Directory

1802 CE

Indigenous Australian Pemulwuy, a leader of the resistance to European settlement of Australia, is shot dead by Henry Hacking. Éleuthère Irénée du Pont founds E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the modern DuPont chemical company, as a gunpowder manufactory near Wilmington, Delaware. Gia Long captures Hanoi, completing his unification of Vietnam.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • March 25–27 – The Treaty of Amiens between the French Republic and the United Kingdom ends the War of the Second Coalition. The treaty also ends the French Revolutionary Wars.source
  • April 26 – A general amnesty signed by Napoleon allows all but about 1,000 of the most notorious émigrés of the French Revolution to return to France as part of a conciliatory gesture to make peace with the various factions of the Ancien Régime that ultimately consolidates his own rule.source
  • May 20 – By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution.source
  • July 5 – Parliamentary elections begin in the United Kingdom, with voting continuing until August 28; the Tories, led by Henry Addington, win control of the House of Commons.source
  • August 2 – In a plebiscite, Napoleon Bonaparte is confirmed as the First Consul of France.source
  • September 11 – The Italian region of Piedmont becomes a part of the French First Republic.source
  • November 16 – The newly elected British Parliament is inaugurated by King George III, who tells the members, "In my intercourse with foreign powers, I have been actuated by a sincere disposition of the maintenance of peace," but adds that "My conduct will be invariably regulated by a due consideration of the actual situation of Europe, and by a watchful solicitude for the permanent welfare of my people."source

Conflict & Security

  • January 5 – Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens, claiming they are at risk of destruction during the Ottoman occupation of Greece; the first shipment departs Piraeus on board Elgin's ship, the Mentor, "with many boxes of moulds and sculptures", including three marble torsos from the Parthenon.source
  • February 3 – Leclerc and the first 5,000 of 20,000 troops arrive at Cap-François (modern Cap-Haïtien).source
  • April 21 – About 12,000 Wahhabi Sunnis under the command of Abdul-Aziz bin Muhammad, the second ruler of the First Saudi State attack and sack Karbala, kill between 2,000 and 5,000 inhabitants and plunder the tomb of Husayn ibn Ali, grandson of Muhammad and son of Ali ibn Abi Talib.source
  • May – Madame Marie Tussaud first exhibits her wax sculptures in London, having been commissioned, during the Reign of Terror in France, to make death masks of the victims.source
  • June 8 – Haitian revolutionary Toussaint Louverture is seized by French troops and imprisoned at the Fort de Joux.source
  • July 22 – Gia Long captures Hanoi, completing his unification of Vietnam.source
  • October 2 – War ends between Sweden and Tripoli. The United States also negotiates peace, but war continues over the size of compensation.source
  • October 15 – French Army General Michel Ney enters Switzerland with 40,000 troops, on orders of Napoleon Bonaparte.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 29 – The French Saint-Domingue expedition (40,000 troops) led by General Charles Leclerc (Bonaparte's brother-in-law) lands in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti) in an attempt to restore colonial rule following the Haitian Revolution in which Toussaint Louverture (a black former slave) has proclaimed himself Governor-General for Life and established control over Hispaniola.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 16 – The United States Army Corps of Engineers is re-established, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York is established under its management, opening on July 4.source
  • June 1 – The United States Patent and Trademark Office is established within the Department of State.source
  • July 19 – Éleuthère Irénée du Pont founds E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the modern DuPont chemical company, as a gunpowder manufactory near Wilmington, Delaware.source
  • July 31 – William Wordsworth, leaving London for Dover and Calais with his sister Dorothy, witnesses the early morning scene which he captures in his sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge".source

Science & Discovery

  • February – The Rosetta Stone is brought to England by Colonel Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner, who arrives at Portsmouth on the captured French frigate L'Egyptiane.source
  • March 28 – H. W. Olbers discovers the asteroid Pallas.source
  • April 10 – The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India begins with the measurement of a baseline near Madras.source

Health & Medicine

  • April 12 — Beethoven leaves Vienna for a small nearby Austrian village named Heiligenstadt where he would cope with his declining mental and physical health including his growing deafness. He would stay until October and there he would write an unsent letter to his brothers called the Heiligenstadt Testament. In the letter, Beethoven contemplates suicide but it was his passion for the art of music that prevented him so.source
  • December 2 – The Health and Morals of Apprentices Act in the United Kingdom comes into effect, regulating conditions for child labour in factories. Although poorly enforced, it pioneers a series of Factory Acts.source

Crime & Justice

  • June 2 – Indigenous Australian Pemulwuy, a leader of the resistance to European settlement of Australia, is shot dead by Henry Hacking.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • October 16 – The port of New Orleans and the lower Mississippi River are closed to American traffic by order of the city's Spanish administrator, Juan Ventura Morales, threatening the economy in the western United States, and prompting the need for the Louisiana Purchase.source
  • November 23 – East Indiaman Vryheid, in the service of the Batavian Republic, is shipwrecked in a gale off Hythe, Kent, in the south of England; only 18 of 472 on board survive.source

Climate & Environment

  • October 26 – A powerful 7.9 earthquake shakes the Romanian district of Vrancea destroying hundreds of buildings, triggering landslides and killing 4 people. This earthquake is considered one of the strongest to have shaken Europe.source

Culture & Society

  • January 15 – Canonsburg Academy (modern-day Washington & Jefferson College) is chartered by the Pennsylvania General Assembly.source
  • March 3 – Ludwig van Beethoven publishes his Piano Sonata No. 14, commonly known as the "Moonlight Sonata" (Mondschein), in Vienna; the availability of the sheet music is announced by Giovanni Cappi in the newspaper Wiener Zeitung.source
  • March 11 – The Rosetta Stone is presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London, which in turn presents it to the British Museum.source
  • May 19 – Napoleon establishes the French Legion of Honour (Légion d'honneur).source
  • June 1 – At Huế, shortly before his conquest of Tonkin, Nguyen Anh is crowned as the Emperor Gia Long, the first ruler of the Nguyễn dynasty in Vietnam.source
  • June – The first account of Thomas Wedgwood's experiments in photography is published by Humphry Davy in the Journal of the Royal Institution in London. Since a fixative for the image has not yet been developed, the early photographs quickly fade.source

Births

  • February 6 – Charles Wheatstone, English physicist, inventor (d. 1875)source
  • February 11 – Lydia Maria Child, American abolitionist author (d. 1880)source
  • February 16 – Phineas Quimby, American physician (d. 1866)source
  • April 4 – Dorothea Dix, American activist (d. 1887)source
  • April 9 – Elias Lönnrot, Finnish folklorist, philologist who created the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala (d. 1884)source
  • June 12 – Harriet Martineau, British social theorist, writer (d. 1876)source
  • July 5 (June 23 O.S.) – Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (d. 1855)source
  • July 24 – Alexandre Dumas, French author (d. 1870)source
  • July 26 – Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (d. 1855)source
  • August 5 – Niels Henrik Abel, Norwegian mathematician (d. 1829)source
  • September 19 – Lajos Kossuth, Hungarian politician (d. 1894)source
  • November 9 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, American abolitionist (d. 1837)source
  • November 19 – Solomon Foot, American politician (d. 1866)source
  • December 12 – Jakob Joseph Matthys, Swiss Catholic priest (d. 1866)source

Deaths

  • February 2 – Welbore Ellis, 1st Baron Mendip, British statesman (b. 1713)source
  • February 3 – Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes, Spanish statesman, writer (b. 1723)source
  • February 26 – Esek Hopkins, American Revolutionary War admiral (b. 1718)source
  • April 18 – Erasmus Darwin, English physician and botanist (b. 1731)source
  • April 26 – Edmund Nelson (clergyman), English priest (b. 1722)source
  • May 22 – Martha Washington, first First Lady of the United States (b. 1731)source
  • July 6 – Daniel Morgan, American pioneer, Congressman from Virginia, and general (b. 1736)source
  • July 15 – John de Verdion, London-based bookseller and language instructor (b. 1740s)source
  • July 22 – Xavier Bichat, French anatomist and pathologist (b. 1771)source
  • July 24 – Joseph Ducreux, French noble, portrait painter, pastelist, miniaturist, and engraver (b. 1735)source
  • August 12 – Louis Lebègue Duportail French military leader in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War (b. 1743)source
  • September 26 – Jurij Vega, Slovenian mathematician, physicist, and soldier (b. 1754)source
  • November 16 – André Michaux, French botanist (b. 1746)source
  • December 31 – Francis Lewis, signer of the United States Declaration of Independence (b. 1713)source