| World Chronology: 1836 |
1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840
Texas declares her independence from Mexico March 2 (see 1835). Mexico's president General Antonio López de Santa Anna, now 40, has brought a 4,000-man army north to lay siege to the Alamo at San Antonio, and the Alamo falls March 6 after an 11-day siege. The 188-man force that has garrisoned the Franciscan missionary includes half a dozen Mexicans, lawyer William B. (Barret) Travis, 26; Bowie knife inventor James Bowie, 39 (a prodigal speculator who has forged land documents in an effort to secure large areas of Louisiana and Arkansas); and former U.S congressman from Tennessee David "Davy" Crockett, now 49, who has run up huge debts and hopes for a political comeback. The Mexicans sustain nearly 1,600 dead plus many wounded, they spare 30 U.S. noncombatants, but they kill the entire garrison, shooting five prisoners and burning all 193 bodies (sick with typhoid fever, Bowie is bayonetted in his bed; whether Crockett dies fighting or is executed on orders from Santa Anna will remain a matter of debate).
"Remember the Alamo" is the battle cry of U.S. Army Colonel Sidney Sherman, 31, as he helps Virginia-born former Tennessee governor Samuel "Sam" Houston, 43, defeat Santa Anna April 21 in 18 minutes at the Battle of San Jacinto and take the Mexican general prisoner along with 700 of his officers and men (see Austin, 1821). The fight on the San Jacinto River leaves about 600 Mexicans dead with a loss of only half a dozen Texans. Sherman sends Santa Anna to Washington, D.C., for questioning by President Jackson, who then returns him to Mexico; the Mexicans force him into exile (see 1838). Houston is elected president of the new Texas republic and takes office October 22, succeeding Newark, New Jersey-born president David G. (Gouverneur) Burnet, 48, who has served since March 16. A Boundary Act adopted by the Texas legislature December 19 claims Mexican territory westward to the Santa Fe area (but see 1841); Houston will remain in office until December 10, 1838.
California gains virtual freedom from Mexico following a revolt led by Juan Bautista Alvarado, whose California-born uncle, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, 28, went into the Mexican Army at age 15 and continues to serve the Mexican provincial government in a military capacity. Vallejo led an expedition in 1833 and 1834 to reconnoiter the Russian colony at Fort Ross, found that the Russians posed no threat to the government at Monterey, and has been working to build up defenses in the Sonoma Valley against hostile tribespeople (see 1846).
Arkansas enters the Union as the 25th state June 15.
Former secretary of state Edward Livingston dies of bilious colic at Washington, D.C., May 23 at age 71; former president James Madison at his Virginia plantation, Montpelier, June 28 at age 85.
A new Republic of Texas claims all land between the Rio Grande and Neuces rivers; Sam Houston is sworn in as president October 22. Stephen F. Austin dies at Austin December 27 at age 43.
Vice President Martin Van Buren, now 53, is elected to the presidency with support from the outgoing president Andrew Jackson. He receives more popular votes than his four opponents combined, winning 170 electoral votes versus the combined total of 124 for his opponents, who are led by William Henry Harrison.
George Eden, earl of Auckland, arrives at Calcutta March 4 to take up his position as Britain's governor general of India (see Bentinck, 1835). His devoted sisters Emily, 39, and Fanny, 35, accompany him to join the memsahibs whose husbands will soon be fighting Afgan tribesmen on the northwestern frontier (see 1841). Emily Eden will find India's heat oppressive, the brutality of some British colonials toward the natives intolerable, and the condition of Indian women—never educated in any way, never allowed outside their houses, and treated as chattels by their men—quite impossible.
The London Working Men's Association founded in June favors the use of "moral force" to mobilize Britons disappointed by the Reform Bill of 1832. Penzance-born cofounder William Lovett, 36, is a self-educated cabinetmaker, the son of a fishing-boat captain who drowned at sea before he was born. At evening classes of the London's Mechanics Institute in 1821 he met radical publishers John Cleave, then 31, and Henry Hetherington, then 34, who introduced him to the ideas of the utopian socialist Robert Owen, and he abandoned the Methodist faith in which he was raised by his mother to become a member of the Civil and Religious Library Association. When his name was drawn 5 years ago for service in the London Militia he refused to go, authorities seized his household goods, he organized the Anti-Militia Association with the slogan, "No Vote, No Musket," his campaign succeeded, militia drawings were abandoned, and Lovett gained national prominence. Irish-born reformer Feargus O'Connor joins the Working Men's Association in November (see Charter, 1838).
Spain relinquishes her territorial claims in Central America after decades of fighting with the British, who take over what will become British Honduras (later Belize) (see 1798). A lucky young Briton may make a quick and substantial fortune from the mahogany, cedar, and rosewood trees that flourish in the Honduran forests, but most who try will die of fever (see 1862).
Chile's dictator Diego Portales initiates a war with a Peruvian-Bolivian coalition over trade issues (see 1833; 1837).
Uruguay has a revolution as following efforts by President Manuel Ceferino Oribe to extend his control over rural districts ruled by former president José Fructuoso Rivera, whom he accuses of financial mismanagement while in office. Rivera takes up arms against Oribe (see 1838).
French colonial forces under the command of Thomas (-Robert) Bugeaud, 41, defeat the Algerian emir Abdul-Qadar (Abdulkader) July 6 at the Battle of Sikkah (see 1834). Algerian guerrilla tactics have buffaloed the French up to now, but General Bugeaud has scrapped traditional military tactics to fight the Algerians on their own terms (see 1837).
Spain has insurrections beginning August 10 in Andalusia, Aragon, Catalonia, and Madrid against the repressive regime of the regent Maria Cristina de Borbón as the Carlist civil war continues. Carlist Ramón Cabrera, 27, emerges as an insurgent leader in Catalonia, using terror tactics and developing a reputation for cruelty. Maria Cristina is forced to restore the progressive constitution of 1812, but the Battle of Luchana in December ends in defeat for the Carlists at the hands of Baldomero Espartero, 43, who commands the government army and is created count de Luchana. Guerrilla leader Francisco Espoz y Mina dies at Barcelona December 13 at age 55 (see 1838).
Congress enacts a gag rule May 18 to suppress debate on the slavery issue. Southern representatives have pushed through the measure against opposition from abolitionist members whose unending petitions on the floor of the House threaten to make it impossible for any other business to be discussed (the gag rule will stand until 1844; see Giddings, 1842). Congress adopts a resolution May 26 stating that it has no authority over state slavery laws.
Abolitionist Angelina E. Grimké issues a pamphlet under the title "Appeal to Christian Women of the Southern States" (see 1829; 1838).
The Ojibwa cede much of northern Michigan to the United States under terms of a treaty promulgated March 28 (his 43rd birthday) by Henry R. Schoolcraft, who has been named superintendent of Indian affairs for the state.
Comanche warriors attack Fort Parker, Texas Territory, May 19 and kill five members of the Parker family before riding off with 9-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker. She will live happily with the tribe for 24 years (until "rescued" against her will early in 1861 by the Texas Rangers), marry the great chief Nacona, and bear two children—a daughter, Topsannah (Prairie Flower), and a son, Quanah, who will be known as Quanah Parker and become the greatest Comanche chief in history.
Irish poet Caroline Norton, now 28, leaves her boorish and abusive husband, George, who is still an unsuccessful barrister (see Poetry, 1829). He sues the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, now 58, who has been calling upon her, and demands £10,000 in damages for "alienating his wife's affections." The defense prevails, but under British law children belong to their father and Mrs. Norton is not permitted even to see her sons except in the presence of a lawyer (see 1837).
A Married Woman's Property Act is introduced in the New York State legislature but fails (see 1848; Mississippi, 1839).
Rushville, New York-born physician and missionary Marcus Whitman, 33, marries Narcissa Prentiss, 28, in February and takes his bride (along with Eliza Spalding) to the Pacific Northwest. Narcissa and Eliza are the first white women to cross the Continent (see 1843; 1847).
French-born mathematician-explorer Joseph Nicolas Nicollet, 50, arrives at Fort Snelling on the upper Mississippi July 26 and tries for 2 months to reach the river's headwaters (see 1838).
Houston, Texas, has its beginnings in August: John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen pay $9,428 for 6,642 acres of land near San Jacinto and will name the place after Texas president Sam Houston (see 1837; 1845).
Canadian-born Texas trader Michel B. (Branamour) Menard, 30, buys about six square miles of land that he has claimed on the eastern end of Galveston Island, paying $50,000 for property that his Galveston City Company will begin selling in 1838. Menard has lived and traveled with the Shawnee since the early 1820s and has traded also with the Mexicans.
Boer farmers found Natal, Transvaal, and the Orange Free State as they continue the Great Trek that began last year in South Africa.
Adelaide is founded in South Australia on a fertile plain that sweeps up from the coast to a line of hills. The town is named for the consort of Britain's William IV (see 1834).
Lowell, Massachusetts, mill owners permit boardinghouses to raise board rates, effectively reducing by more than 12 percent the wages they pay their women workers, virtually all of whom live in boardinghouses. The workers strike in protest, but the strike is short-lived (see 1834; 1844).
Rhode Island textile-mill owner William Sprague dies at his Cranston home March 28 at age 62 from the effects of a bone caught in his throat; industrialist Moses Brown dies at his native Providence September 7 at age 98.
Twenty-three of New York's 26 fire insurance companies declare bankruptcy as claims mount for losses sustained in last year's disastrous fire in downtown Manhattan. Prices rise further in the wake of the fire. By autumn, flour has risen to $7 per barrel, then to $12, and bread has become scarce (see 1837).
Banker Nathan Mayer Rothschild dies at Frankfurt-am-Main July 28 at age 58.
English chemist John Frederick Daniell, 47, creates the first electric cell with a long working life. He improves on the 1800 cell of Alessandro Volta by producing a cell that generates a steady current for considerable periods of time (see Plante, 1859).
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad has its beginnings in the Louisa Railroad chartered February 18. It will change its name in 1850 to the Virginia Central Railroad.
The Long Island Rail Road runs its first train April 18. Intended to shorten the trip between New York and Boston, it will be extended to Hicksville next year, reach Hempstead in 1838, and in 1844 reach Greenport, where passengers can take a ferry to Connecticut (see 1850).
The first Canadian railway opens July 21 to link Laprairie on the St. Lawrence River with St. Johns on the Richelieu.
The Western & Atlantic Railroad Company founded December 21 by a special act of the Georgia legislature will be completed in early May 1850 with a 137-mile line between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The South Ferry begins service across the East River to link New York's Whitehall Street with Brooklyn's Atlantic Street (see 1814; 1846).
The S.S. Beaver tested under steam at Vancouver May 16 is the first steamboat to be seen on the Pacific Coast. Built last year in England with Boulton & Watt engines, the 101.4-foot vessel enters the Willamette River in Oregon Territory May 31 on her maiden voyage, runs down the river under steam, and enters the lower reaches of the Columbia River.
The screw propeller patented May 31 by Kentish farmer Francis Pettit Smith, 27, is based on the Archimedean screw, has great advantages over paddle wheels, and will replace them. Smith stumbled on the idea when testing a model in a canal: his propeller struck a piece of wood, and when it broke in half his model went faster (see politics [U.S.S. Princeton], 1843).
Of 2.35 million tons of U.S. merchant shipping some 60,000 tons are in steam.
New York naval architect William Henry Webb, 20, opens a shipyard that he will continue until 1869 (see 1869).
The Erie Canal completed in 1825 is widened and deepened for the barge traffic that has repaid investors with toll receipts (see 1917).
The hot-air balloon Royal Vauxhall carried by 85,000 cubic feet of coal gas (methane) lifts off November 7 from London's Vauxhall Gardens with balloonist Charles Green, now 51, and an Irish companion in the gondola (see 1821). Using a trail rope as ballast and to facilitate landing, the balloon passes through the night over Liège and Coblenz, and comes to rest 18 hours and 500 miles later at Weilburgh in the German duchy of Nassau (the balloon is renamed Nassau).
English chemist Edmond Davey discovers and identifies acetylene.
Galvanized iron (coated with zinc) is invented in France.
The world's largest steel manufacturing and munitions plant has its beginnings in a French ironworks at Le Creusot purchased by French industrialist Joseph Eugène Schneider, 31, and his brother Eugène. They will develop the works into a gigantic steelmaking enterprise.
The Colt six-shooter revolver patented by Hartford, Connecticut, inventor Samuel Colt, 22, has a mechanically rotated cylinder, and while it has an effective range of only 25 to 30 yards improved versions will play a major role in the opening of the West. Colt establishes the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company at Paterson, New Jersey, but the firm will soon fail (see 1846; 1871; Hunt, 1849).
Elements of Botany by Asa Gray is the first of several textbooks that he will write on the subject.
Physician-chemist William Henry of 1803 Henry's law fame dies at Pendlebury, Lancashire, September 2 at age 60.
Evidence from the Scripture and History of the Second Coming of Christ, about the Year 1843 by Pittsfield, Massachusetts-born Baptist preacher William Miller, 54, will lead to the founding of the Adventist Church in 1845.
The Book of Wealth: in Which It Is Proved from the Bible that It Is the Duty of Every Man to Become Rich is published by Virginia-born Philadelphia clergyman and temperance lecturer Thomas P. (Poage) Hunt, 42.
Alabama declares Christmas a state holiday (see Jefferson, 1802). Other states will follow suit, despite opposition to mixing Church and State (see 1890).
The University of Wisconsin is founded at Madison. It will grow to have additional campuses in three other towns by 1875 and will eventually have 13.
McGuffey's First and Second Readers compiled for a local publisher by Cincinnati College president William Holmes McGuffey, 36, will grow to number six Readers in the next 15 years and will be sold until 1927. As they help literacy, they will also educate generations of Americans in the virtues of frugality, industry, and sobriety.
The Philadelphia Public Ledger begins publication on March 25. Three journeymen printers start Philadelphia's first penny daily.
Parliament transfers responsibility for sea mail from the Post Office to the Admiralty, which calls for tender offers. The Post Office has used sailing ships, whose sailing and arrival dates were dependent on wind and tide, but merchants have demanded something more reliable (see transportation [Peninsular Steam Navigation Co.], 1840).
Nonfiction: "Nature" by Boston essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, 33, who states, "The inevitable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common" and advises readers to "enjoy an original relation to the universe" (see Thoreau, 1837); "An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, by a Whig of the Old School" by Boston lawyer Charles Francis Adams, 28, a son of former president John Quincy Adams, whose pamphlet contains reprints of newspaper articles he has written; On the Will in Nature (U den Willen in der Natur) by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who voices the popular albeit pessimistic view that intellect takes a back seat to will.
Philosopher-novelist William Godwin dies at London April 7 at age 80, having lived on a government sinecure since 1833.
Fiction: Sketches by 'Boz' by London court reporter Charles (John Hulfam) Dickens, 24, whose first sketch appeared in a December 1833 periodical and who has used the pen name 'Boz' since August; Mr. Midshipman Easy by retired Royal Navy captain Frederick Marryat, 44, whose first novel was published as The King's Own shortly after his retirement from the navy in 1830; "Maelzel's Chess-Player" (story) by Edgar Allan Poe; Die Epigonen by German novelist-playwright Karl Leberecht Immermann, 40.
Poetry: La Ginestra by Count Giacomo Leopardi; "Fleurs du Midi" by French poet Louise Colet, 26, whose Paris salon will attract many of the city's leading literary figures; Voice from the Factories by Caroline Norton is an attack on child labor.
Painting: Juliet and Her Nurse by J. M. W. Turner, whose work meets with ridicule; Stoke-by-Nayland and The Cenotaph at Coleorton by John Constable; Diana Surprised by Actaeon by J. B. C. Corot; Farmers Nooning by William Sidney Mount; View From Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow, The Course of Empire: The Consummation of Empire, and The Course of Empire: Destruction by Thomas Cole, who is creating a series for his Coxsackie, New York-born patron Luman Reed, a merchant with a private gallery at 61 Bleecker Street in New York City; The Wrath of Peter Stuyvesant, The Pedlar Displaying His Wares, Boys Playing Marbles, School Let Out, and Blind Man's Buff by Asher Durand.
Theater: The Government Inspector (Revizor) by Nikolai Gogol 4/19 at St. Petersburg's Alexandrinsky Theater. Borrowing from an idea of Pushkin's, Gogol and a friend have traveled by train from town to town, with one going on ahead to announce that an "inspector" was coming, and this has provided the basis for Gogol's play, which ridicules petty bureaucrats and creates a furor among such people; The Troubadour (El trovador) by Spanish playwright Antonio García Gutiérrez, 23.
Opera: Les Huguenots 2/29 at the Paris Opéra, with Adolphe Nourrit creating the role of Raoul, music by Giacomo Meyerbeer; English soprano Elizabeth Rainforth, 21, makes her stage debut 10/27 singing the role of Mandane in Arne's 1762 opera Artaxerses at the St. James's Theatre, London. She will perform at Covent Garden until 1843; A Life for the Czar (Ivan Susanin) 12/9 at St. Petersburg, with music by Russian composer Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, 32, who traveled in Italy from 1830 to 1832, met Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti, and fell in love with Italian opera. His opera will open the season at St. Petersburg and Moscow every year hereafter until 1917.
Grace Malibran marries violinist Charles de Bériot but suffers a severe injury when she goes riding and falls from her horse while pregnant, sings in September at the Manchester Festival despite her condition, and dies at Manchester September 23 at age 28.
Ballet: La Tarentule 6/1 at the Paris Opéra, with choreography by Jean Coralli, now 57, music by Casimir Gide, 32; Le Diable boiteux 6/1 at the Théâtre de l'Academie Royale, Paris, with Fanny Elssler introducing the Spanish cachucha in a challenge to the reigning favorite Marie Taglioni; Danish ballerina Lucile Grahn, 17, appears in a new version of the 1832 ballet La Sylphide staged by August Bournonville, 31, at Copenhagen with music by the late German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. Grahn created the role of Astrid in his 1835 ballet Valdemar but will move to Paris to escape Bournonville's influence.
Oratorio: St. Paul by Felix Mendelssohn 5/22 (Whitsunday) at the Düsseldorf Festival, with a chorus of 364 voices and a 172-piece orchestra.
The Prix du Jockey Club horse race for 3-year-olds has its first running over a 2,400-meter (1½-mile) course at Chantilly, outside Paris.
The King's Plate and the Queen's Plate horse races at Quebec begin the oldest stakes races that will be run continuously in North America.
London's Reform Club is founded by the Rt. Hon. Edward Ellice, MP, and Sir William Molesworth "to promote the social intercourse of the Reformers of England" (see food [gas ovens], 1838; Soyer, 1839).
A phosphorus match patented by Springfield, Massachusetts, shoemaker Alonzo D. Phillips is the prototype of matches that will be used in the future to light stoves, hearthfires, and smoking tobacco (see 1827; 1853).
The Jewett murder April 10 excites New Yorkers, who read accounts of the case written personally by James Gordon Bennett in his 11-month-old New-York Herald. Lawyers present circumstantial evidence to show that shop clerk Richard P. Robinson, 19, took an axe into a house of assignation at 41 Thomas Street late at night and shattered the skull of Maine-born prostitute Helen Jewett (Dorcas Doyen), 22, lest she betray the fact that he has embezzled funds from a trusting employer. The murderer has set fire to the body of a woman famed as much for her wit, learning (she has been fond of novels by Sir Walter Scott), independence, and green silk dress as for her charm and beauty. Bennett sets out to prove that Robinson was innocent of her murder, former district attorney Ogden Hoffman mounts a brilliant defense, and a jury finds Robinson not guilty after a sensational trial at City Hall. Robinson soon makes his way to Texas, where the "Great Unhung" will spend most of his remaining years under another name.
London-born architect Charles Barry, 41, wins a competition that was opened last year for the design of new Houses of Parliament to replace the structures destroyed by fire 2 years ago. A stationer's son, Barry has studied architecture in France, Greece, Italy, Egypt, Constantinople, and Jerusalem; his design for the Houses of Parliament is in Gothic Revival style and work on the project will occupy him for the rest of his life.
Contrasts, or A Parallel Between the Architecture of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Centuries by London-born architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, 24, gains prominence for the young man, who will work with Charles Barry beginning next year on designs for the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Converted to Catholicism 3 years ago, Pugin has executed English Gothic Revival designs for churches, convents, monasteries, and schools.
New York's Park Hotel (Astor House) opens June 1 on the northwest corner of Broadway and Vesey Streets. Financed by John Jacob Astor, now 73, it sets new standards of hotel luxury and has a dining room that will be a popular gathering spot for the city's merchants (see Tremont House, 1829).
Iceland's Mount Hekla erupts as it did in 1597, creating widespread destruction (see 1947).
Some 75 percent of gainfully employed Americans are engaged in agriculture, down from 83 percent in 1820 (see 1853).
The first printed American bill of fare is issued by New York's 5-year-old Delmonico's Restaurant at 494 Pearl Street and lists as one of its most expensive dishes "hamburger steak." The bill of fare (the word menu will not be coined until next year) offers a "regular dinner" at 12 cents and lists hamburger steak at 10 cents (the same price as roast chicken or ham and eggs; regular beef steak is only 4 cents, as are pork chops, corn beef and cabbage, pigs head and cabbage, and fried fish. Roast beef or veal, roast mutton, veal cutlet, or chicken stew are 5 cents) (see 1837).
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