First Female Paris Academy Prize
Jan 8 Sophie Germain is the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her paper on elasticity
- Jan 12 France decrees Bonaparte family excluded from the country forever
Byron Completes Poems
Jan 22 Lord Byron completes poems "Parisina" and "Siege of Corinth"
- Feb 13 -14] Teatro San Carlo in Naples destroyed by fire
Barber of Seville
Feb 20 Gioachino Rossini's comic opera "Barber of Seville" premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, Italy
Kubla Khan
Apr 10 Samuel Taylor Coleridge recites his poem "Kubla Khan" to fellow poet Lord Byron, who persuades him to publish it
- May 5 American Bible Society organized in New York
- May 9 Lady Caroline Lamb publishes the Gothic novel "Glenarvon", a thinly disguised account of her affair with Lord Byron which also depicts her husband William Lamb
- May 10 British steamship "Defiance" arrives at Rotterdam harbor
- May 11 American Bible Society forms (NY)
Beau Brummell Flees
May 18 Famous dandy Beau Brummell flees to France to escape a gambling debt. He never returns, dying in France in 1840.
- May 25 Collection of poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge published by John Murray in London, including "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel"
Eruption of Mount Tambora
Jun 6 10" of snowfall in New England, part of a "year without a summer" which followed the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia
The Raft of the Medusa
Jul 2 French frigate "La Méduse" runs aground under incompetent leadership of Viscount of Chaumareys, 400 passengers evacuated. 150 men, 1 woman are left on "la Machine," a poorly provisioned raft. 13 days later only 15 survivors remain, inspires Théodore Géricault's painting "The Raft of the Medusa"
- Jul 8 Frost in Waltham, Massachusetts during "year without a summer"
Event of Interest
Jul 9 Argentina declares independence from Spain at the Congress of Tucumán
- Jul 17 "L'Argus" accidentally discovers raft holding survivors from wrecked French frigate "Méduse." After 13 days at sea only 15 of 151 remain, the rest having been cannibalised, murdered, or committed suicide. This event was made famous by Théodore Géricault’s painting "The Raft of the Medusa"
- Jul 19 Survivors of French frigate Medusa rescued off Senegal after 17 days
- Jul 27 US troops destroy Fort Apalachicola, a Seminole fort, to punish Indians for harboring runaway slaves
- Aug 8 Bavaria joins Holy Alliance
- Aug 14 Great Britain annexes Tristan da Cunha
- Aug 19 Java returns to Dutch rule after being controlled by the British for five years
- Aug 24 The Treaty of St. Louis is signed by the USA and the united tribes of Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi in St. Louis, Missouri
- Aug 27 Lord Exmouth bombards Algiers, a refuge for Barbary pirates
Chambre Introuvable Dissolved
Sep 5 French King Louis XVIII dissolves the unpopular parliament, Chambre introuvable (Unobtainable Chamber)
- Oct 7 1st double decked steamboat, Washington, arrives in New Orleans
Wicked or Sinless? The Life of Lucrezia Borgia
Oct 15 Lord Byron views the love letters of Lucrezia Borgia and poet Pietro Bembo in Milan and declares them "the prettiest love letters in the world"
James Monroe
Dec 4 James Monroe is elected to become the 5th President of the United States, defeating Rufus King of the Federalist Party
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists