and suggested that the SF Bay would be advantageous for commerce.
 (SFC, 6/5/98, p.A20)

1848  Jun 7, Paul Gauguin, French post-impressionist painter, was born in Paris. He abandoned his family to focus on his work.
 (AP, 6/7/97)(HN, 6/7/99)

1848  Jun 10, The 1st telegraph link between NYC & Chicago was established.
 (MC, 6/10/02)

1848  Jun 17, Austrian General Alfred Windischgratz crushed a Czech uprising in Prague.
 (HN, 6/17/98)

1848  Jun 23, Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, was born. [see Nov 6, 1814]
 (HN, 6/23/98)
1848  Jun 23, A bloody insurrection of workers in Paris erupted to protest inflation, unemployment and corruption.
 (HN, 6/23/98)(SFEC, 6/28/98, p.T9)

1848  Jun 24, Brooks Adams, American historian and son of Charles Francis Adams, was born. He wrote "The Law of Civilization and Decay."
 (HN, 6/24/99)

1848  Jul 3, The slaves were freed in Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands).
 (MC, 7/3/02)

1848  Jul 4, The Communist Manifesto was published. Marx and Engels predicted that capitalism would lead to revolution where the workers would take over the means of production and develop an ideal classless society. "Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains."
 (IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)
1848  Jul 4, The Cornerstone of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. was laid by President Polk. The white marble obelisk, which is 555 feet tall and 55 fee square at the base, was not completed until 1184. The public was admitted to the monument on October 9, 1888.
 (IB, Internet, 12/7/98)
1848  Jul 4, Vicomte François-René de Chateaubriand, French writer and statesman, 79, died in Paris.
 (WUD, 1994, p.250)

1848  Jul 19, The first women’s rights convention convened in Seneca Falls, New York. Organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the two-day convention discussed such topics as voting, property rights and divorce. It launched the women’s suffrage movement. The convention issued a "Declaration of Sentiments" based on the Declaration of Independence. "The ideal newspaper woman has the keen zest for life of a child, the cool courage of a man and the subtlety of a woman." Elizabeth Cady Stanton made her first public speech at the Woman's Rights Convention. After Cady Stanton was denied participation in an anti-slavery convention and was told that women were "constitutionally unfit for public and business meetings," she and four other women, including abolitionist Lucretia Coffin Mott, planned a convention to challenge that notion. They drafted a "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," 11 resolutions calling for equal rights for women, including the right to vote. After lengthy debate, the document was amended and signed by 68 women and 32 men of the approximately 300 attendees, setting the American women's rights movement in motion. Susan B. Anthony joined the movement in 1852.
 (HNPD, 7/19/98)(SFEC, 7/20/97, Par p.8)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.30)(SFC, 7/6/98, p.D8)

1848  Jul 25, Arthur James Balfour (d.1930), the First Earl of Balfour and prime Minister of Great Britain (1902-1905), was born: "A religion that is small enough for our understanding would not be large enough for our needs."
 (AP, 11/14/97)(HN, 7/25/98)

1848  Jul 26, Charles Ellet Jr., engineer, completed a light suspension bridge over the Niagara River. A boy’s kite was used to transfer the 1st line across.
 (ON, 7/02, p.8)
1848  Jul 26, The French army suppressed the Paris uprising.
 (HN, 7/26/98)

1848  Jul 29, An Irish rebellion against British rule was put down in a cabbage patch in Tipperary, Ireland. Irish Nationalists under William Smith O'Brien were overcome and arrested.
 (HN, 7/29/98)(MC, 7/29/02)

1848  Jul, By this time 4,000 people were out hunting gold in California.
 (SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.4)

1848  Aug 9, The Barnburners (anti-slavery) party merged with the Free Soil Party and nominated Martin Van Buren for president at its convention in Buffalo, N.Y. The Hunkers and the Barnburners were two factions within the Democratic Party of New York split over the slavery issue in 1848. They injected the issue into the Democratic National Convention held in Baltimore in 1848 when they both sent delegations. The Barnburners (who were also known as the "Softs" while the Hunkers were called the "Hards") were firm supporters of the Wilmot Proviso of 1846 that sought to restrict the spread of slavery to newly acquired territory.
 (AP, 8/9/97)(HNQ, 11/28/98)(MC, 8/9/02)

1848  Aug 14, The Oregon Territory was established.
 (AP, 8/14/97)

1848  Aug 19, The New York Herald reported the discovery of gold in California.
 (AP, 8/19/97)

1848  Aug, Henry Walter Bates, British naturalist, travelled the rain forest of the Amazon estuary.
 (NH, 6/97, p.30)

1848  Aug, Julia Dent married Ulysses S. Grant: "Never shall I forget... that hot August night."
 (SFEM, 1/25/98, p.29)

1848  Sep 11, Henri-Philippe Gerard, composer, died at 87.
 (MC, 9/11/01)

1848  Sep 13, Dr. John Martyn Harlow treated Phinneas Gage in Vermont for a head injury from a tamping iron that had pierced the man’s skull during a blasting accident. Gage survived until 1860, but with definite personality changes that Dr. Harlow tracked.
 (ON, 10/02, p.9)

1848  Sep 14, Alexander Stewart opened the 1st US dept store. [see May 19, 1958]
 (MC, 9/14/01)

1848  Sep 19, Hyperion, a moon of Saturn, was discovered by Bond (US) & Lassell (England).
 (MC, 9/19/01)

1848  Oct 16, The 1st US homeopathic medical college opened in Pennsylvania.
 (MC, 10/16/01)

1848  Oct 19, John "The Pathfinder" Fremont moved out from near Westport, Missouri, on his fourth Western expedition—a failed attempt to open a trail across the Rocky Mountains along the 38th parallel. The disastrous Colorado expedition of 1848-1849 ended with some of his men cannibalizing their comrades.
 (HN, 10/19/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.6)

1848  Nov 7, General Zachary Taylor was elected  president of US.
 (MC, 11/7/01)

1848  Nov 9, The first U.S. Post Office in California opened in San Francisco at Clay and Pike streets. At that time there were only about 15,000 European settlers living in the state.
 (HN, 11/9/98)

1848  Nov 21, Alfred de Musset's "Andre del Sarto," premiered in Paris.
 (MC, 11/21/01)

1848  Nov 23, The Female Medical Educational Society was established in Boston, Mass., the same year the all-male American Medical Association formed.
 (AP, 11/23/02)
1848  Nov 23, Alfred Julius Becher (45), composer, died.
 (MC, 11/23/01)

1848  Nov 24, Lilli Lehmann, opera singer, was born.
 (MC, 11/24/01)

1848  Dec 5, President Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California. Paula Mitchell Marks later wrote "Precious Dust," an account of the gold rush. In 2002 H.W. Brands authored "The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream."
 (AP, 12/5/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, BR p.7)(SSFC, 8/18/02, p.M1)

1848  Dec 9, Joel Chandler Harris, writer, was born. He created the Uncle Remus tales.
 (HN, 12/9/00)

1848  Dec 26, The 1st California-bound gold seekers arrived in Panama enroute to SF.
 (MC, 12/26/01)

1848  Dec 29, Gas lights were 1st installed at White House during Polk's administration.
 (MC, 12/29/01)

1848  Hugh Bolton Jones (d1927), American artist, was born.
 (SFC, 4/11/01, p.E8)

c1848  Ellen Terry (d.1928), one of the great English actresses of the 19th century, was born. Her parents, Ben and Sarah Terry, lived on the edge of poverty, earning meager wages as strolling theatrical players who travelled from town to town. Ellen was their second child; six more children survived. All the Terry children expected to follow their parents on to the stage and by the age of nine, Ellen appeared on the London stage as Mamillius, the son of King Leontes in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.
 (WUD, 1994 p.1466)(HNQ, 8/31/01)

1848  The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of artists led by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rosetti.
 (WSJ, 2/19/97, p.A15)

1848  Edward Hicks (b.1780) painted "An Indian Summer View of the Farm & Stock of James C. Cornell."
 (WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A28)

1848  Anne Bronte wrote her novel "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."
 (WSJ, 10/16/97, p.A20)

1848  Titian Ramsey Peale published "Mammalia and Ornithology." It was based on his collections and observations from a South Seas expedition. It was suppressed by Charles Wilkes, leader of the expedition, due to adverse criticism by government authorities.
 (NH, 5/96, p.75)

1848  Elizabeth Ellet authored her 2-volume work: "Women of the American Revolution."
 (ON, 11/01, p.9)

1848  Turgenev authored his comedy "A Poor Gentleman." A 2002 Broadway production of the play was called "Fortune’s Fool."
 (WSJ, 4/3/02, p.A20)

1848  "The Brilliant Future of Cuzco" was published.
 (NH, 11/96, p.94)

1848  Fort Kearny was built in Nebraska. It was named after Stephen Watts Kearny, a US Army hero of the Mexican War.
 (SFC, 8/11/98, p.A7)

1848  In Savannah, Ga., the Andrew Low House was built on Abercorn St. of stuccoed brick, elaborate iron-caste railings and shuttered piazzas.
 (SFEC,11/30/97, p.T5)

1848  Spiritualism dates from the strange rappings that the Fox sisters heard in Hydesville, N.Y.
 (WSJ, 10/29/96, p.A21)

1848  John Humphrey Noyes (b.1811) founded the Oneida Community in upstate New York. The Perfectionists were organized around communal property and a complex marriage that wed all members to each other.
 (MC, 9/3/01)(SSFC, 12/29/02, p.A6)

1848  The Associated Press (AP) was founded.
 (SFC, 7/25/98, p.B5)

1848  Henry Chandler Bowen, New York silk merchant, founded the New York Independent, a Congregationalist journal that became one of the most influential anti-slavery newspapers in the country.
 (HT, 4/97, p.38)

1848  Lazard Freres [the Lazard Brothers] founded a dry goods company in New Orleans. They moved to SF a year later with their cousin, Alexander Weill.
 (SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.C1)

1848  Henry P. Angel set up shop on the banks of the what is today Angel’s Creek, Ca. This site was the focus for the growth of Angels Camp.
 (SFC, 4/28/96, p.T-11)

1848  In Brooklyn NY Antoine Zegera set up the 1st macaroni factory in the US.
 (SFC, 7/31/99, p.C3)

1848  The Girard College (a secondary school) was opened with funds from philanthropist Stephen Girard. In 1984 girls were admitted. Since its founding more than 20,000 indigent boys and hundreds of girls have passed through.
 (WSJ, 1/2/97, p.6)

1848  Andrew Carnegie came to America from Scotland as a teenager. He worked in a variety of jobs that paid modestly, but prepared him well for future ventures. A few years after being hired by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1852, he began to invest in railroads, receiving huge dividends. When a new steel-making process made cheap steel possible, Carnegie built his own plant.
 (HNPD, 8/11/98)

1848  Up to this time golfers used balls that were leather lumps packed with feathers. In this year the solid center ball molded from white gum of the Malayan gutta-percha tree was introduced.
 (SFC, 6/21/97, p.E4)
 
1848  Zachary Taylor, a Southerner, a slaveholder and the hero of the Mexican War, was nominated by the Party as a candidate for president of the United States. He was an inoffensive candidate in the anxious years leading up to the Civil War because he had never taken a position on a political issue or even cast a vote in his life. During his 16 months as president, Congress addressed the explosive issue of slavery’s expansion to the west with the Compromise of 1850, but Taylor himself never had the opportunity to act on this issue.
 (HNPD, 7/11/98)

1848  In Florida a female slave was executed for killing her owner.
 (SFC, 3/28/98, p.A6)

1848  Pacific Mail Steamship Co. was incorporated. It carried people, goods and mail from San Francisco to Asia and South America. It was taken over by the US government in 1932 so as to continue doing government work. The government renamed it American President Lines and held it until 1952.
 (WSJ, 5/28/96, p.R46)(SFC, 4/8/03, p.B5)

1848  The Memnon locomotive was built with a long horizontal boiler resting on 4 pairs of wheels. It was built to haul coal and was one of the first locomotives to use coal.
 (SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)

1848  H.E. Strickland was the senior author of the classic monograph on the dodo bird.
 (NH, 11/96, p.26)

1848  Samuel Gregory, a pioneer in medical education for women, founded the Boston Female Medical School. The school opened with an enrolment of 12 students. The establishment merged 26 years later with the Boston University School of Medicine, to form one of the first coed medical schools in the world.
 (HNQ, 12/27/02)

1848  Of the 165,000 people in California, only 15,000 were of European descent, and half of these were Mexican citizens who called themselves Californios.
 (SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1 p.1)

1848  Dolly Madison, wife of former Pres. James Madison, died.
 (ON, 9/02, p.4)

1848  Britain introduced khaki uniforms for British colonial troops in India.
 (WSJ, 5/28/02, p.B1)

1848  France abolished slavery. Victor Schoelcher was a major force in the abolition of slavery in France.
 (WSJ, 2/26/02, p.A22)

1848  In Germany a major revolt occurred. The revolution prompted Marx to write the "Communist Manifesto."
 (V.D.-H.K.p.257,260)

1848  Ranald MacDonald (1824-1894), a Chinook-Scottish sailor, separated from an American whaling ship and arrived in Japan. He was imprisoned for virtually his whole 10-month stay. In 2003 Frederik L. Schodt authored "Native American in the Land of the Shogun: Ranald MacDonald and the Opening of Japan."
 (SSFC, 7/13/03, p.M3)

1848  A railroad line was built along the coast of Barcelona, Spain that separates the city from its waterfront. It is finally relocated underground.
 (Hem., Oct. ‘95, p.17)

1848  A Swiss constitution was enacted that included a mandate for neutrality.
 (SFC, 7/6/99, p.C6)(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A15)

1848-1852 In France Napoleon III, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte I, served as president.
 (WUD, 1994, p.950)

1848-1854 The non-Indian population of California exploded from an estimated 13,000 to 300,000.
 (SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.6)

1848-1870 The native American population in California dropped from 175,000 to fewer than 30,000, mostly due to diseases that they had no immunity to.
 (SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.6)

1848-1887 Richard Jefferies, English author: "The very idea that there is another idea is something gained."
 (AP, 9/21/98)
1848-1892 William Michael Harnett, American painter. He painted "After the Hunt."
 (AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.647)
1848-1894 Gustave Caillebotte, French impressionist painter, he was a Jewish lawyer turned painter with a crisp, almost photographic style. He is best know for "Paris Street: Rainy Day" done in 1877.
 (WSJ, 2/23/95, p.A-10)

1848-1903 Paul Gauguin, French painter. He painted "Still Life."
 (AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.587)

1848-1924 Kate Claxton, American actress. She was famous for her portrayal of Louise, a blind girl, in the 1874 play: "The Two Orphans."
 (SFC, 4/21/99, Z1 p.6)

1848-1933 Richard R. Bowker, American publisher: "It's all right to have a train of thoughts, if you have a terminal."
 (AP, 11/12/98)

1849  Jan 23, English-born Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in America to receive medical degree, from the Medical Institution of Geneva, N.Y.
 (AP, 1/23/99)

1849  Jan, In Placerville, Ca., a mob ran down 3 men who reportedly tried to rob a local gambler. The men were flogged and hanged on Main St. Later the Placerville tavern, The Hangman’s Tree, was built over the site of the hanging tree.
 (SFC, 11/30/96, p.A20)

1849  Feb 13, Lord Randolph Churchill, was born. He was an English politician, Winston Churchill's father and member of Parliament.
 (HN, 2/13/99)

1849  Feb 21, In the Second Sikh War, Sir Hugh Gough’s well placed guns won a victory over a Sikh force twice the size of his at Gujerat on the Chenab River, assuring British control of the Punjab for years to come.
 (HN, 2/21/98)

1849  Feb 28, Steamboat service began from Panama City to SF. Pacific Mail Steamship Co. sent the steamship California to SF with American gold-seekers and 50 Peruvian miners.
 (AP, 2/28/98)(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)

1849  Mar 3, The US Home Department, forerunner of the Interior Department, was established.
 (AP, 3/3/98)
1849  Mar 3, Congress created the Minnesota Territory.
 (AP, 3/3/99)

1849  Mar 5, Zachary Taylor took the oath of office at his presidential inauguration.
 (AP, 3/5/99)

1849  Mar 7, Luther Burbank (d.1926) American Horticulturist was born in Lancaster, Mass. "For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while."
 (AP, 3/7/98)(AP, 4/26/98)
1849  Mar 7, The Austrian Reichstag was dissolved.
 (HN, 3/7/99)

1849  Mar 10, Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent. He was the only US president to do so. [see May 29]
 (MC, 3/10/02)

1849  Mar 19, Alfred von Tirpitz, Prussian admiral, was born. He commanded the German fleet in early World War I.
 (HN, 3/19/99)

1849  Mar 23, Battle of Novara (King Charles Albert of Sardinia vs. Italian republic). Austria’s Gen. Radetzky (83) crushed the Piedmontese forces. Charles Albert abdicated and was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel II, who reigned until 1861.
 (PCh, 1992, p.449)(SS, 3/23/02)

1849  Mar 27, Joseph Couch patented a steam-powered percussion rock drill.
 (MC, 3/27/02)

1849  Apr 6, Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera "Le Prophete," premiered in Paris. [see Apr 16]
 (MC, 4/6/02)

1849  Apr 10, Walter Hunt, a mechanic, patented the safety pin in NYC. He sold rights for $100. Hunt’s other inventions included a new stove, paper collar, ice-breaking boat, fountain pen and nail-making machine.
 (SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)(SFC, 4/1/00, p.B4)(MC, 4/10/02)

1849  Apr 16, Giacomo Meyerbeer's Opera "Le Prophete," premiered in Paris. [see Apr 6]
 (MC, 4/16/02)

1849  Apr 21, Oskar Hertwig, embryologist, discovered fertilization, was born.
 (HN, 4/21/98)

1849  Apr 30, Giuseppe Garabaldi, Italian republican patriot and guerrilla leader, repulsed a French attack on Rome.
 (HN, 4/30/98)

1849  May 3, Jacob Riis, American reporter and reformer (How the Other Half Lives), was born in Denmark.
 (HN, 5/3/01)(MC, 5/3/02)

1849  May 6, Wyatt Eaton, artist, was born.
 (MC, 5/6/02)

1849  May 10, A mob destroyed Astor Place opera house in NYC and 22 were killed. Edward Z.C. Judson (Ned Buntline) was convicted of leading the riot and was sentenced to a year in prison.
 (MC, 5/10/02)(PCh, 1992, p.450)

1849  May 15, Neapolitan troops entered Palermo, and were in possession of all of Sicily.
 (HN, 5/15/98)

1849  May 17, A fire in St. Louis, Mo., destroyed more than 400 buildings and two dozen steamships.
 (AP, 5/17/99)

1849  May 25, Andreas Michiels (52), Dutch Military Governor of West Sumatra, died in battle.
 (SC, 5/25/02)

1849  May 28, Anne Bronte, novelist, died.
 (MC, 5/28/02)

1849  May 29, A patent for lifting vessels was granted to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, & some of the people some of time, but you can't fool all of the people all of time"
 (HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)

1849  Jun 12, The gas mask was patented by L. P. Haslett.
 (HN, 6/12/98)

1849  Jun 15, James Polk, the 11th president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tenn.
 (AP, 6/15/97)(HN, 6/15/98)

1849  Jul 12, William Osler (d.1919), physician, author (circulatory system), was born in Canada. "The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow."
 (AP, 10/15/98)(MC, 7/12/02)

1849  Jul 19, F.A. Alphonse Aulard, French historian, was born.
 (MC, 7/19/02)

1849  Jul 22, Emma Lazarus, American poet, was born of Sephardic Jewish parents in NYC. Her poem, "The New Colossus," is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
 (HN, 7/22/98)(SFEC, 4/30/00, BR p.2)

1849  Jul 23, German rebels in Baden capitulated to the Prussians.
 (HN, 7/23/98)

1849  Jul 28, Memmon became the 1st clipper to reach SF after 120 days out of NY.
 (SC, 7/28/02)

1849  Aug 28, Venice, under Daniele Manin, surrendered to Austrians under Count Radetsky, following a siege since July 20 after proclaiming independence.
 (HTNet, 8/28/99)(MC, 8/28/01)

1849  Sep 1, Elizabeth Harrison, US educator (Natal Congress of Parents and Teachers), was born.
 (SC, 9/1/02)
1849  Sep 1, California Constitutional Convention was held in Monterey.
 (SC, 9/1/02)

1849  Sep 3, Sarah Orne Jewett, author of "Tales of New England," was born.
 (HN, 9/3/98)

1849  Sep 10, US actor Edwin Booth (b.1833), brother of Lincoln Assassinator John Wilkes Booth, made his 1st performance in Richard III.
 (MC, 9/10/01)

1849  Sep 14, Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist who studied dogs' responses to food suggestions, was born.  He won a Nobel Prize in 1904.
 (HN, 9/14/98)(MC, 9/14/01)

1849  Sep 19, The 1st commercial laundry was established, in Oakland, California.
 (MC, 9/19/01)

1849  Sep 23, Mikhail Mikhaylovich Ivanov, composer, was born.
 (MC, 9/23/01)

1849  Sep 25, Johann Baptist Strauss, elder, composer (Radetzky March), died at 45.
 (MC, 9/25/01)

1849  Oct 7, James Whitcomb Riley, poet, was born.
 (HN, 10/7/00)
1849  Oct 7, Author Edgar Allan Poe died in Baltimore, Md., at age 40. Never able to overcome his drinking habits, he was found in a delirious condition outside a saloon that was used as a voting place. The artist James Carling later illustrated his poem "The Raven." In 1996 a case was made in the Sept. issue of the Maryland Med. Journal that his symptoms indicated that he died of encephalitic rabies. In 1999 John Evangelist Walsh published "Midnight Dreary: The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe."
 (FB, 9/12/96, p.A7)(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.T5)(AP, 10/7/97)(HN, 10/7/98)(SFEC, 1/31/99, Par p.15)

1849  Oct 13, The California state constitution, which prohibited slavery, was signed in Monterey.
 (HN, 10/13/98)

1849  Oct 16, George Washington Williams, historian, clergyman and politician, was born.
 (HN, 10/16/00)

1849  Oct 17, Composer and pianist Frederic Chopin died in Paris of tuberculosis at the age of 39. The 1945 film "A Song to Remember" was about Chopin."
 (HN, 10/17/00)(SFC, 11/25/02, p.A15)

1849  Nov 8, Edward Julius Biedermann, composer, was born.
 (MC, 11/8/01)

1849  Nov 24, Frances Hodgson Burnett, author, was born. Her work includes "Little Lord Fauntleroy" and "The Secret Garden."
 (HN, 11/24/00)

1849  Nov 29, Ambrose Fleming, inventor of the diode, was born.
 (MC, 11/29/01)

1849  Dec 3, California asked to be admitted into the Union as a free state.
 (SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)

1849  Dec 6, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland.
 (MC, 12/6/01)

1849  Dec 8, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Luisa Miller," premiered in Naples.
 (MC, 12/8/01)

1849  Dec 19, Henry Clay Frick was born in Penn. He later built world's largest coke and steel operation.
 (MC, 12/19/01)

1849  Dec 28, M. Jolly-Bellin discovered dry-cleaning. He accidentally upset a lamp containing turpentine and oil on his filthy clothing and saw a cleaning effect.
 (MC, 12/28/01)

1849  Dec 29, Gas light was installed in the White House.
 (HN, 12/29/98)

1849  Johan August Strindberg (d.1912), novelist, dramatist, essayist and photographer, was born. In 1985 Michael Meyer authored a Strindberg biography.
 (WUD, 1994 p.1407)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.D2)(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A17)
 
1849  Louisa May Alcott at the age of 18 wrote her first novel "The Inheritance."
 (SFC, 4/30/96, p. B-3)

1849  Thomas Carlyle authored the article "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question" in which he 1st use the phrase "the dismal science" to describe economics. In 2001 David M. Levy authored "How the Dismal Science Got Its Name."
 (WSJ, 12/10/01, p.A15)

1849  "El Dorado," 24 panels depicting the native vegetation and architecture of Africa, Asia, Europe and America, was printed.
 (WSJ, 8/28/01, p.A12)

1849  In New Orleans the Baroness Micaela Pontalba began the construction of the Pontalba apartment buildings.
 (Hem., 1/97, p.64)

1849  In Nevada the first white settlement was by Mormons at Genoa near Carson City, then called Mormon Station.
 (LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.1B)

1849  Peter Lassen pioneered a new route to California that bypassed the 40 Mile Desert in Nevada. The trail led from Nevada to Oregon and was combined with another trail that led past his ranch and trading post near Chico. The trail however led across more desert and came to be called "The Death Route."
 (SFC, 8/22/98, p.A13)(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A1,9)

1849  Fort Worth, Texas, was founded in honor of Major Gen’l. William Jenkins Worth, who never saw the place. It sat on the bluffs overlooking the Trinity River.
 (HT, 4/97, p.45)

1849  In an address before the American Peace Society in 1849 Charles Sumner urged for the creation of a "Congress of Nations."
 (HNQ, 11/17/98)

1849  The original California Constitution was drafted and signed on 19 hand-written pages of an animal-skin document.
 (WSJ, 6/11/97, p.CA1)

1849  Lazard Freres with a brother and cousin moved their New Orleans dry goods company to San Francisco. They opened a Paris office in 1852, a London office in 1877 and operations in New York in 1880.
 (SFC, 12/11/96, p.D1)(WSJ, 6/7/99, p.C1)

1849  Oscar Backus (19) arrived in SF aboard the steamer California, believed to be the first steam powered ship to pass through the Golden Gate. He brought 750 copies of a New York newspaper that he’d bought for $5 and sold them for $1 apiece. He then began a successful career in mining and plumbing.
 (SFC, 7/3/97, p.A24)

1849  Josiah Gregg and a band of gold miners explored the north coast of California and settled around Humboldt Bay.
 (Hem., 12/96, p.127)

1849  The Dunham, Carrigan and Hayden company supplied picks and shovels to the miners of the Gold Rush.
 (SFC, 9/30/97, p.A21)

1849  A mass meeting of miners working the California Yuba River passed a resolution stating that "no slave or negro should own claims or even work in the mines."
 (SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)

1849  James Strang settled with 250 followers on Big Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan.
 (Smith., Aug. 1995, p.86)

1849  A party from Kansas, headed for the California Gold Rush, called themselves the Jayhawkers. Another party from Missouri named themselves the Bugsmashers. Both groups left Salt Lake to late to cross the Sierra and took the southern route. The stumbled into the Death Valley region around Christmas. Historian Leroy Johnson later wrote of their experiences in "Escape From Death Valley."
 (SFC, 1/28/99, p.A15)

c1849  Numerous Tennesseans went to California for the gold rush. In 1998 Tennessee historian Walter T. Durham wrote "Volunteer Forty-Niners," an account of the Tennesseans experiences in California.
 (SFC, 4/14/98, p.E5)

1849  A party of 10 African Americans, an American Indian, a Cook Island native and a Scotsman named William Downie struck gold in the California Sierra.
 (SSFC, 4/29/01, p.T9)
1849  Downieville in Sierra County was renamed from The Forks, after the 2 rivers that converge there. Early settlers called the area "Tin Cup Diggings" from legends that a man could capture a tin cup full of gold from the Yuba River. Many of the first minors arrived with "Major" William Downie. Within a few years it became the 5th largest town in California.
 (SFEC, 12/22/96, p.T5)(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.T6)(SSFC, 9/1/02, p.C1)

1849  Prospectors William Manly and John Rogers stumbled into Death Valley seeking a shortcut to the gold fields.
 (SFC, 4/9/96, C1)

1849  Some 23,000 people arrive in SF by land and 62,000 by sea.
 (SFEC, 3/14/99, Z1 p.6)

1849  The Pfizer drug company was founded by Charles Pfizer and cousin Charles Erhart in Brooklyn.
 (SFEC, 8/27/00, p.B4)

1849  A Frenchman built a successful concrete rowboat.
 (Ind, 11/25/00, 5A)

1849  Edward Hicks (b.1780), American Quaker painter, died.
 (WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A28)

1849  Water-borne cholera killed some 14,000 people in London.
 (Hem., 12/96, p.127)

1849  In Vienna, Austria, balloonists dropped bombs to break up a revolt.
 (SFEC, 4/11/99, Z1 p.8)

1849  The church at Arorangi, Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands was built. It has the graveyard of Papeiha, the Christianized Tahitian missionary who first preached the Gospel to the islanders.
 (SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T7)

1849  In Egypt the reign of Ottoman viceroy Muhammad Ali Pasha ended.
 (PCh, 1992, p.373)

1849  French officer Claude-Etienne Minie invented a bullet that changed the face of warfare. The Minie ball was shot from a grooved bore, i.e. a rifle, and expanded when shot to clean out the grooves of the bore. The bullet was adopted by most of the European armies—as well as both sides during the American Civil War. Minié went on to serve as a military instructor and also a manager for the Remington Arms Company in the U.S.
 (WSJ, 7/24/98, p.W10)(HNQ, 12/23/00)

1849  Auguste Comte of France proposed to discontinue the calendar of months in favor of a seven day calendar.
 (K.I.-365D, p.110)

1849  Hungary proclaimed independence from the Great Church in Debrecen, temporarily ending 150 years of Hapsburg rule.
 (Hem., 6/98, p.125)

1849  The Anglican Church of Christ was built in Jerusalem by the British.
 (SFEC, 5/21/00, p.T7)

1849-1850 Zacharay Taylor was the12th President of the US but died of a stroke after 16 months in office. He was considered the 5th worst president by a rating cited in the Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presidency.
 (A&IP, ESM, p.71,96b, photo)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E10)

1849-1853 Fort Worth, Texas, served as an Army post.
 (SFC,11/8/97, p.E4)

1849-1869 In 1997 Ida Rae Egli edited the book: "No Room of Their Own: Women Writers of Early California."
 (SFEC,11/9/97, BR p.9)

1849-1878 Buenaventura Baez served five terms as president of the Dominican Republic. He sought to have his country annexed by the United States twice, in 1850 and 1868. In 1878 he was forced out of office and into permanent exile in Puerto Rico. Baez helped lead the revolt that established the republic's independence from Haiti in 1843. Baez is remembered as a thoroughly corrupt tyrant, having no regard for his people or their property.
 (HNQ, 2/1/99)

1849-1891 George Washington Williams was born. He was the son of a Pennsylvania laborer, and worked as a preacher, lawyer and Civil War soldier, but is best known for his work on African-American history. At age 14, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in time to fight in the Civil War. In 1868, he left he army and trained at the Newton Theological Institution, becoming an ordained minister in 1874. While a pastor at several different churches, he became interested in history. In 1882, after a brief stint in the Ohio state legislature (1879-1881), he published his History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. His following work, A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion (1888) was the result of years of research collecting oral histories from black troops as well as gathering numerous newspaper clippings of the events. During the 1880s, Washington’s interests turned more towards his books, lecturing on related topics and practicing law. He died in 1891 in England while publicizing human rights abuses in the Belgian Congo.
 (HNQ, 2/9/01)

1849-1909  Sarah Orne Jewett, American author: "Tact is, after all, a kind of mind-reading." "A lean sorrow is hardest to bear."
 (AP, 5/22/98)(AP, 1/18/99)

1849-1917 William Meritt Chase, American painter.
 (MT, Fall. ‘97, p.24)

1849-1922 Frederick Langbridge, English clergyman and author: "Some seek bread; and some seek wealth and ease; and some seek fame, but all are seeking rest."
 (AP, 6/7/00)

1849-1999 In 1999 Niall Ferguson published his 2nd volume on "The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker 1849-1999."
 (WSJ, 11/9/99, p.A24)

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