Events Date 1839 | History by KabAstro

First Photo of the Moon

Jan 2 First photo of the Moon, taken by French photographer Louis Daguerre

Jan 9 Louis Daguerre demonstrates his 'daguerreotype' photographic process to the French Academy of Science

Jan 9 Thomas Henderson measures 1st stellar parallax (Alpha Centauri)
Jan 10 First tea from leaves of indigenous plants of Assam, India, arrives in the United Kingdom [date approximate] [1]
Jan 11 Earthquake at Martinique destroys half of Port Royal - 700 die
Jan 12 Anthracite coal 1st used to smelt iron, Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania
Jan 19 Aden conquered by British East India Company
Jan 20 Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats a Peruvian and Bolivian alliance

Jan 24 Charles Darwin elected Fellow of the Royal Society

Jan 25 William Henry Fox Talbot exhibits early photographs to the Royal Institution in the UK

Feb 7 Henry Clay declares in Senate "I had rather be right than president"

Feb 12 Aroostoock (or "Pork & Beans) War: Boundary dispute between Maine & New Brunswick
Feb 18 Detroit Boat Club forms (& still exists)
Feb 20 Congress prohibits dueling in District of Columbia
Feb 24 Steam shovel patented by William Otis, Philadelphia
Feb 25 Seminoles & black allies shipped from Tampa Bay Florida, to the West
Feb 26 1st Grand National steeplechase, Aintree Racecourse, Liverpool: Jem Mason wins aboard 5/1 favourite Lottery
Mar 9 Prussian government limits work week for children to 51 hours
Mar 23 1st recorded use of "OK" [oll korrect] (Boston's Morning Post)
Mar 26 1st Henley Royal Regatta on the river Thames, England
Apr 17 Guatemala forms a republic
Apr 19 Treaty of London constitutes Belgium an independent kingdom & Luxembourg a Grand Duchy
May 4 The Cunard Steamship Company Ltd forms San Bonifacio
Jun 7 Hawaiian Declaration of Rights is signed
Jun 14 First Henley Regatta held (it became the Henley Royal Regatta in 1851)
Jun 17 King of Hawaii Kamehameha III issues Edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace is later established

Jul 1 Abdul-Medjid succeeds Mahmud II as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

Jul 2 Slaves aboard a Spanish schooner La Amistad revolt to secure their freedom while being transported from one Cuban port to another
Jul 3 1st state normal school in US opens, Lexington, Massachusetts, with 3 students
Jul 27 Chartist riots break out in Birmingham, England
Aug 8 Beta Theta Pi is founded in Oxford, Ohio.
Aug 19 Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype photographic process with complete working instructions is published "free to the world" in Paris as a gift to the world from the French government
Aug 23 British capture Hong Kong from China
Sep 2 Salon of Varietes opens in Amsterdam
Sep 5 The First Opium War begins in China

Sep 6 Cherokee Nation unites and ratifies constitution at Tahlequah, Oklahoma

Sep 9 English scientist and astronomer John Herschel takes 1st glass plate photograph

Sep 11 1st Canadian track and field meet held at Caer Howell Grounds
Sep 20 1st railroad in Netherland opens (Amsterdam-Haarlem)
Sep 28 British Association expedition to Antarctica ships Erebus and Terror set sail from England, to attempt to locate magnetic South Pole
Oct 3 Maya explorers John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood depart New York on their first expedition to the Yucatan

Oct 10 British troops under General Charles Napier occupy Beirut

Oct 16 Joseph Saxton, a machine inspector at the US Mint, takes 1st daguerrotype photograph in US, of Central High School building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Oct 20 Margaret Fuller is appointed editor of new US Transcendental Magazine "The Dial"

Nov 3 First Opium War - 2 British frigates engage several Chinese junks
Nov 3 Palace of Gulhane Turkey, freedom of religion proclaimed
Nov 4 The Newport Rising is the last large-scale armed rebellion against authority in mainland Britain
Nov 11 The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
Nov 13 1st US anti-slavery party, Liberty Party, convenes in NY

Nov 13 Last bull run in Britain as the Stamford bull run ends after 700 years

Nov 16 US diplomat John Lloyd Stephens and British artist Frederick Catherwood first reach the ruins of the Maya city of Copan (modern Honduras)

Nov 17 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio" premieres at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan

Nov 25 Cyclone slams south eastern India with high winds and a 40 foot storm surge, destroying city of Coringa. Storm waves sweep inland, destroying 20,000 ships and killing an estimated 300,000 people.
Nov 27 American Statistical Association organizes in Boston