Directory

1817 CE

The American School for the Deaf opens in Hartford, Connecticut. The General Convention of the Episcopal Church founds the General Theological Seminary, while meeting in New York City. The University of Michigan is founded in the U.S., initially near the intersection of Bates Street and Congress Street in Detroit. It will move its campus to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1837.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • March 3 – The U.S. Congress passes a law to split the Mississippi Territory, after Mississippi drafts a constitution, creating the Alabama Territory, effective in August.source
  • March 3 – On his last day in office, U.S. President James Madison vetoes John C. Calhoun's Bonus Bill as unconstitutional after it has passed both houses of the U.S. Congress. Stephen Minicucci, Internal Improvements and the Union, 1790–1860, Studies in American Political Development (2004), 18: p.160-185, (2004), Cambridge University Presssource
  • April 29 – The Rush–Bagot Treaty is signed between the United States and the British Empire, limiting the number of warships on the Great Lakes between the U.S. and Canada in the aftermath of settling the War of 1812.source
  • June 22 – King Ferdinand VII of Spain, by royal decree, makes the production and sale of tobacco a legal endeavor in Cuba, thus sparking the birth of the Cuban cigar industry.source
  • August 15 – By act of the U.S. Congress (March 3), the Alabama Territory is created by splitting the Mississippi Territory in half, on the day the Mississippi constitution is drafted, four months before Mississippi becomes a U.S. state.source
  • October 30 – The independent government of Venezuela is established by Simón Bolívar.source
  • December 10 – Mississippi is admitted as the 20th U.S. state, formerly the Mississippi Territory.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 19 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, starts crossing the Andes from Argentina, to liberate Chile and then Peru.source
  • February 12 – Battle of Chacabuco: Argentine and Chilean soldiers of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata defeat the Spanish royalist troops in what is now Chile, marking the turning point in the war against European rule of South America.source
  • June 25 – A large riot breaks out in Copenhagen Prison, and the army is sent to quell it.source
  • September 11 – The Great Rebellion of 1817-18 begins in Sri Lanka.source
  • November 5 – Third Anglo-Maratha War breaks out with the Battle of Khadki.source
  • November 20 – The first Seminole War begins in Florida.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 1 – Sailing through the Sandwich Islands, Otto von Kotzebue discovers New Year Island.source
  • April 3 – "Princess Caraboo" appears in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire in England, and convinces the local residents that she had come to their town from a far-off island kingdom of "Javasu" in the Indian Ocean. A Portuguese sailor named Manuel Enes soon arrives and says that he speaks her mysterious language, and translates her story of an escape from pirates. After publicity, Princess Caraboo is discovered to be a servant girl from the village of Witheridge in Devon.source
  • November 22 – Frédéric Cailliaud discovers the old Mons Smaragdus emerald mines at Sikait, Egypt.source

Religion & Belief

  • March 21 – The flag of the Pernambucan Revolt is publicly blessed by the dean of Recife Cathedral, Brazil.source
  • May 27 – The General Convention of the Episcopal Church founds the General Theological Seminary, while meeting in New York City.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • April 15 – The American School for the Deaf opens in Hartford, Connecticut.source
  • June 12 – German inventor Karl Drais drives his dandy horse ("Draisine" or Laufmaschine), the earliest form of bicycle, in Mannheim.source
  • July 4 – At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins in the U.S. to link the Hudson River to Lake Erie, with the long-range goal of making the first navigable waterway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, and reducing the amount of time and costs for transporting goods westward past the Appalachian mountains.source
  • November 3 – The Bank of Montreal opens in Montreal.source

Science & Discovery

  • October 17 – The frigate is launched in Bombay for the British Royal Navy. She will still be afloat two centuries later.source

Health & Medicine

  • June 12 – Tradesman Jeffery Sedwards establishes the Skibbereen Abstinence Society in Ireland, considered the first organisation devoted to teetotalism in Europe.source
  • The first cholera pandemic originates in Bengal, reaching Calcutta by September.source
  • A typhus epidemic occurs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.source

Climate & Environment

  • April 15 – An earthquake strikes Palermo in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.source
  • July 4 – 1817 Santiago del Estero earthquake. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake hits Argentina's Santiago del Estero Province.source
  • August 23 – An earthquake near the site of the ancient Greek city of Helike results in 65 deaths.source

Culture & Society

  • January 20 – Ram Mohan Roy and David Hare found Hindu College, Calcutta, offering instructions in English on Western subjects, including other European languages.source
  • August 22 – The town of Araraquara, Brazil, is founded.source
  • August 26 – The University of Michigan is founded in the U.S., initially near the intersection of Bates Street and Congress Street in Detroit. It will move its campus to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1837.source
  • October 9 – The University of Ghent opens in Belgium.source
  • October 31 – Emperor Ninkō accedes to the throne of Japan.source

Births

  • March 6 – Princess Clémentine of Orléans, daughter of King Louis Philippe I of France, mother of Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria (d. 1907)source
  • March 9 – Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, Dominican independence activist and founding father of the Dominican Republic (d. 1861)source
  • April 15 – Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford (d. 1893)source
  • June 30 – Joseph Dalton Hooker, English botanist (d. 1911)source
  • July 12 – Henry David Thoreau, American philosopher (d. 1862)source
  • July 29 – Ivan Aivazovsky, Armenian-Russian painter (d. 1900)source
  • August 3 – Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen, Austrian general (d. 1895)source
  • August 4 – Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, 29th United States Secretary of State (d. 1885)source
  • August 24 – Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian writer (d. 1875)source
  • September 6 – Mihail Kogălniceanu, 3rd Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1891)source
  • October 17 – Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (Bahadaur), Indian founder of the Two Nation Theory for a future Pakistan (d. 1898)source
  • November 3 – Leonard Jerome, American entrepreneur, grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill (d. 1891)source
  • November 12 – Bahá'u'lláh, Persian founder of the Bahá'í Faith (d. 1892)source
  • November 30 – Theodor Mommsen, German writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1903)source

Deaths

  • January 11 – Timothy Dwight IV, American educator, theologian (b. 1752)source
  • January 16 – Alexander J. Dallas, American statesman, financier (b. 1759)source
  • June 13 – Richard Lovell Edgeworth, Anglo-Irish, politician writer and inventor (b. 1744)source
  • June 18 – Leonard Neale, American Catholic bishop (b. 1746)source
  • June 24 – Thomas McKean, American lawyer, signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1734)source
  • July 14 – Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, French writer (b. 1766)source
  • July 24 – Karađorđe Petrović, Serb leader of the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire, founder of the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty (b. 1768)source
  • August 7 – Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, French politician (b. 1739)source
  • October 15 – Tadeusz Kościuszko, exiled Polish general, nationalist (b. 1746)source
  • November 6 – Princess Charlotte of Wales, heir presumptive to the British throne (b. 1796)source
  • November 6 – Princess Charlotte of Wales, the daughter and only child of the Prince Regent George and granddaughter of King George III, dies hours after giving birth to a stillborn son. Her death, tremendously mourned by the British, throws the succession to the British throne into doubt.source
  • November 14 – Policarpa Salavarrieta, Colombian spy, revolutionary who worked for the independence of Colombia (b. 1795)source
  • December 12 – Emperor Tekle Giyorgis I of Ethiopia, (b. c. 1751)source
  • December 15 – Usman dan Fodio, founder of Sokoto caliphate (b. 1754)source