Directory

1820 CE

And 6 – The Missouri Compromise becomes law, allowing admission of Missouri and Maine, as slave and free states respectively, as U.S. states. Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, receives his First Vision in Palmyra, New York. A Constitutionalist insurrection breaks out at Oporto, Portugal.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 1 – A constitutionalist military insurrection at Cádiz leads to the summoning of the Spanish Parliament to meet on March 7, becoming the nominal beginning of the "Trienio Liberal" in Spain.source
  • January 8 – The General Maritime Treaty of 1820 is signed between the sheikhs of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah (later constituents of the Trucial States) in the Arabian Peninsula and the United Kingdom.source
  • January 29 – King George IV becomes the new British monarch upon the death his father George III after 59+ years on the throne. The elder George's death ends the 9-year period known as the British Regency.source
  • February 6 – Capture of Valdivia: Lord Cochrane occupies Valdivia in the name of the Republic of Chile.source
  • March 3 and 6 – The Missouri Compromise becomes law, allowing admission of Missouri and Maine, as slave and free states respectively, as U.S. states.source
  • March 9 – King Ferdinand VII of Spain accepts the new constitution, beginning the Trienio Liberal.source
  • March 15 – Maine is admitted as the 23rd U.S. state.source
  • June 12 – Delegates in St. Louis in the Missouri Territory approve a proposed state constitution, proclaiming that they "do mutually agree to form and establish a free and independent republic, by the name of 'The State of Missouri'."source
  • June 12 – Élie Decazes, leader of the opposition in France's Chamber of Deputies, introduces the "Law of the Double Vote", a proposal to add to the existing legislators by creating 172 seats that would be "selected by special electoral colleges" made up of the wealthiest 25% of voters in each of France's departments.source
  • October 9 – Guayaquil declares independence from Spain.source
  • October 25–November 20 – The Congress of Troppau is convened between the rulers of Russia, Austria and Prussia.source
  • December 3 – James Monroe is re-elected, virtually unopposed, in the 1820 United States presidential election. One elector, William Plumer of New Hampshire, casts his vote for John Quincy Adams in order to protest the administration of Monroe and Daniel Tompkins while also establishing Adams as a contender for the election in 1824.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 13 – The Assassination of the Duke of Berry takes place in Paris. The Duke of Berry, nephew of Louis XVIII, is stabbed to death while attending the Paris Opera.source
  • February 14 – Emperor Minh Mạng starts to rule in Vietnam.source
  • February 20 – A revolt begins against the Spanish crown in Santa María Chiquimula (now in Guatemala).source
  • February 23 – The Cato Street Conspiracy, a plot to assassinate Britain's Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, and his Cabinet is thwarted when police in London arrest 13 plotters after being warned by an informant.source
  • March 28 – An attempted coup d'état against Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia fails after a plot by Fulgencio Yegros and Pedro Juan Caballero.source
  • April 1 – A proclamation, signed "By order of the Committee of Organisation for forming a Provisional Government", begins the "Radical War" in Scotland.source
  • April 12 – Alexander Ypsilantis becomes the leader of Filiki Eteria, a secret organization to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece.source
  • June 29 – The cause of action that will lead to the U.S. Supreme Court case known as The Antelope arises, when a U.S. Treasury cutter captures a ship of the same name, which is transporting 281 Africans who had been captured as slaves, in violation of the U.S. law prohibiting the slave trade.source
  • July 13 – A revolt under Guglielmo Pepe forces Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies to sign a constitution modeled on the Spanish Constitution of 1812.source
  • August 24 – A Constitutionalist insurrection breaks out at Oporto, Portugal.source
  • September 2 – The Daoguang Emperor succeeds to the throne of Qing dynasty China.source
  • September 5 – José Gervasio Artigas flees to Paraguay.source
  • September 15 – Revolution breaks out in Lisbon against John VI of Portugal.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 27 (NS, January 15 OS) – An Imperial Russian Navy expedition, led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in Vostok with Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, sights the Antarctic ice sheet.source
  • January 30 – British Royal Navy captain Edward Bransfield, an Irishman, becomes the first person to positively identify Antarctica as a land mass.source
  • February 6 – A group of 86 free African American colonists sail from New York City to Freetown, Sierra Leone, with a goal of creating a home for freed American slaves, to be called "Liberia".source
  • May 11 – , the ship that will later take young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage to examine the "origin of the species", is launched at Woolwich Dockyard.source
  • May 20 – At age 14, John Stuart Mill sets out on his formative trip to the south of France, staying with Samuel Bentham.source
  • November 17 – American seal hunter Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the third known explorer to sight Antarctica. The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.source

Economy & Finance

  • Anchor coinage is first struck in silver in London denominated in fractions of the Mauritian dollar for use in British colonies.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • July 26 – Union Chain Bridge opens across the River Tweed, between England and Scotland. Its span of 449 ft (137 m) is the world's longest for a vehicular bridge at this time.source
  • August 1 — The Regent's Canal through to the London Docks is opened.source
  • Construction work is completed on the Citadelle Laferrière in Haiti, the largest fortification in the Americas, built on the orders of Henri Christophe to defend the country against potential French reoccupation.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 10 – The Astronomical Society of London is founded.source
  • April 8 – The statue of the Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Milos, c. 150 BC-125 BC) is discovered on the Greek island of Milos, by a peasant named Yorgos Kentrotas.source
  • April 21 – Hans Christian Ørsted discovers the relationship between electricity and magnetism.source

Crime & Justice

  • May 1 – The last judicial decapitation in the United Kingdom is meted out to the principals in the Cato Street conspirators after their public hanging for treason in London. Legally, the post-hanging beheading is a mitigation of the last sentence in Britain of "hanging, drawing and quartering".source
  • 18,957 black slaves leave Luanda, Angola.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • March 3 – A fire in Guangzhou in China burns 15,000 houses and kills an undetermined number of people.source
  • November 20 – After the sinking of the American whaleship Essex of Nantucket, by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific Ocean, the survivors are left afloat in three small whaleboats. They eventually resort, by common consent, to cannibalism to allow some to survive.source

Climate & Environment

  • Mount Rainier erupts over modern-day Seattle.source

Culture & Society

  • March 26 – Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, receives his First Vision in Palmyra, New York.source
  • April 15 – King William I of Württemberg marries his cousin, Pauline Therese, in Stuttgart.source
  • June 5 – Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged wife of King George IV, returns to England after six years abroad in Italy, where she has been carrying on an affair. Since ascending the throne in January, the King had sought to receive his government's approval for a divorce.source
  • July 20 – Saint Cronan's Boys' National School opens in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland under the title Bray Male School. Its notable pupils will include President of Ireland Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh.source

Births

  • January 10 – Louisa Lane Drew, actress, prominent theater manager, grandmother of the Barrymores (d. 1897)source
  • February 17 – Henri Vieuxtemps, Belgian violinist and composer (d. 1881)source
  • March 3 – Henry D. Cogswell, American temperance movement pioneer who endowed a number of Cogswell fountains (d. 1900)source
  • March 4 – Alexander Worthy Clerk, Jamaican Moravian teacher and missionary (d. 1906)source
  • March 9 – Samuel Blatchford, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1893)source
  • March 20 – Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Romania's first reigning Domnitor (d. 1873)source
  • April 27 – Herbert Spencer, English philosopher (d. 1903)source
  • May 12 – Florence Nightingale, English nurse (d. 1910)source
  • May 23 – Lorenzo Sawyer, 9th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of California (d. 1891)source
  • July 5 – William John Macquorn Rankine, Scottish physicist, engineer (d. 1872)source
  • July 23 – Julia Gardiner Tyler, First Lady of the United States (d. 1889)source
  • September 17 – Earl van Dorn, American Confederate general (d. 1863)source
  • October 6 – Jenny Lind, Swedish soprano (d. 1887)source
  • December 21 – William H. Osborn, American railroad executive (d. 1894)source

Deaths

  • January 23 – Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, member of British Royal Family and father of Queen Victoria (b. 1767)source
  • February 5 – William Drennan, Irish physician, poet and radical politician (b. 1754)source
  • March 11 – Benjamin West, Anglo-American painter of historical scenes (b. 1738)source
  • April 8 – Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, Scottish-born philanthropist (b. 1771)source
  • April 20 – James Morris III, Continental Army officer from Connecticut (b. 1752)source
  • June 6 – Henry Grattan, Irish politician (b. 1746)source
  • June 19 – Sir Joseph Banks, English naturalist and botanist (b. 1743)source
  • June 20 – Manuel Belgrano, Argentine politician, general in the Independence War (b. 1770)source
  • September 3 – Benjamin Latrobe, Anglo-American architect (b. 1764)source
  • September 16 – Nguyễn Du, Vietnamese poet (b. 1766)source
  • October 4 - Claudine Picardet, French chemist, mineralogist, meteorologist and scientific translator (b. 1735)source
  • October 15 – Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Austrian field marshal (b. 1771)source
  • December 25 – Joseph Fouché, French statesman (b. 1759)source
  • December 29 – Princess Pauline of Anhalt-Bernburg, German regent and social reformer (b. 1769)source