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1841 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar1841
MDCCCXLI
Ab urbe condita2594
Armenian calendar1290
ԹՎ ՌՄՂ
Assyrian calendar6591
Balinese saka calendar1762–1763
Bengali calendar1248
Berber calendar2791
British Regnal yearVict. 1 – 5 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar2385
Burmese calendar1203
Byzantine calendar7349–7350
Chinese calendar庚子(Metal Rat)
4537 or 4477
    — to —
辛丑年 (Metal Ox)
4538 or 4478
Coptic calendar1557–1558
Discordian calendar3007
Ethiopian calendar1833–1834
Hebrew calendar5601–5602
Hindu calendars
 - Vikram Samvat1897–1898
 - Shaka Samvat1762–1763
 - Kali Yuga4941–4942
Holocene calendar11841
Igbo calendar841–842
Iranian calendar1219–1220
Islamic calendar1256–1257
Japanese calendarTenpō 12
(天保12年)
Javanese calendar1768–1769
Julian calendarGregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar4174
Minguo calendar71 before ROC
民前71年
Nanakshahi calendar373
Thai solar calendar2383–2384
Tibetan calendar阳金鼠年
(male Iron-Rat)
1967 or 1586 or 814
    — to —
阴金牛年
(female Iron-Ox)
1968 or 1587 or 815
File:Death of Harrison, April 4 A.D. 1841 LCCN91794698.jpg

April 4: Death of William Henry Harrison

File:18th Royal Irish at Amoy.jpg

August 26: Battle of Amoy

1840 (MDCCCXL) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1840th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 840th year of the , the 40th year of the , and the 1st year of the decade. As of the start of 1840, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Events[]

January–March[]

  • January 20Charles Elliot of the United Kingdom, and Qishan of the Qing dynasty, agree to the Convention of Chuenpi.
  • January 26 – Britain occupies Hong Kong. Later in the year, the first census of the island records a population of about 7,500.[1]
  • January 27 – The active volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica is discovered, and named by James Clark Ross.[2]
  • January 28 – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf. On the same voyage, he discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror.
  • January 30 – A fire ruins and destroys two-thirds of the villa (modern-day city) of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.
  • February 4 – First known reference to Groundhog Day in North America, in the diary of a James Morris.
  • February 10 – The Act of Union (British North America Act, 1840) is proclaimed in Canada.
  • February 11 – The two colonies of the Canadas are merged, into the United Province of Canada.
  • February 18 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins, and lasts until March 11.
  • FebruaryEl Salvador proclaims itself an independent republic, bringing an end to the (already de facto defunct) Federal Republic of Central America.
  • March 4William Henry Harrison is sworn in as the ninth President of the United States.
  • March 9United States v. The Amistad: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the case, that the Africans who seized control of the ship had been taken into slavery illegally.
  • March 12SS President, commanded by legendary captain Richard Roberts ("I'd Go to Sea in a Bathtub"), founders in rough seas, with all passengers and crew lost.

April–June[]

  • April 4 – President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, aged 68, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office, and at one month, the American president with the shortest term served. He is succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, who becomes the tenth President of the United States.
  • April 6 – President John Tyler is sworn in.
  • May – The Sino-Sikh War begins.
  • May 3New Zealand becomes a separate British colony,[3] having previously been administered as part of the Colony of New South Wales.
  • May 22 – The Georgian province of Guria revolts against the Russian Empire.
  • June 6 – The United Kingdom Census is held, the first to record names and approximate ages of every household member, and to be administered nationally.
  • June 21 – St. John's College (later Fordham University) is founded in The Bronx, by the Society of Jesus.
  • June 28 – The ballet Giselle is first presented by the Ballet du Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique, at the Salle Le Peletier in Paris, France.

July–September[]

File:Coronation of dom pedro II.jpg

July 18: Coronation of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil

  • July – Scottish missionary David Livingstone arrives at Kuruman in the Northern Cape, his first posting in Africa.
  • July 5Thomas Cook arranges his first railway excursion, in England.[3]
  • July 17 – The first edition of the humorous magazine Punch is published in London.[4]
  • July 18 (Sunday)
    • Emperor Pedro II of Brazil is crowned in Rio de Janeiro.
    • The sixth bishop of Calcutta, Daniel Wilson, and Dr. James Taylor, Civil Surgeon at Dhaka, establish the first modern educational institution on the Indian subcontinent, Dhaka College.
  • July 20 – The Mercantile Agency (ancestor of Dun & Bradstreet) is founded in New York City, by Lewis Tappan.
  • August 11Frederick Douglass speaks in front of the Anti-Slavery Convention in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
  • August 16 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House, in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.
  • August 20October 16 – The Niger expedition of 1841 begins sailing up the Niger River by paddle steamers, under the auspices of the British Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa; it is largely abortive, due to the high incidence of disease among the crews.
  • September 24Sarawak is broken away from Brunei, and James Brooke is appointed Rajah.

October–December[]

  • October 10First Opium War: Battle of Chinhai – British capture a Chinese garrison.
  • October 13 – First Opium War: British occupy Ningbo.
  • October 16Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, by Rev. Thomas Liddell, who carries a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria, and becomes the school's first principal.
  • October 30 – A fire at the Tower of London destroys its Grand Armoury and causes a quarter of a million pounds' worth of damage.[5]
  • November – The settlement of Dallas, Texas, is founded by John Neely Bryan.[6]
  • November 13 – Scottish surgeon James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism by Charles Lafontaine in Manchester, which leads to his study of the phenomenon that he (Braid) eventually calls hypnotism.
  • December 20 – The first multilateral treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade, the Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, signed in London by the representatives of Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and Russia.
  • December 23First Anglo-Afghan War: At a meeting with the Afghan general Akbar Khan, British diplomat Sir William Hay Macnaghten is shot dead at close quarters.

Date unknown[]

  • John Augustus develops the concept of probation in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ongoing[]

  • First Opium War (1839–42)
  • First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42)

Births[]

January–June[]

File:Henry M Stanley 1872.jpg

Henry Morton Stanley

File:Pierre Auguste Renoir, uncropped image.jpg

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

  • January 8
    • Hakeem Noor-ud-Din, Muslim scholar, 1st Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Islam (d. 1914)
    • Kate Stone, American diarist (d. 1907)
  • January 14Berthe Morisot, French painter (d. 1895)
  • January 15Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby, English-Canadian politician, soldier (d. 1908)
  • January 23Benoît-Constant Coquelin, French actor, Cyrano de Bergerac (d. 1909)
  • January 25John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, British admiral (d. 1920)
  • January 27Alexandru Candiano-Popescu, Romanian general, lawyer, journalist, and poet (d. 1901)
  • January 28Sir Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh explorer, journalist (d. 1904)
  • January 30Félix Faure, President of France (d. 1899)
  • February 2François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist (d. 1912)
  • February 4Clément Ader, French engineer, inventor, and airplane pioneer (d. 1926)
  • February 10Alfred Heaver, English property developer (d. 1901)
  • February 15Manuel Ferraz de Campos Sales, 4th President of Brazil (d. 1913)
  • February 16Armand Guillaumin, French painter, lithographer (d. 1927)
  • February 24Carl Gräbe, German chemist (d. 1927)
  • February 25Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French painter (d. 1919)
  • March 1Luigi Luzzatti, Italian financier, economist, philosopher, and jurist, 20th Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1927)
  • March 8Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1935)
  • March 15Pietro Bonilli, Italian Roman Catholic priest and blessed (d. 1935)
  • April 3Hermann Carl Vogel, German astrophysicist, astronomer (d. 1907)
  • April 9William George Aston, British consular official (d. 1911)
  • April 13Louis-Ernest Barrias, French sculptor (d. 1905)
  • May 10James Gordon Bennett Jr., American newspaper publisher (d. 1918)
  • May 14 – Sir Squire Bancroft, English actor (d. 1926)
  • May 15Clarence Dutton, American geologist (d. 1912)
  • June 1Edward Lyon Buchwalter, Union captain in the American Civil War, businessman, and banker (d. 1933)

July–December[]

File:The Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier Photo C (HS85-10-16873) - tight crop.jpg

Wilfrid Laurier

File:Dvorak.jpg

Antonín Dvořák

Date unknown[]

  • Arousyak Papazian, Armenian actress, writer (d. 1907)

Deaths[]

January–June[]

File:William Henry Harrison daguerreotype edit.jpg

William Henry Harrison

File:San Pedro Chanel.jpg

Saint Peter Chanel

  • January 15Johann Jacob Friedrich Wilhelm Parrot, Baltic-German naturalist, traveller (b. 1792)
  • January 20Jørgen Jørgensen, Danish adventurer (b. 1780)
  • February 12Sir Astley Cooper, British surgeon and anatomist (b. 1768)
  • February 17Ferdinando Carulli, Italian guitarist (b. 1770)
  • March 1Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno, French marshal (b. 1764)
  • March 12Richard Roberts, captain of SS President (b. 1803)
  • March 16Félix Savart, French physicist (b. 1791)
  • April 4William Henry Harrison, American military officer and politician, 9th President of the United States (b. 1773)
  • April 10William Lloyd, Welsh Anglican priest turned schoolteacher, Methodist preacher (b. 1771)
  • April 28Peter Chanel, French Roman Catholic priest, missionary, and saint (martyred) (b. 1803)
  • April 30Peter Andreas Heiberg, Danish author, philologist (b. 1758)
  • May 13Maria Madeline Taylor, Australian stage actor (b. 1805)
  • May 16Marie Boivin, French midwife, inventor, and obstetrics writer (b. 1773)
  • May 20Joseph Blanco White, British theologian (b. 1775)
  • May 23Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher, theologian (b. 1765)
  • June 1
    • Nicolas Appert, French inventor (b. 1749)
    • David Wilkie, Scottish artist (b. 1785)

July–December[]

  • JulyMary Rogers ("Beautiful Cigar Girl"), American murder victim (b. c. 1820)
  • August 16Fernando Errázuriz Aldunate, Chilean politician, President of Chile (b.c 1777)
  • August 24Theodore Edward Hook, English author (b. 1788)
  • September 25John Chandler, American politician (b. 1762)
  • October 9Karl Friedrich Schinkel, German architect (b. 1781)
  • November 18Agustín Gamarra, Peruvian general and politician, 10th and 14th President of Peru (b. 1785)
  • December 4David Daniel Davis, British physician (b. 1777)
  • December 23William Hay Macnaghten, Anglo-Indian diplomat (b. 1793)

References[]

  1. Thomson, John (1873). "Hong-Kong". Illustrations of China and Its People. 1. London.
  2. Ross, Voyage to the Southern Seas, 1, pp. 216–8.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
  4. Spielmann, Marion Harry (1895). The History of "Punch". p. 27.
  5. Weinreb, Ben; Hibbert, Christopher (1995). The London Encyclopaedia. Macmillan. p. 287. ISBN 0-333-57688-8.
  6. Dallas Historical Society (December 30, 2002). "Dallas History". Archived from the original on April 22, 2006. Retrieved April 20, 2006.
  7. "Edward VII". Westminster Abbey. Retrieved October 7, 2022.
  8. O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "1841", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews

Further reading[]

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