1801
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland created January 1 under terms of an Act of Union provides for one Parliament for both Britain and Ireland (see 1707; 1798; Home Rule Assn., 1870).
Britain's prime minister William Pitt the Younger resigns February 2 after George III refuses to make concessions to Roman Catholics. A new cabinet takes office in March under the leadership of Conservative Henry Addington, 43, and will serve with little distinction until May 1804.
General Bonaparte practically destroys the Holy Roman Empire February 9 in the Treaty of Lunéville, which brings peace between France and Austria (see 1801; 1806).
Spain's Carlos IV declares war on Portugal February 27. France and Spain have signed a secret treaty at Fontainebleau January 29 providing for a partition of Portugal between them, Spanish forces under the command of Prime Minister Manuel Godoy invade the Alentejo May 20. The Portuguese military is no match for its enemy, and the treaties of Badajox June 9 and Madrid September 29 require Portugal to close her ports to British shipping, pay France an indemnity of £15 million, cede territory to Spain, and accept French demands for the river Arawani to form Guiana's borders with Brazil (see 1807).
Britain and France end hostilities March 14, but the peace does not last. London sent General Sir Ralph Abercromby to the Mediterranean last year with orders to invade Egypt and capture the remainder of General Bonaparte's army or drive them out (see 1800); about 15,600 Anglo-Turkish troops under Abercromby's command have landed at Abukir Bay March 8 for an amphibious attack against the French, whose new commander General Abdullah Jacques Menou launches a predawn attack March 21 as they advance on Alexandria; the British beat back the attack but lose 1,464 killed and wounded; Sir Ralph takes a bullet in the thigh while riding at the front of his troops, the wound proves mortal, he dies aboard his flagship Foudroyant March 28 at age 66, and is buried on Malta. He has trained any number of officers, some of whom will gain more prominence than he. French forces at Cairo surrender June 18. General Menou himself surrenders at Alexandria September 3, and by the end of September the last of the French have left Egypt (one-third of the force that landed in 1798 has died), but their 3-year presence has laid the basis for future Anglo-French rivalry in the Middle East.
The Battle of Copenhagen April 2 ends in defeat for a Danish fleet by a British armada of 18 ships commanded by Sir Hyde Parker, 62, whose second-in-command Horatio Nelson pretends that he does not see Parker's signal to withdraw (he holds his telescope to his blind eye), an order that would have meant disaster. Having little patience for maneuvers, Nelson's order is to "go straight at 'em." His second in command is Admiral Sir Thomas Graves, who flies his flag on the 74-gun H.M.S. Defiance. The Danes have allied themselves with France, lose all but three of their ships, and sign an armistice; Nelson has been vice-admiral since January 1 and assumes command of the fleet in May following the recall of Parker. He returns home in June and is given the title viscount.
Russia's Paul I is murdered in his bedroom at the St. Michael Palace in St. Petersburg on the night of March 11 in a palace revolution that ends 4½ years of insane rule. Dead at age 46, the czar is succeeded by his 23-year-old son, who will reign until 1825 as Aleksandr I Pavlovich; he begins by making peace with England and withdrawing from the Second Coalition against France, but he formally reaffirms his predecssor's 1800 annexation of Kartalina-Kakhetia (eastern Georgia) September 12 and Russian forces take over the old city of Tiflis (Tbilisi).
Field Marshal Franz Moritz, Count Lacy, dies at Vienna November 24 at age 76, having reorganized the Austrian army.
The holy city of Karbala in Mesopotomia falls to Wahhabi forces from Najd in central Arabia (see religion, 1788). The fanatical and puritanical Islamic sect has sent a small army in response to an attempted Ottoman invasion of al-Hasa in eastern Arabia (see Mecca, 1802).
Descendants of the Tay Son brothers Nguyen Hue and Nguyen Nhac try to hold on to their peasant army and gain control of the country (see 1793), but Vietnamese eunuch military strategist Le Van Duyet, 38, uses French armaments and techniques to engineer a naval defeat of other contenders for the throne, enabling General Nguyen Phuc Anh, now 39, to conquer the entire country (see Nguyen dynasty, 1802).
Outgoing President John Adams nominates his Virginia-born Secretary of State John Marshall chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in January to succeed Oliver Ellsworth, who resigned last year. Now 46, Marshall is confirmed by the Senate January 27, and he turns over his State Department office to his successor March 4; no provision has been made for meetings of the court at Washington, D.C., and for the next eight years it will convene in the basement of the new Capitol Building, but in the next 34 years Marshall's Supreme Court will establish fundamental principles for interpreting the Constitution (see 1803; 1819; 1821; 1824).
Thomas Jefferson takes office March 4 as third president of the United States, but only because the firm opposition of Alexander Hamilton to Aaron Burr has swung the decision to Jefferson after 35 ballots were taken in the House of Representatives at Washington, D.C., and been counted without a winner (see 1800). Hamilton's opposition to Jefferson has been exceeded only by his loathing of Burr (see 1804). Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party has capitalized on public resentment against having the Federalist government impose its religious ideas into political discourse and its economic ideas on the nation's commerce; former president John Adams has blasted the election results, as has Federalist Timothy Pickering, who notes that while Jefferson won eight more votes than Adams in the Electoral College he owed at least 12 of his votes to blacks owned by white masters (any man who owns 200 slaves controls 120 votes in addition to his own). Adams leaves town before daybreak in order to avoid the inauguration ceremonies (he and Jefferson will not be reconciled until 1811), and a Boston paper declares that the sage of Monticello rode "into the temple of Liberty on the shoulders of slaves." Jefferson walks through Washington's muddy streets to the ceremonies and makes a promise, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none" (see 1796), but Mediterranean corsairs (pirates) on the North African coast are interfering with peaceful commerce, and although richer nations such as Britain and France pay annual tribute to the Barbary States, obtaining an advantage over other countries, the demands of the Algerian, Tripolitanian, and Tunisian rulers are too steep for Americans, and the pasha of Tripoli tears down the U.S. flag in front of the American consulate, thus effectively declaring war on the United States (see Philadelphia seizure, 1803).
Revolutionary War general and traitor Benedict Arnold dies in obscurity of dropsy at London June 14 at age 60; patriot and philanthropist Christopher Ludwick at Philadelphia June 17 at age 80, leaving what remains of his fortune for the support of free schools for the poor.
The Female Association for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances is founded at Philadelphia by philanthropists who include Rebecca Gratz, 20, daughter of a prominent fur trader and shipper.
The London Stock Exchange founded March 1 is an outgrowth of the bourse that opened in 1698 (see New York, 1792; 1825).
Frankfurt-am-Main moneylender Meyer Amschel Rothschild becomes financial adviser to the landgrave of Hesse-Casal (see 1769). Now 58, Rothschild will work with his son Nathan at London to serve as an agent of the British crown in subsidizing European opposition to General Bonaparte (see Nathan, 1799), and his other sons will establish important banking houses at Vienna, Naples, and Paris (see Wellington, 1812).
President Jefferson appoints Albert Gallatin secretary of the treasury (see 1800). An opponent of Alexander Hamilton's policies, Gallatin takes office May 14 with promises to reduce the national debt, which he calculates to have been just over $80 million as of January 1. The nation's two chief sources of revenue are customs duties and sales of public lands (see 1804); Gallatin proposes economies within the government, especially military appropriations, and says that provided there is no war the debt can be wiped out by 1817 if the government sets aside $7.3 million per year (about three-fourths of estimated revenues) for payment of interest and principal. In his first year he will reduce the national debt by more than $2 million (see 1810).
German-born fur trader John Jacob Astor, 38, travels through upstate New York bartering "firewater" (whiskey) and flannel with the Iroquois and Seneca to obtain animal pelts, chiefly beaver for use in hats. Some he sells in the Albany market but the best go to his wife, Sarah (née Todd), in New York, where he married her in 1785 (she was cleaning the doorstep of her widowed mother's boardinghouse when they met, he was selling cakes in the street, her $300 dowry helped him get started in the fur business, and she has borne eight children, three of whom died soon after birth). A better judge of fur than her husband, Sarah beats the smelly pelts and does her best to sell them to customers of her successful music store. Distantly related to the Brevoorts, she will help her husband make profitable connections (see 1808).
A gas-fueled thermolamp exhibited by Philippe Lebon in a Paris residence is successful both technically and aesthetically, but the French government is not forthcoming with funds to finance gas lighting on a large scale (see 1799; Winsor, 1804).
Completion of the trans-Pennine canal links England's Mersey and Humber rivers, permitting farmers to supply distant markets.
Richard Trevithick employs his steam engine December 24 to power a road carriage that he drives up a hill at Camborne, Cornwall (see energy, 1800). It is the first steam vehicle to carry passengers (see 1802; locomotive, 1804).
Eli Whitney puts on a show for President Adams and Vice President Jefferson at Washington, D.C., in January to demonstrate the interchangeability of parts, disassembling some guns, scrambling the parts, and then assembling new weapons (see 1798). He failed to meet his deadline of September 30, 1800, for delivery of 10,000 muskets because he had taken so long to tool up a factory at the Lake Whitney fall line of the Mill River at Hamden, Connecticut, and has completed only 500. The War Department gives Whitney an extension and advances him $134,000 so that he may fulfill his original contract and produce a total of 15,000 (see 1812). Revisionists will question the story of Eli Whitney's demonstration when ancient Whitney muskets are found to have parts that have been filed and drilled here and there to make them fit, raising doubts as to their interchangeability (true interchangeability of parts will not be achieved until 1843).
The automatic Jacquard loom devised by French inventor Joseph-Marie Jacquard, 49, employs interchangeable punched cards to guide the movements of a loom that weaves figured silk fabrics and will later be used for making figured worsteds. Jacquard has fought on the side of the Revolutionaries in defense of his native Lyons, his loom is an improvement on the one invented in 1745 by the late Jacques de Vaucanson, and he is awarded a bronze medal for the loom that he demonstrates; it encounters initial resistance from silk weavers fearful of being displaced, they burn any looms that he has put into production and attack him physically, but Jacquard will soon introduce an attachment that makes his invention even more efficient—an automatic shedding device that is mounted on top of the loom and operated by a treadle controlled by the weaver; the loom will be declared public property in 1806, its inventor will receive a royalty on each machine (plus a pension), and by 1812 France will have 11,000 Jacquard looms in operation.
"Treatise on Mineralogy" ("Traité de minéralogie") by René-Just Haüy elaborates on his work in crystallography (see 1774). He will write a treatise on physics at Napoleon's request in 1803 (see 1809).
British Museum chemist Charles Hatchett, 36, analyzes a specimen of columbite in the museum's collection, finds that it contains a "new earth," and announces to the Royal Society November 26 that he has discovered the metallic element columbium (it will later be called niobium).
"Treatise on Insanity" ("Traité médicophilosophique sur l'aliénation mentale") by Philippe Pinel explains his humane methods for treating mental illness.
President Jefferson receives a letter written October 7 from the Danbury Baptist Association congratulating him on his election to office, stating in flowery language a belief in religious liberty, but noting that under Connecticut's charter and state constitution "what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favor granted, and not as inalienable rights: And these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgements, as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those, who seek after power and gain under the pretence of government and Religion should reproach their fellow man—should Reproach their Chief Magistrate, as an enemy of Religion, Law and good order because he will not, dare not assume the prerogative of Jehovah and make Laws to govern the kingdom of Christ" (see 1802).
How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt) by Swiss educationalist Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, now 55, shows that to educate a woman is to educate a family community. Pestalozzi has been influenced by the late Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose 1762 novel Emile, ou Traité de l'éducation was about a child reared apart from other children.
The University of South Carolina has its beginnings in the College of South Carolina, founded at Columbia by men who include former diplomat Charles C. Pinckney.
The New York Evening Post begins publication November 16 with four five-column pages printed on one large sheet that has been folded to create pages measuring 19½ inches by 14 (14 or 15 of the 20 columns are filled with advertisements placed by merchants). Alexander Hamilton has put up $1,000 of the $10,000 needed to found the Federalist newspaper (other investors include former mayor Richard Varick and merchant-shipowner Archibald Gracie), its type is set in four different fonts at a time when most papers use only two, and it will survive into the 21st century as the city's oldest daily.
Fiction: Godwi by German novelist-poet Clemens Brentano, 23, a brother of Bettina von Arnim.
Poetry: Thalaba the Destroyer by Robert Southey.
Painting: Napoleon au Grand Saint-Bernard by Jacques Louis David; Calais Pier by J. M. W. Turner; Melancholy by French painter Constance (Marie) Charpentier (née Blondelu), 34; Portrait of a Father and Daughter by French painter Constance Mayer, 23.
Sculpture: Perseus by Antonio Canova.
Theater: The Maid of Orleans (Die Jungfrau von Orleans) by Friedrich von Schiller 4/11 at Leipzig.
Composer Domenico Cimarosa dies at Venice January 11 at age 51, having written close to 80 operas; imprisoned at Naples 2 years ago for being too enthusiastic about the entering French army, he was released at public insistence.
Ballet: The Creatures of Prometheus (Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus) 3/28 at Vienna's Royal and Imperial Theater, with choreography by Neapolitan ballet master Salvator Vizano, 31, music by Ludwig van Beethoven. "People no longer come to an arrangement with me," Beethoven writes to a friend; "I state my price, and they pay it."
Oratorio: The Seasons (Die Jahreszeiten) by Joseph Haydn 4/24 at the Vienna palace of Prince Schwarzenberg, text from the James Thomson poem.
Italian violin prodigy Niccolo Paganini, 17, completes a concert tour in which he has dazzled audiences with his virtuosity, using a violin made at Cremona by Joseph Guarneri given him by a French merchant after Paganini had pawned his own violin to pay gambling debts. Paganini will live for the next 3 years in Tuscany with a noblewoman who has fallen in love with him (see 1831).
Parliament passes a General Enclosure Act designed to simplify and facilitate the process of fencing in and consolidating British common lands, open fields, and wastelands to encourage efficient large-scale farming. Since 1760, it has passed 1,600 individual enclosure acts; the new law permits passage of such acts in batches. Small landholders in England, Scotland, and Wales will virtually disappear in the next few decades and there will be a surge in the number of workers obliged to labor for low wages.
Cox's Orange Pippin is introduced by a retired Buckinghamshire brewer who has raised the new apple variety in his garden near Slough (date approximate).
"Johnny Appleseed" arrives in the Ohio Valley with seeds obtained from Philadelphia cider presses. Trees grown from the seeds that Leominster, Massachusetts-born pioneer John Chapman, 26, sells to local farmers do not yield apples suitable for eating or cooking (good apple trees must be produced by grafting), but the apples can be used to make hard cider and applejack, and since native American grape varieties do not have enough sugar content for use in wine making, Chapman's apple seeds will find a ready market.
The world's first beet sugar factory opens in Silesia (see Achard, 1793; 1802).
U.S. salt prices fall to a new low of $2.50 per bushel as new sources come into production. Salt has been four times as costly as beef on the frontier but is essential to keep livestock (and people) healthy and meat from spoiling.
A bakery to produce ship's biscuit and hardtack opens six miles south of Boston at Milton, Massachusetts (see Pearson, 1792). Retired ship's captain Josiah Bent will introduce the first biscuits to be called "crackers"—water biscuits made of unsweetened, unleavened dough rolled many times to have a fine grain that will make them crispier than previous biscuits and will cause them to make a cracking noise when eaten (see National Biscuit Co., 1898).
The first reasonably accurate census figures show that China has a population of 295 million, India 131 million, the Ottoman Empire 21, Japan 15, Russia 33, France 27.4, the German states and free cities 14.1, Britain 10.4, Ireland 5.2, Spain 10.5, Egypt 2.5, and the United States 5.3 million, of whom 1 million live west of the Alleghenies (two thirds of Americans live within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean).
Guangzhou (Canton) is the world's largest city with 1.5 million; Nanjing (Nanking), Hangzhou, Jiujiang (Kingtechchen), and the Japanese capital Edo each has 1 million.
London is by far the largest European city, with a population of nearly 1.1 million as compared with 598,000 in Constantinople; 547,000 in Paris; 530,000 in Kyoto; 300,000 each in Isfahan, Lucknow, and Madras; 183,000 in Berlin; 75,000 in Manchester; 10,000 in Düsseldorf; 6,000 in Stockholm; 70,000 in Philadelphia; 60,000 in New York; 25,000 in Boston; 18,000 in Charleston, South Carolina; 13,000 in Baltimore; and 1,565 in Pittsburgh.
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