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The last Holy Roman Emperor Franz II (Franz I as first Austrian emperor) dies at Vienna March 2 at age 67 and is succeeded as emperor of Austria by his mentally-retarded 4-year-old son, who will reign under a regency until 1848 as Ferdinand I ("Ferdy the Dotty").
Sir Robert Peel resigns as prime minister; William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, was prime minister briefly last year and heads a new ministry beginning April 18.
The Municipal Corporations Act passed by Parliament September 9 reforms English borough government to reflect the shift of population into industrial cities and towns (see Reform Act, 1832). Radical reformer Henry "Orator" Hunt has died of a stroke at his Airesford, Hampshire, home February 15 at age 61, having lost his seat in Parliament as a result of the 1832 Reform Act.
Spain's first Carlist War continues with both sides committing atrocities (see 1834). Tomás de Zumalacárregui y de Imaz lays siege to the northern seaport of Bilbao, acting on orders despite his own better judgment. He sustains a minor wound that is not treated properly and dies at Cegama June 24 at age 46. Jewish statesman Alvarez Mendizábal becomes prime minister (see 1839).
Kabul's Dost Mohammed Khan gains power over all of Afghanistan and takes the title emir; now 42, he will reign until his death in 1863 (see 1826; 1838).
The British governor general Lord William Bentinck leaves India in March after a 32-year administration. Now 60, he has reformed the country's finances, abolished flogging in the Indian Army (it remains the practice in the British Army), made English (rather the Farsi) the language of the high courts, opened more administrative and judicial positions available to Indians, arranged for financial help to colleges, abolished the ritual murder by robber gangs (thuggee), suppressed human sacrifice and the murder of unwanted children, and abolished the custom of burning widows alive with their husbands' corpses (suttee) (see population, 1885). Colonial administrator Charles T. Metcalfe, Baron Metcalfe, takes over as acting governor general and institutes reforms that include granting freedom of the press and making English the official language, but Whitehall refuses to retain an East India Company official as governor general and appoints George Eden, earl of Auckland, to the post (see Auckland, 1836).
Cambodia's king Chan II dies at age 44 (approximate) after 33-year reign in which he has sent tributes to the courts of both his neighbors, Siam and Vietnam (see 1811). He is succeeded by his daughter Mey, who is powerless to deal with the intrigues of the rulers on her border. Siam and Vietnam soon gain control of most of the country, and Cambodia will remain dominated by outsiders until the second half of the century (see 1848).
The former governor of Buenos Aires Juan Manuel de Rosas agrees to resume that position on condition that he be given dictatorial powers (see 1829); 12 provinces recognize his authority, and Rosas will rule until 1852, requiring that his portrait be displayed in public places and churches, employing secret police and spies to enforce his dictates, and ruthlessly crushing all opposition.
Uruguayan liberator Manuel Ceferino Oribe becomes the nation's second president, succeeding José Fructuoso Rivera, who has ruled since 1830 (but see 1836).
Mexican vice president Valentin Gómez Farías, 54, flees to New Orleans following President Santa Anna's return to the capital (see 1833). Gómez Farías has offended powerful interests by obtaining legislation that has rescinded the compulsory payment of tithes, ended Church control of education, permitted members of religious orders to rescind their vows, reformed the customhouses, eliminated the tobacco monopoly, reduced the number of generals, terminated the military's special privileges, and created a civilian militia (see constitution, 1857).
Texas settlers at Gonzales refuse in September to return a cannon taken from San Antonio de Bexar, resisting an order from Domingo de Ugartechea; he sends 100 dragoons under the command of Lieutenent Francisco Castaneda to enforce his order September 29, Tennessee-born Colonel John Henry Moore, 32, tells Castaneda, "Come and take it." Castaneda brings in reinforcements, the Texans prevail in the Battle of Gonzales October 2, the Mexicans take to their heels, and Stephen F. Austin organizes the First Army of Texas Volunteers, announcing that Texans will have to make war with Mexico to gain freedom (see 1831). George Fisher and Jalapa-born military officer José Antonio Mexia, 35, begin organizing a movement at New Orleans to attack Tampico, and they instigate a revolt in Mexico's eastern states (Mexia has an English-born wife). The Battle of Concepcion October 28 ends in victory for 90 Texans over a force of 450 Mexicans. Mexia leaves New Orleans November 6 with an army aboard the schooner Mary Jane. She runs aground near Tampico 8 days later, and when Mexia attacks Tampico November 15 he encounters stiff resistance from a Mexican force commanded by Gregorio Gómez, who takes 31 prisoners and forces him to retreat. Mexia arrives with the survivors of his failed expedition at the Brazos River December 3, and 28 of the 31 prisoners taken November 15 are executed December 14 by order of President Santa Anna, who receives a declaration from the Mexican Congress December 30 that all armed foreigners are to be treated as pirates and shot (see Alamo, 1836).
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall dies at Philadelphia July 6 at age 79 after 34 years as the nation's highest magistrate. His successor is Maryland-born jurist Roger Brooke Taney, now 58, who will be confirmed by the Senate in March of next year and serve until his death in 1864 (he has been attorney general in the Jackson administration), reversing the trend toward strong centralization of governmental power and establishing a narrow construction of corporate charters granted by the states.
A Utica, New York, mob breaks up an antislavery meeting. Local temperance worker and philanthropist Gerrit Smith, 38, is among those who witness the event and he becomes an abolitionist.
A new Seminole War between natives and whites in Florida Territory begins following the arrest and imprisonment of Osceola, 31, who has thrust his knife through the 1832 treaty that ceded Seminole lands to the United States. Osecola escapes, he and his braves kill a chief who signed the 1832 treaty, killing also the U.S. Indian agent at Fort King, and they begin 2 years of guerrilla activities against U.S. forces under General Thomas S. Jesup, 46, while Seminole women and children remain hidden deep in the Everglades. The Seminole and their black slaves massacre a 103-man U.S. Army force under Major Francis L. Dade December 28 (see 1837).
Slaves in the Brazilian state of Bahia revolt against their masters, a new revolt erupts in Maranhão state (see 1834), and a 10-year war (the "War of the Ragged Ones" ["Guerra dos Farrapos"] begins in Rio Grande du Sul.
Dutch (Boer) cattlemen in South Africa begin a Great Trek to the north and east of the Orange River in irritation at Britain's abolition of slavery last year (see Kaffir War, 1834). Some 10,000 Boers will move in the next 2 years to new lands beyond the Vaal River (the Transvaal), seriously depopulating the eastern part of the Cape Colony (see Orange Free State, 1854; Pretorius, 1856).
Melbourne has its beginnings in Australia (see Victoria, 1834). New South Wales-born convict's son John Batman, 34, has arrived at Port Phillip Bay May 29 with 14 associates from Van Diemen's Land (later Tasmania), where he has acquired a small farm, and signs a treaty June 16 with seven Aborigine leaders who grant him 600,000 acres (about 250,000 hectares) of land in exchange for blankets, knives, mirrors, scissors, shirts, and an annual rent (the Aborigines think they have merely granted Batman the right to pass through their territory). The Geelong and Dutigalla Association (from the Aborigine words for purchased land) organized in June will be reorganized in the spring of next year as the Port Phillip Association, with each member undertaking to provide a certain number of sheep and herdsmen for the evenly divided acreage. Another group from Van Diemen's Land arrives in August under the leadership of John (Pascoe) Fawkner, 43, and sails up the Yarra River to establish a settlement, opening a grog shop. Batman learns about the settlement and says Fawkner is trespassing on his land, Fawkner agrees to sell Batman the land on condition that his group be given alternative land and he moves south. Governor Sir Richard Bourke of New South Wales voids Batman's treaty in August on grounds that it violated an 1829 Colonial Office order limiting the area open to settlement, but by year's end the Colonial Office at London has recognized the occupation of what will become Melbourne (see 1837).
St. Petersburg, Florida, has its beginnings in a settlement at Old Tampa Bay founded by French immigrant Odet Philippe, who was once a surgeon for Napoleon.
Paterson, New Jersey, children employed at the local silk mills go on strike July 3 to demand an 11-hour day and 6-day work week.
Journalist (and member of Parliament) William Cobbett dies of influenza at London June 18 at age 72. Reformers turn to John Fielden, now 51, to champion their efforts in Parliament; factory reformer Michael T. Sadler dies at Belfast July 29 at age 55, having exhausted himself as chairman of a parliamentary committee that heard testimony from children who had been crippled in factory accidents, adults who had been dismissed for testifying, and physicians who favored shorter working hours and better conditions.
Massachusetts-born Baltimore merchant George Peabody, 40, visits London on business and negotiates a loan of $8 million for Maryland, saving the state from bankruptcy. He refuses a commission and receives a vote of thanks from the state legislature, but Peabody will settle permanently at London in 1837, becoming a dealer in foreign exchange and U.S. securities in competition with Baring Brothers and the Rothschilds (see Great Exhibition, 1851).
Insurance company president Eliphalet Terry of The Hartford travels 100 miles by sleigh to New York in December and personally settles fire-insurance claims against his 25-year-old company. He pledges his own fortune to guarantee payment to all policyholders, building a reputation that will serve the company in good stead. The Hartford will expand into other financial services and survive into the 21st century as the oldest continuously operated U.S. insurance company (see 1861).
The first passenger railroad line on the European continent opens May 5 to link Brussels and Mechelen.
The St. Etienne-Lyons passenger railway opens July 9 (see 1829).
The first German railway links Nuremberg with Fürth and passes into private hands December 7.
The United States has 1,098 miles of railroad in operation by year's end.
Inventor and cotton goods manufacturer Samuel Slater dies at Webster, Massachusetts, April 21 at age 66, leaving an estate valued at $9 million. He will be remembered as the founder of the American cotton industry.
Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton, 30, presents work in optics and dynamics that presage quantum mechanics. He is knighted for his efforts.
Cambridge University mathematician George Biddell Airy, 34, wins appointment as astronomer royal. He will hold the position until 1881 and reorganize the Greenwich Observatory.
Chemist Thomas Graham reports on the properties of the water of crystallization in hydrated salts (see 1829). He has studied the three forms of phosphoric acid, providing the basis for understanding polybasic acids, and will obtain definite compounds of salts and alcohol—hydrate analogues that will be called alcoholates. A professor at an Edinburgh school since 1830, Graham will move to London's University College in 1837.
North American Gramineae and Cyperaceae by upstate New York botanist Asa Gray, 24, describes 200 species and establishes the reputation of its author.
Italian bacteriologist Antonio Bassi, 61, at Lodi publishes a monograph that pioneers the germ theory of disease. He began investigating the silkworm mal de segno (muscardine) since 1870 and concludes that it is caused by an infectious agent (see Henle, 1840).
London pathologist James Paget, 21, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital detects the parasite Trichina spiralis for the first time. The parasite will later be associated with trichinosis, a disease produced by eating raw or undercooked pork products or meat from bears, polar bears, rats, foxes, or marine animals (see von Zenker, 1860; Paget's disease, 1877).
Berlin physiologist Theodor Schwann, 25, extracts the enzyme pepsin from the stomach wall and proclaims it the most effective element in the digestive juices (see 1823). (The word enzyme will be coined in 1878.)
Chemists synthesize the pain reliever salicylic acid but cannot produce a safe, effective anodyne (see Stone, 1763; Gerhardt, 1853).
The New York Herald begins publication May 6 under the direction of Scots-born journalist James Gordon Bennett, 40, as a rival to the Morning Sun. Bennett has started the 1¢ newspaper with $500, two wooden chairs, and an old dry goods box in a cellar office; he announces in his first issue that the Herald will be a "saucy" paper with "good taste, brevity, variety, point, and piquancy" intended for "the great masses of the community." His four-column pages include the first financial page (Bennett covers Wall Street himself) but will also be the first to give full coverage to murder trials, including questions and answers from court proceedings. Pandering to the lowest tastes, giving emphasis to crime, scandal, and sex, the Herald quickly gains a wide circulation.
Agence France-Presse has its beginnings in the Agence Havas founded by Paris journalist Charles-Louis Havas, 50, who 3 years ago established the Bureau Havas to translate reports from foreign papers for distribution to Paris and provincial papers. The world's first true news agency, the Agence Havas emphasizes quick transmission of news (see telegraph, 1845) and will evolve into an advertising agency. The French national news agency will adopt the France-Presse name in 1944.
Journalist (and member of Parliament) William Cobbett dies of influenza at London June 18 at age 72.
The Toledo Blade begins publication December 19 at the northwestern Ohio city that will be incorporated in 1837, taking its name from the Spanish city famous in medieval times for its steel-bladed swords. The four-page weekly will become a family-owned daily with readers in 14 counties in Ohio and southeast Michigan (see Nonfiction [Petroleum V. Nasby], 1864).
Nonfiction: Democracy in America (De la Démocratie en Amerique) by French political scientist Alexis (Charles-Henri-Maurice Clérel) de Tocqueville, 35, who traveled for 9 months in 1831 with his friend Gustave de Beaumont through eastern Canada and various areas of the United States, including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, and New Orleans on a commission to study the U.S penitentiary system (first volume of four; the fourth will be published in 1840). "Nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions . . . All classes meet continually and no haughtiness at all results from the differences in social position. Everyone shakes hands," writes de Tocqueville. But he foresees the rise of certain forces that will eventually undermine the principle of economic equality, and while the American passion for equality "tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great . . . there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." Tyranny of the majority is a possible hazard of democracy, de Tocqueville warns, but he notes that law, religion, and the press provide bulwarks against democratic despotism, as he will elaborate in his later volumes; The Vindication of the English Constitution by Benjamin Disraeli.
Fiction: Mirgirod (Stories) by Russian writer Nikolai (Vasilyevich) Gogol, 26, who will leave Russia next year to live abroad, mostly in Rome; Arabeski (Essays and Stories) by Gogol includes "Nevsky Prospekt," "The Portrait," and "Notes of a Madman"; Mademoiselle de Maupin by French novelist-poet (Pierre Jules) Théophile Gautier, 24, espouses the doctrine of "art for art's sake" in its preface and denounces bourgeois philistinism; Rienzi by Edward Bulwer is based on the 1347 Roman revolt of Cola di Rienzo; "Berenice" by Edgar Allan Poe in the March issue of The Southern Literary Messenger; The Yemassee by Charleston, South Carolina-born novelist William Gilmore Simms, 29, whose story about Native Americans will make him widely known. Simms returns from New York to Charleston, where his first wife died 3 years ago and where he will soon marry the daughter of a rich planter.
Poetry: The Rural Muse by John Clare, now 43, who 15 years ago married the daughter of a neighboring farmer and has himself been farming in order to support his wife and seven children.
Poet Dorothea Felicia Hemans dies at Dublin May 16 at age 41; James Hogg at Altrive, Yarrow, Selkirkshire November 21 at age 64.
Juvenile: Fairy Tales (Eventyr) by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, 30, whose novel The Improvisators also appears and enjoys such success that Andersen is encouraged to pursue a career as novelist and dramatist and neglect the fairy tales that will make him famous. Included in his first volume are "The Tinderbox" ("Fyrtojet"), "The Princess on the Pea" ("Princessen paa Aerten"), "Little Claus and Big Claus" ("Lille Claus og store Claus"), and "Little Ida's Flowers" ("Den lille Idas Blomster"), which will be followed in time by "The Ugly Duckling," "The Fir Tree," "The Red Shoes," "The Swineherd," "The Snow Queen" ("Snedronningen"), and "The Emperor's New Clothes" ("Kejserens nye Kloeder").
Painting: Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons by J. M. W. Turner, who witnessed last year's great fire after rushing from dinner with sketchbook in hand to find the spectacle being applauded by throngs of spectators on the Thames embankments; The Valley Farm by John Constable; Homer in the Desert by J. B. C. Corot, who makes a second visit to Italy; Hundred Views of Mount Fuji by Japanese ukiyoe painter Katsushika Hokusai (Tetsuzo Nakashima), 75, whose Ten Thousand Sketches (Manga) will be published in its 15th and final volume next year (Hokusai's work includes "The Great Wave"). Pauline Auzou dies at Paris May 15 at age 60; Baron Antoine Jean Gros drowns himself in the Seine at Meudon June 26 at age 64.
Theater: Chatterton by Alfred, comte de Vigny, 2/12 at the Comédie-Française, Paris; Don Alvaro, or the Power of Fate (Don Alvaro, o la fuerza del sino) by Angel de Saavedra, duque de Rivas, 3/22 at Madrid (see Verdi opera, 1862).
P. T. Barnum begins a notable career in U.S. show business. Connecticut-born promoter Phineas Taylor Barnum, 25, paid $1,000 last year to purchase a slave woman who is alleged to have been George Washington's childhood nurse and to be more than 160 years old. The fledgling showman takes in $1,500 per week by exhibiting the woman throughout New York and New England. Joice Heth will be proved to be no older than 80 when she dies next year, but Barnum will continue the well-publicized tours that he has begun with a small company of carnival attractions (see Siamese Twins, 1829; Tom Thumb, 1842).
Opera: I Puritani 1/25 at the Théâtre des Italiens, Paris, with Giovanni Battista Rubini, baritone Antonio Tamburini, 34, music by Vincenzo Bellini (Giulia Grisi creates the role of Elvira and the role of Elena in Gaetano Donizetti's opera Marin Faliero at the same theater); La Juive (The Jewess) 2/23 at the Paris Grand Opéra, with Adolphe Nourrit creating the role of Eléazar, music by French composer (Jacques-François-) Fromental (-Elie) (né Elias) Halévy, 35, libretto by playwright Eugène Scribe; Lucia di Lammermoor 9/26 at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, with tenor Gilbert Duprez, music by Donizetti, libretto from the 1818 Walter Scott novel The Bride of the Lammermoor.
Composer Vincenzo Bellini dies at Puteaux, near Paris, September 23 at age 33, having written 10 operas.
First performances: Grand Polonaise Brillante by Frédéric Chopin 4/26 at the Paris Conservatoire.
Treatise on Counterpoint and Fugue by Paris Conservatoire director Luigi Cherubini, now 74, will become a classic in its field.
Popular songs: "Long, Long Ago" by English songwriter-novelist-playwright Thomas Haynes Bayly, 38; "Kathleen Mavourneen" with lyrics by Irish author Julia Crawford, 35.
Architect John Nash dies at Cowes on the Isle of Wight May 13 at age 83.
An earthquake and tidal wave witnessed by naturalist Charles Darwin hits the coast of Chile February 20, demolishing the town of Concepción in 6 seconds and snuffing out the entire population of some 5,000 as it tosses ships about and carries houses far inland.
A fire in New York's Fulton, Nassau, and Ann streets August 12 kills five people and destroys 35 houses; a much worse fire breaks out December 16, and although organized bucket brigades help fire chief James "Handsome Jim" Gulick and his men keep the flames from spreading north of Wall Street, the fire rages out of control in the commercial, pier, and warehouse area of Wall, Broad, and South streets, destroying a marble statue of Alexander Hamilton. Turpentine inside warehouses along the East River is ignited, the river itself becomes a blazing sea, and debris is blown over Brooklyn. Manhattan's Dutch Riverside Church catches fire and burns down while an organist inside plays a funeral dirge until he is consumed by the flames. Mobs come down from the Five Points to loot, and a man caught setting fire to a house at the corner of Stone and Broad streets is lynched from a tree. Rioters fight over French hats, Manchester woollens, and baskets of champagne, but one merchant saves his goods by stopping the driver of a horse cart and paying the man $500 to haul away the contents of his store. The conflagration is visible for miles, volunteer firefighters arrive by ferry from Brooklyn, Newark, and Jersey City. Some 400 come from Philadelphia. The mercury plunges to 17°, pumping engines freeze, water freezes in the leather hoses, and some of the 1,900 firemen, although covered with ice, are singed while others nearby suffer frostbite. The fire continues well into the next day, destroying the Merchants' Exchange, and explosives are finally used to create fire stops. The fire levels 13 acres in the heart of the city's commercial and financial district, destroys 674 buildings, many of them in Hanover and Pearl Streets, causes damage estimated at between $20 million and $40 million (see insurance companies, 1836), and leaves many hundreds of people homeless. Lack of water pressure with which to fight the flames is blamed for much of the damage (see Croton aqueduct, 1837).
Washington Irving describes honeybees in A Tour of the Prairies: "It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the Far West within a moderate number of years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red man; and say that, in proportion as the bee advances, the Indian and the buffalo retire . . . I am told that the wild bee is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the frontier."
English settlers in Mexico's Tejas Territory create chili powder by combining various ground peppers as a convenient way to make Mexican-style dishes (see 1828; Gebhardt, 1894).
Russia's bonded peasant population reaches close to 11 million, up from fewer than 10 million in 1816. The overabundance of serfs causes problems in years when crops are short.
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