Dickens Travels to America
Jan 3 Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine leave Liverpool, England for America on board the RMS Britannia
- Jan 6 4,500 British & Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before reaching India
"Stabat Mater"
Jan 7 Gioachino Rossini's cantata "Stabat Mater" premieres at the Théâtre-Italien's Salle Ventadour in Paris, France
- Jan 8 Dutch King Willem II charters Technical College Delft
- Jan 12 Franciscan nuns begin missionary work on Netherland Antilles
- Jan 13 Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for (reputedly) being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.
- Jan 22 Charles Dickens arrives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, Catherine
- Feb 1 1st adhesive postage stamps in US isssued, by Alexander Greig's City Despatch Post company, in New York City
- Feb 7 Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien
- Feb 10 Moreton Bay Penal Colony abolished and opened for free settlement (modern city of Brisbane, Australia) [1]
- Feb 21 1st known sewing machine patented in US by John Greenough of Washington, D.C.
- Mar 2 4th Grand National: Tom Olliver aboard 7/1 Gaylad wins by 4 lengths from Seventy Four
Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony
Mar 3 1st performance of Felix Mendelssohn's 3rd ("Scottish") Symphony in Leipzig Gewandhaus
- Mar 3 1st US child labor law regulating working hours passed in Massachusetts
- Mar 5 Over 500 Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas, briefly occupy San Antonio and then head back to the Rio Grande.
Nabucco
Mar 9 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Nabucco" premieres in Milan
- Mar 17 Treaty of 1842: Wyandotte (Huron) Indian nation cedes 114,000 acres of land in Ohio and Michigan to US, in exchange for 148,000 acres west of the Mississippi
- Mar 30 Ether used as an anaesthetic for 1st time by Dr Crawford Long (Georgia)
- Apr 13 Lord Rosse successfully casts 72" (183-cm) mirror for a telescope
- May 5 City-wide fire burns for over 100 hours in Hamburg, Germany
- May 8 Versailles to Paris train catches fire; 50 die
- May 14 Illustrated London News; the world's first illustrated weekly newspaper, begins publication
- May 22 Farmers Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel discover Howe Caverns in New York state when they stumble upon a large gaping hole in the ground
Doppler Effect
May 25 Christian Doppler presents his idea, now known as the Doppler Effect (through the changing colors of binary stars), to the Royal Bohemian Society, Prague
Assassination Attempt on Queen Victoria
May 30 John Francis attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria
Frémont Explores the Oregon Trail
Jun 15 John C. Frémont sets off from Kansas River on his first expedition of the Oregon Trail with frontierman Kit Carson as his guide
Ellen G. White Baptized
Jun 26 Ellen G. White is baptized by John Hobart in Portland, Maine
- Aug 1 Lombard Street Riot erupts in Philadelphia [1] [2]
- Aug 1 Rotherhithe Tunnel under the Thames opens
- Aug 9 US-Canada border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty
- Aug 14 Second Seminole War declared over by US Army Colonel Worth, after nearly 7 years; more than 3000 Seminole Nation survivors re-located from Florida to Oklahoma, only about 300 allowed to remain [1]
- Aug 21 The city of Hobart, Tasmania, is founded.
- Aug 29 Great Britain and China sign Treaty of Nanking, ending the Opium war
- Aug 31 American blacksmith Micah Rugg patents a nuts & bolts machine
- Aug 31 US Naval Observatory authorized by an act of Congress
- Sep 4 Work on Cologne cathedral recommences after a 284-year hiatus
- Sep 18 1st edition of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published
- Nov 8 Belgium King Leopold I proclaims child labor laws (for 1889)
- Nov 9 The first U.S. design patent for typefaces and borders was issued to George Bruce of New York City
- Nov 17 Fugitive slave George Latimer captured in Boston
- Nov 17 Opera "Linda di Chamounix" by Gaetano Donizetti is produced in London
- Nov 22 Mount St Helens in Washington erupts
- Nov 26 The University of Notre Dame is founded
- Dec 7 New York Philharmonic's 1st concert
- Dec 9 Mikhail Glinka's opera "Russlan and Ludmilla" premieres at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, in St. Petersburg, Russia
- Dec 19 US recognizes independence of Hawaii
Authors
Civil Rights Activists
Inventors
Kings
Revolutionaries
Scientists