Directory

1801 CE

John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States. An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved, when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives. Toussaint Louverture promulgates a reforming constitution for Santo Domingo, declaring himself emperor for life of the entire island of Hispaniola, and nominally abolishing slavery.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 1 – The legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland is completed under the Act of Union 1800, bringing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the abolition of the Parliament of Ireland.source
  • January 3 – Toussaint Louverture triumphantly enters Santo Domingo, the capital of the former Spanish colony of Santo Domingo, which has become a colony of Napoleonic France.source
  • January 31 – John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States.source
  • February 4 – William Pitt the Younger resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.source
  • February 9 – The Treaty of Lunéville ends the War of the Second Coalition between France and Austria. Under the terms of the treaty, all German territories left of the Rhine are officially annexed by France while Austria also has to recognize the Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics.source
  • February 17 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved, when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.source
  • February 27 – Washington, D.C. is placed under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress.source
  • March 14 – Henry Addington becomes First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, effectively Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.source
  • June 7 – War of the Oranges ends: Portugal and Spain sign the Treaty of Badajoz; Portugal loses the city of Olivenza.source
  • July 7 – Toussaint Louverture promulgates a reforming constitution for Santo Domingo, declaring himself emperor for life of the entire island of Hispaniola, and nominally abolishing slavery.source
  • September 9 – Alexander I of Russia confirms the privileges of the Baltic provinces.source
  • September 30 – The Treaty of London is signed for preliminary peace between the French First Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.source

Conflict & Security

  • April 2 – War of the Second Coalition: First Battle of Copenhagen – The British Royal Navy, under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, forces the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy to accept an armistice. Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson leads the main attack, deliberately disregarding his commander's signal to withdraw. He is created a Viscount on May 19; Denmark-Norway is forced to withdraw from the Second League of Armed Neutrality.source
  • May 6 – French Revolutionary Wars: Action of 6 May 1801 off Barcelona – British Royal Navy brig HMS Speedy, although outmanned and outgunned, captures the 32-gun Spanish frigate El Gamo.source
  • May 10 – The pascha of Tripoli declares war on the United States, by having the flagpole on the consulate chopped down.source
  • June 15 – A bull breaks through barriers at a bullfight in Madrid, killing two people (including the mayor of Torrejón de Ardoz) and injuring a number of other spectators.source
  • June 27 – Siege of Cairo ends: Cairo falls to British troops.source
  • July 6 – First Battle of Algeciras: The French fleet defeats the British fleet.source
  • July 12 – Second Battle of Algeciras: The British fleet defeats the French and Spanish fleets.source
  • August 1 – First Barbary War: Action of 1 August 1801 – United States Navy schooner captures the 14-gun Tripolitan corsair polacca Tripoli off the north African coast, in a single-ship action.source
  • September 2 - Siege of Alexandria: French troops (some 10,000 men) under General Jacques-François Menou surrender to the British after a siege of 17 days. According to the terms, the French are allowed to keep their personal weapons and baggage.source
  • October 17 – A coup d'état is staged in the Batavian Republic.source
  • December 15 – Hadži Mustafa Pasha, Ottoman commander and politician, is assassinated in Belgrade, Sanjak of Smederevo, by Kučuk-Alija.source

Religion & Belief

  • July 18 – Napoleon signs a Concordat with Pope Pius VII.source
  • November 16 – The first edition of the New-York Evening Post is printed.source
  • The Supreme Council, Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction, USA) is founded within Freemasonry.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • December 24 – Cornish engineers Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian demonstrate "Puffing Devil", their steam-powered road locomotive, in Camborne. The trial is successful but Trevithick realizes the limitations of steam power in a road-running vehicle and turns his attention to rail, introducing the world's first steam railway locomotive in 1804.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 1 – Giuseppe Piazzi discovers the asteroid and dwarf planet Ceres.source
  • The first of a continuous series of censuses is held in France.source
  • Ultraviolet radiation is discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter.source

Health & Medicine

  • March 10 – The first census is held in Great Britain. The population of England and Wales is determined to be 8.9 million, with London revealed to have 860,035 residents. 1.5 million people live in cities of 20,000 or more in England and Wales, accounting for 17% of the total English population.source
  • Philippe Pinel publishes Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale; ou la manie, presenting his enlightened humane psychological approach to the management of psychiatric hospitals. Translated into English by D. D. Davis as Treatise on Insanity in 1806, it is influential on both sides of the Atlantic during the nineteenth century.source

Crime & Justice

  • March 23 – Tsar Paul I of Russia is murdered; he is succeeded by his son Alexander I.source
  • September 24 – Joseph Marie Jacquard exhibits his new invention, a loom where the pattern being woven is controlled by punched cards, at the National Exposition in Paris.source
  • Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens.source

Culture & Society

  • April 21 – Ranjit Singh is invested as Maharaja of Punjab.source
  • December 19 – South Carolina College, a precursor to The University of South Carolina, is established in Columbia, South Carolina.source
  • The magnum opus Disquisitiones Arithmeticae of Carl Friedrich Gauss is published.source

Births

  • January 10 – Thierry Hermès, German-born French businessman, founder of Hermès (d. 1878)source
  • January 11 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, Brazilian politician (d. 1856)source
  • January 14 – Jane Welsh Carlyle, Scottish writer, wife of Thomas Carlyle (d. 1866)source
  • February 1 – Thomas Cole, American artist (d. 1848)source
  • March 15 – George Perkins Marsh, American diplomat, philologist and pioneer environmentalist (d. 1882)source
  • May 5 – Pío Pico, last Governor of Alta California (d. 1894)source
  • May 16 – William H. Seward, 24th United States Secretary of State (d. 1872)source
  • June 14 – Heber C. Kimball, American religious leader (d. 1868)source
  • June 30 – Frédéric Bastiat, French philosopher (d. 1850)source
  • July 14 – Johannes Peter Müller, German physiologist, comparative anatomist, ichthyologist, and herpetologist (d. 1858)source
  • July 27 – George Biddell Airy, English mathematician, astronomer (d. 1892)source
  • November 3 – Vincenzo Bellini, Italian composer (d. 1835)source
  • November 13 – Queen Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, queen of Prussia (d. 1873)source
  • December 14 – Joseph Lane, American politician and general, 1st Governor of Oregon (d. 1881)source

Deaths

  • January 11 – Domenico Cimarosa, Italian composer (b. 1749)source
  • February 17 – Princess Philippine Charlotte of Prussia (b. 1716)source
  • March 14 – Margarita "Peggy" Schuyler Van Rensselaer, American socialite, Angelica Schuyler Church's sister (b. 1758)source
  • March 16 – Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Paul I of Russia (b.1783)source
  • March 19 – Ambrosio O'Higgins, 1st Marquis of Osorno, Spanish viceroy of Peru and Governor of the Captaincy General of Chile, father of Bernardo O'Higgins, (b. c. 1720)source
  • March 21 – Battle of Alexandria in Egypt: British troops defeat the French, but the British commander, Sir Ralph Abercromby, dies later of a wound received in the action.source
  • March 25 – Novalis, German poet (b. 1772)source
  • March 28 – Ralph Abercromby, British general (b. 1734)source
  • June 4 – Frederick Muhlenberg, first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (b. 1750)source
  • October 3 – Philippe Henri, marquis de Ségur, Marshal of France (b. 1724)source
  • November 4 – William Shippen, American physician, Continental Congressman (b. 1712)source
  • November 5 – Motoori Norinaga, Japanese philologist and scholar (b. 1730)source
  • November 24 – Franz Moritz von Lacy, Austrian field marshal (b. 1725)source
  • November 24 – Philip Hamilton, son of American soldier and statesman, Alexander Hamilton (b. 1782)source