Crockett Aids Revolution
Jan 5 Davy Crockett arrives in Nacogdoches, Texas, to aid the revolution
- Jan 12 Battle of Wetumka, Fla
Darwin Reaches Sydney
Jan 12 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin reaches Sydney, Australia
- Feb 3 Whig Party holds its 1st national convention (Albany NY)
- Feb 6 HMS Beagle and Charles Darwin arrive in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)
Sketches by Boz
Feb 7 "Sketches by Boz" (essays) published by Charles Dickens
- Feb 22 Dutch garrison evacuates fort Du Bus New Guinea
Battle of the Alamo
Feb 23 Alamo besieged for 13 days until March 6 by Mexican army under General Santa Anna; entire garrison eventually killed
Colt Revolver
Feb 25 Samuel Colt patents first multi-shot revolving-cylinder revolver, enabling the firearm to be fired multiple times without reloading
P. T. Barnum's Disgrace
Feb 25 Showman P. T. Barnum exhibits African American slave Joice Heth, claiming she was the 161 year-old nursemaid to George Washington
- Feb 29 Giacomo Meyerbeers opera "Les Huguenots," premieres in Paris
Republic of Texas Declares Independence
Mar 2 Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico in Columbia
- Mar 5 Samuel Colt's Patent Arms Manufacturing Company manufactures first pistol, 36-caliber "Texas" model, in Paterson, New Jersey
- Mar 6 Battle of the Alamo: After 13 days of fighting 1,500-3,000 Mexican soldiers overwhelm the Texan defenders, killing 182-257 Texans including William Travis, Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett
- Mar 16 Constitution of the Republic of Texas approved, legalises slavery
- Mar 27 1st Mormon temple dedicated (Kirtland, Ohio)
- Apr 14 US Congress forms Territory of Wisconsin
- Apr 19 Nikolai Gogol's "Revisor" premieres in St Petersburg
- Apr 20 Territory of Wisconsin created
- Apr 21 Battle of San Jacinto, Texas wins independence from Mexico
- May 7 The settlement of Mayagüez elevates Puerto Rico to the royal status of villa by the government of Spain
- May 15 Francis Baily observes "Baily's Beads" during annular solar eclipse
St Paul
May 22 Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio "St Paul" premieres in Düsseldorf, Germany
- May 31 HMS Beagle anchors in Simons Bay, Cape of Good Hope
- Jun 1 Charles Darwin returns to Cape Town in South Africa
- Jun 15 Arkansas becomes 25th state of the Union
- Jun 16 London Working Men's Association forms
Smithsonian Institute
Jul 1 US President Andrew Jackson announces to Congress bequest by James Smithson of 100,000 gold sovereigns to found Smithsonian Institution in Washington
- Jul 4 Wisconsin Territory forms
- Jul 8 Charles Darwin reaches Saint Helena in HMS Beagle and takes up lodgings near the tomb of Napoleon
- Jul 13 US patent #1 (after 9,957 unnumbered patents), for locomotive wheels
- Jul 19 HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin arrives in Ascension Island
- Jul 21 1st Canadian RR opens, between Laprairie and St John, Quebec
- Jul 27 The ship the "Duke of York" arrives with the first colonists at Nepean Bay, Kangaroo Island, South Australia
- Jul 29 Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris
- Jul 30 First English language newspaper published in Hawaii
- Aug 1 As part of their homeward journey on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin returns to Bahia in Brazil
- Aug 17 British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages and deaths
- Aug 17 Charles Darwin leaves South America for the last time on HMS Beagle
- Aug 19 HMS Beagle anchors at Angra, Azores
- Aug 30 The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen
- Aug 31 HMS Beagle anchors in Postage Praia, Cape Verde Islands
- Sep 1 Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white women to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Oregon Country (now US state of Washington)
- Sep 1 Reconstruction begins on Synagogue of Rabbi Judah Hasid in Jerusalem
Houston Elected President
Sep 5 Sam Houston elected President of the Republic of Texas
Emerson's Nature
Sep 9 Ralph Waldo Emerson publishes his influential essay "Nature" in the US, outlining his beliefs in transcendentalism
- Sep 25 HMS Beagle anchors at St Michael
- Oct 2 After 5 years at sea Charles Darwin returns to England aboard the HMS Beagle
- Oct 12 18" of snow falls in Bridgewater, NY
- Oct 22 Sam Houston inaugurated as 1st elected President of the Republic of Texas
- Oct 24 Earliest American patent for a phosphorus friction match by Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Massachusetts
- Nov 10 Louis Napoleon banished to America
- Nov 11 Chile declares war on Bolivia & Peru
- Dec 4 Whig party holds its first national convention, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Van Buren Elected
Dec 7 Martin Van Buren elected the 8th President of the United States
- Dec 10 Emory College (now Emory University) is chartered in Oxford, Georgia
- Dec 14 The Toledo War unofficially ends, boundary dispute between Ohio state and territory of Michigan
- Dec 15 Patent Office burns in Washington, D.C.
- Dec 17 Colonel William Light chooses the site for the settlement of Adelaide in South Australia
- Dec 27 Worst English avalanche kills 8 of 15 buried (Lewes Sussex)
- Dec 28 Proclamation of South Australia as a British Province. Formal proclamation was read out near The Old Gum Tree, in what is now the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg North, by Captain (later Rear Admiral, Governor, Sir) John Hindmarsh
- Dec 28 Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico
- Dec 30 Lehman Theater in St Petersburg catches fire; 100s die
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