Explore 510 historical events from 1840–1849.
Captain Charles Wells was the British founder of Charles Wells Ltd, which became the largest privately owned brewery in the United Kingdom, and the progenitor of the Wells Baronets…
Charles Wells, English brewer, founded Charles Wells Ltd (died 1914)
Jakob Rosanes was a German mathematician who worked on algebraic geometry and invariant theory. He was also a chess master.
Jakob Rosanes, Ukrainian-German mathematician, chess player, and academic (died 1922)
Alfred Shaw was a Victorian cricketer and rugby footballer, who bowled the first ball in Test cricket and was the first to take five wickets in a Test innings (5/35). He made two t…
Alfred Shaw, English cricketer, rugby player, and umpire (died 1907)
Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of Russia was the eldest child and first daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. She died from …
Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of Russia (died 1849)
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin was a publisher, journalist, civil rights leader, suffragist, abolitionist, and editor of the Woman's Era, the first national newspaper published by and…
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, American journalist, publisher, and activist (died 1924)
Johannes Hermann Zukertort was a Polish-born British-German chess master. He was one of the leading world players for most of the 1870s and 1880s, but lost to Wilhelm Steinitz in t…
Johannes Zukertort, Polish-English chess player, linguist, and journalist (died 1888)
John Hollis Bankhead was an American politician and Confederate Army soldier. A member of the Democratic Party, Bankhead served as U.S. Senator from the state of Alabama from 1907 …
John H. Bankhead, American soldier and politician (died 1920)
Sir James Dewar was a Scottish chemist and physicist. He is best known for his invention of the vacuum flask, which he used in conjunction for his research into the liquefaction of…
James Dewar, Scottish-English chemist and physicist (died 1923)
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. As a botanist and …
Jules Dumont d'Urville, French admiral and explorer (born 1790)
Walenty Wilhelm Wańkowicz was a Polish painter. He studied at the Jesuit College in Polotsk, the University of Wilno and the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He produced…
Walenty Wańkowicz, Belarusian-Polish painter (born 1799)
Dominique Jean, Baron Larrey was a French surgeon and soldier best known for his service in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. An important innovator in battlefield medi…
Dominique Jean Larrey, French physician and surgeon (born 1766)
Clemens Wenzeslaus Brentano was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German Romanticism. He was the uncle, via his brother Christian, of Franz and Lujo Brentano.
Clemens Brentano, German author and poet (born 1778)
Louis Claude de Saulces de Freycinet was a French Navy officer. Following the 1800–1803 Baudin expedition to Australia, he published in 1811 the first map to show the full Australi…
Louis de Freycinet, French explorer and navigator (born 1779)
Captain William Hobson was a Royal Navy officer and colonial administrator who served as the first governor of New Zealand from 1841 to 1842. He was a co-author of the Treaty of Wa…
William Hobson, Irish-New Zealand soldier and politician, 1st Governor of New Zealand (born 1792)
Letitia Christian Tyler was the first lady of the United States from 1841 to 1842 as the first wife of President John Tyler. After meeting in 1808, the two married in 1813. Tyler m…
Letitia Christian Tyler, American wife of John Tyler, 11th First Lady of the United States (born 1790)
Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot was a French violinist and composer born in Passy. He studied the violin under Giovanni Battista Viotti and taught at the Conservatoire de Pa…
Pierre Baillot, French violinist and composer (born 1771)
José Francisco Morazán Quezada was a Central American statesman, military officer, and caudillo who served as the president of the Federal Republic of Central America on three occa…
Francisco Morazán, Guatemalan general, lawyer, and politician, President of Central American Federation (born 1792)
The Lombard Street riot was a racially motivated mob attack on the free Black community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 1, 1842.
Three days of rioting erupted after a parade in Philadelphia, celebrating the end of slavery in the West Indies, was…
On 8 May 1842, a train crashed in the cutting between Meudon and Bellevue stations on the railway between Versailles and Paris, France. The train was travelling to Paris when it de…
A train derailed and caught fire near Versailles, France, killing at least 52 people
The Treaty of Nanjing was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the second of w…
Under the Treaty of Nanking, an "unequal treaty" that ended the First Opium War, the Chinese island from which Hong…
The Paris Opera Ballet is a French ballet company that is an integral part of the Paris Opera. It is the oldest national ballet company, and many European and international ballet …
The Paris Opera Ballet premieres Giselle in the Salle Le Peletier
Thomas James Lempriere was a British colonial administrator in the Australian colony of Van Diemen's Land. He is known for his diaries depicting the convict period in Van Diemen's …
Thomas Lempriere and James Clark Ross carve a marker on the Isle of the Dead in Van Diemen's Land to measure tidal…
Dom Pedro II, known as "the Magnanimous", was the second and final emperor of the Empire of Brazil. He reigned from 1831 until his deposition in the military coup of 1889, presidin…
Coronation of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil.
Clarence Edward Dutton was an American geologist and US Army officer.
Clarence Dutton, American commander and geologist (died 1912)