Explore 629 historical events from 1840–1849.
Thomas Clarkson was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the …
Thomas Clarkson, English abolitionist (born 1760)
Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and s…
Belgian musician Adolphe Sax patented his design of the saxophone (example pictured)
William Lassell was an English merchant and astronomer. He is remembered for his improvements to the reflecting telescope and his ensuing discoveries of four planetary satellites.
English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of Neptune.
The Donner Party, sometimes called the Donner–Reed Party, was a group of American pioneers who migrated to California in a wagon train from the Midwest. Delayed by a multitude of m…
The Donner Party, an American pioneer group which became known for resorting to cannibalism when they became trapped in
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353 as of the 2021 Canadian census, and its census metropolitan area, which encompasse…
Hamilton, Ontario (skyline pictured) is granted city status by the Parliament of the Province of Canada
Sonoma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonoma is one of the principal cities of California's W…
Settlers in Sonoma began rebelling against Mexico, later proclaiming the California Republic and raising a homemade fla
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play …
The first officially recorded baseball game in U
Frederick John White was a private in the British Army's 7th Hussars. While serving at the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow, in 1846, White touched a sergeant with a metal bar during an …
British soldier Frederick John White died after a flogging, leading to a campaign to end the practice in the British…
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterisation, dark humour, social c…
The English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (both pictured) married in secret to avoid their…
La Salette-Fallavaux is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. The sanctuary of Our Lady of La Salette in the mountains above the village is a well-known pilgrim…
Near La Salette-Fallavaux in southeastern France, shepherd children Mélanie Calvat and Maximin Giraud reported a…
Scientific American, informally abbreviated SciAm or sometimes SA, is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contri…
The first issue of Scientific American magazine is published.
Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler was a Swiss poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1919 "in special appreciation of his epic Olympian Spring". His work includes both…
Carl Spitteler, Swiss poet and author, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1924)
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States. In 1879, Mahoney was the first African American to gradu…
Mary Eliza Mahoney, American nurse and activist (died 1926)
Karl Gustaf Patrik de Laval was a Swedish engineer and inventor who made important contributions to the design of steam turbines and centrifugal separation machinery for dairy.
Gustaf de Laval, Swedish engineer and businessman (died 1913)
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, gallicised and known in Western sources as Élie Metchnikoff, was a zoologist from the Russian Empire of Moldavian noble ancestry best known for his research …
Élie Metchnikoff, Russian zoologist (died 1916)
Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló was a Spanish writer and priest, regarded as one of the greatest poets of Catalan literature and a prominent literary figure of the Renaixença, a cultura…
Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan priest and poet (died 1902)
Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditio…
Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England
Fatel Razack was the first ship to bring indentured labourers from India to Trinidad. The ship was built in Aprenade for a trader named Ibrahim Bin Yussef, an Indian Muslim mercha…
The Fatel Razack coming from India, lands in the Gulf of Paria in Trinidad and Tobago carrying the first Indians to the
Henry David Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living …
Henry David Thoreau moves into a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's account of his two…
The Great New York City Fire of 1845 broke out on July 19, 1845, in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The fire started in a whale oil and candle manufacturing establishment and quick…
Great New York City Fire of 1845: The last great fire to affect Manhattan begins early in the morning and is subdued…
Amadeo I, also known as Amadeus, was an Italian prince who reigned as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873. The only king of Spain to come from the House of Savoy, he was the second son…
Amadeo I, Spanish king (died 1890)
Leopold von Auer was a Hungarian violinist, academic, conductor, composer, and instructor. Many of his students went on to become prominent concert performers and teachers.
Leopold Auer, Hungarian violinist, composer, and conductor (died 1930)
Frank Prescott Norton was an American professional baseball player, who played in one game for the Washington Olympics on May 5, 1871. He struck out in his only at-bat and played …
Frank Norton, American baseball player (died 1920)
Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran was a French physician who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1907 for his discoveries of parasitic protozoans as causative agents of i…
Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician and parasitologist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1922)