Directory

1816 CE

The Gorkha War between the United Kingdom and Nepal is ended after more than a year by the ratification of the Treaty of Sugauli, with Nepal ceding about one-third of its territory to British Indian control. Battle of Seven Oaks: The Hudson's Bay Company is defeated by the North West Company, near Winnipeg, Canada. The United Kingdom formally annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the southern Atlantic Ocean, ruling it from the Cape Colony.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • March 1 – The Gorkha War between the United Kingdom and Nepal is ended after more than a year by the ratification of the Treaty of Sugauli, with Nepal ceding about one-third of its territory to British Indian control.source
  • March 16 – U.S. Secretary of State James Monroe is nominated by a caucus of Democratic-Republican Party members of Congress, to be its party's representative in the U.S. presidential election; Monroe receives 65 votes, and Secretary of War William H. Crawford receives 54 votes.source
  • March 22 – The United States signs a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, acknowledging that it will return land in Alabama and Georgia that had been illegally ceded to the U.S. in 1814 by the Creek Nation. General and future U.S. president Andrew Jackson, refuses to honor the treaty, and uses the controversy as a justification for removing Indians from the southeastern United States.source
  • March 29–April 10 – The Second Bank of the United States obtains its charter.source
  • May 8 – Divorce is abolished in France by the Chambre introuvable, after having been permitted following the French Revolution.source
  • June 4 (N.S.) (May 23 O.S.) – The Governorate of Estonia of the Russian Empire emancipates its peasants from serfdom.source
  • July 9 – The United Provinces of South America (today Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil) declares independence from Spain.source
  • August 12–24 – The Treaty of St. Louis, between the United States and the Council of Three Fires tribes, is signed in St. Louis.source
  • August 14 – The United Kingdom formally annexes the Tristan da Cunha archipelago in the southern Atlantic Ocean, ruling it from the Cape Colony.source
  • September 6 – King Louis XVIII dissolves the Chambre introuvable, the legislature that had been elected after the Second Bourbon Restoration re-established the old monarchy.source
  • November 1–December 3 – 1816 United States presidential election: James Monroe defeats Rufus King.source
  • December 11 – Indiana is admitted as the 19th U.S. state.source
  • December 12 – The thrones of Sicily and Naples are merged into the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, under King Ferdinand I.source
  • Saint Pierre and Miquelon resettled.source

Conflict & Security

  • June 19 – Battle of Seven Oaks: The Hudson's Bay Company is defeated by the North West Company, near Winnipeg, Canada.source
  • August 27 – Bombardment of Algiers: An Anglo-Dutch fleet forces Omar Agha, Dey of Algiers to free Christian slaves.source
  • November 10 – The British troop transport Harpooner, returning from Quebec to Britain, is wrecked at Cape Pine on Newfoundland (island) with the loss of 208 of the 385 people on board.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • April – Banjul, capital of the Gambia, is founded as a trading post named Bathurst.source
  • December 9–21 – The American Colonization Society is established, to support the emigration of free African Americans to Africa.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 6 – (December 25, 1815 on the Russian Julian calendar): Tsar Alexander I of Russia signs an order, expelling the Jesuits from St. Petersburg and Moscow.source
  • March 30–April 11 – In Philadelphia, the African Methodist Episcopal Church is established by Richard Allen and other African-American Methodists, the first such denomination in the U.S. completely independent of White churches.source
  • September 3 – Pope Pius VII sends a directive to Stanisław Bohusz Siestrzeńcewicz, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mohilev, advising Siestrzeńcewicz not to continue the Russian Bible Society's plans to circulate the Scriptures written in the Russian language, commenting that "if the Sacred Scriptures were allowed in the vulgar tongue, more detriment than benefit would arise."source

Economy & Finance

  • April 28 – The French Caisse des dépôts et consignations, a public investment body, is created by Louis XVIII.source
  • Mutuelle de L'assurance contre L'incendie ("L'Anciente Mutuelle"), predecessor of Axa, the global insurance and financial services company, is founded in Rouen, France.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • Robert Stirling patents his Stirling engine, at this time known as "Stirling's air engine", in the United Kingdom.source
  • E. Remington and Sons, the firearm and later typewriter manufacturing company, is founded in the United States.source

Health & Medicine

  • René Laennec invents the stethoscope.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 9 – Sir Humphry Davy's Davy lamp is first tested underground as a coal mining safety lamp, at Hebburn Colliery in northeast England;source
  • January 17 – Fire nearly destroys the city of St. John's, Newfoundland.source
  • July 2 – The French frigate Medusa runs aground off the coast of Senegal, with 140 lives lost in the botched rescue that takes weeks, leading to a scandal in the French government.source

Culture & Society

  • January 9 – Ludwig van Beethoven wins the custody battle for his nephew Karl.source
  • February 20 – Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville premières at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.source
  • March 21 – The Institut de France is reorganized by King Louis XVIII into four royal academies: a revived Académie française; the Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres; the Royal Academy of Sciences; and the Académie des Beaux-Arts.source
  • May 2 – Leopold of Saxe-Coburg (later King of the Belgians) marries Charlotte Augusta, daughter of the Prince Regent, at Carlton House in London.source
  • June 16 – The Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace is founded in London.source
  • October 21 – Penang Free School is founded by Rev. Sparke Hutchings, on the island of Penang (in modern-day Malaysia).source
  • November 19 – The University of Warsaw is established.source

Births

  • January 30 – Nathaniel P. Banks, American politician, general (d. 1894)source
  • February 25 – Matías Ramón Mella, Dominican revolutionary and Founding Father of the Dominican Republic (d. 1864)source
  • March 21 – Most Rev. Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos, Roman Catholic archbishop and Mexican politician who served as regent during the Second Mexican Empire, 1863-1864 (d. 1891)source
  • April 5 – Samuel Freeman Miller, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1890)source
  • April 21 – Charlotte Brontë, English novelist, poet (d. 1855)source
  • June 14 – Priscilla Cooper Tyler, de facto First Lady of the United States (d. 1889)source
  • June 19 – William Henry Webb, American industrialist, philanthropist (d. 1899)source
  • July 14 – Arthur de Gobineau, French diplomat, author (d. 1882)source
  • July 31 – George Henry Thomas, American general (d. 1870)source
  • September 11 – Carl Zeiss, German maker of optical instruments (d. 1888)source
  • November 3 – Jubal Early, American Confederate general (d. 1894)source
  • November 4 – Stephen Johnson Field, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1899)source
  • November 29 – Morrison Waite, American politician and Chief Justice of the United States (d. 1888)source
  • December 13 – Werner von Siemens, German inventor, industrialist (d. 1892)source

Deaths

  • January 2 – Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, French chemist, politician (b. 1737)source
  • January 5 – George Prevost, British general, colonial administrator (b. 1767)source
  • February 10 – Friedrich Karl Ludwig, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck, dies and is succeeded by Friedrich Wilhelm, his son and founder of the House of Glücksburg.source
  • February 22 – Adam Ferguson, Scottish philosopher, historian (b. 1723)source
  • March 19 – Filippo Mazzei, Italian physician, friend of Thomas Jefferson (b. 1730)source
  • March 31 – Francis Asbury, American Methodist bishop (b. 1745)source
  • May 4 – Samuel Dexter, American lawyer, politician, 4th United States Secretary of War, 3rd United States Secretary of the Treasury (b. 1761)source
  • June 12 – Pierre Augereau, Marshal of France, duc de Castiglione (b. 1757)source
  • July 5 – Dorothea Jordan, Irish-born actress, mistress of the future King William IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1761)source
  • July 7 – Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Irish-born playwright and politician (b. 1751)source
  • July 14 – Francisco de Miranda, Venezuelan revolutionary (b. 1750)source
  • September 27 – Edward Charles Howard, English chemist, chemical engineer (b. 1774)source
  • November 8 – Gouverneur Morris, American statesman (b. 1752)source
  • December 30 – Louis Henri Loison, French general (b. 1771)source