Directory

1823 CE

(approx.) – The first officially recognised gold is found in Australia, by surveyor James McBrien at Fish River, near Bathurst, New South Wales, predating the Australian gold rushes. Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel (according to what he writes in 1838). According to tradition, William Webb Ellis invents the sport of rugby football at Rugby School in England.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 28 – José de la Riva Agüero is sworn as the first president of Peru following a coup against the government of José de la Mar. He only rules 115 days.source
  • March 19 – Emperor Agustín de Iturbide of Mexico abdicates, thus ending the short-lived First Mexican Empire.source
  • May 5 – Emperor Pedro I of Brazil inaugurates Brazil's first Assembleia Geral, with 50 Senators and 102 Deputies.source
  • May 7 – Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov is appointed as Governor-General of Novorossiya (New Russia), the portion of Russian Empire bordering the Black Sea (in modern days it constitutes southern regions of Ukraine).source
  • June 23 – Peruvian president José de la Riva Agüero is impeached by Congress. He rebels and establishes a short-lived rival government in Trujillo.source
  • July 1 – The Congress of Central America declares absolute independence from Spain, Mexico and any other foreign nation, including North America, and a republican system of government is established.source
  • July 16 – José Bernardo de Tagle elected as the second president of Peru by the Peruvian Congress.source
  • August 4 – Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an 11-man police force, that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division.source
  • November 12 – The first Constitution of Peru is proclaimed, albeit it is almost immediately annulled by Simón Bolívar.source
  • December 2 – James Monroe first introduces the Monroe Doctrine in the State of the Union address, declaring that any European attempts to recolonize the Americas would be considered a hostile act towards the United States.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 22 – By secret treaty signed at the Congress of Verona, the Quintuple Alliance gives France a mandate to invade Spain for the purpose of restoring Ferdinand VII (who has been captured by armed revolutionary liberals) as absolute monarch of the country.source
  • April 7 – French forces, the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis", cross the Spanish border at the Bidasoa River.source
  • April 10 – Siege of Pamplona begins in Navarre as French troops besiege the city's garrison.source
  • May 23 – The rebel Spanish government withdraws from Madrid to Seville following the French advance.source
  • May 25 – The Duke of Angoulême, commander of the invading French forces, establishes a regency in Madrid on behalf of Ferdinand VII who remains a captive of the Spanish government.source
  • August 18 – Demerara rebellion of 1823: In the British colony of Demerara-Essequibo (modern-day Guyana in South America), an insurrection of 10,000 black slaves begins; it is suppressed after three days, but hundreds of suspects are executed in the reprisals that follow.source
  • August 31 – Battle of Trocadero: French infantry of the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis" capture the fort of Trocadero and turn its guns on Cádiz.source
  • September 17 – Pamplona surrenders to French forces after a five-month siege.source
  • September 23 – First Anglo-Burmese War: Burmese forces attack the British on Shapura, an island close to Chittagong.source
  • September 30 – Cádiz surrenders to the French and Ferdinand VII of Spain is restored to his throne, immediately repealing the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812. Despite French advice, he begins an era of repression against his opponents known as the Ominous Decade.source
  • November 7 – General Rafael del Riego is executed in Madrid for high treason.source
  • The first Anglo-Ashanti War begins.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 23 – In Paviland Cave on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial (although Buckland dates it as Roman).source
  • February 20 – Explorer James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W: the southernmost position any ship has reached at this time.source
  • March 15 – Sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reports the existence of the island of New South Greenland near Antarctica.source
  • August 24 – Hugh Glass gets mauled by a sow grizzly while on a fur trapping expedition in the Missouri Territory and has to crawl 200 miles for help.source
  • October 22 – Simón Bolívar writes to Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia to release his friend the explorer Aimé Bonpland under threat of invasion. Rodríguez never responds to the letter.source
  • British expedition up the St. Clair River; site of Corunna surveyed as a potential capital for Upper Canada.source

Religion & Belief

  • August 16 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia draws up a secret "manifesto", designating his second younger brother Nikolai to succeed him, bypassing Nikolai's older brother, Grand Duke Konstantin. The existence of the manifesto is revealed on Alexander's death in 1825.source
  • September 10 – Simón Bolívar is named dictator of Peru.source
  • September 22 – Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel (according to what he writes in 1838).source
  • September 28 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Annibale della Genga is elected Pope Leo XII.source

Science & Discovery

  • February 15 (approx.) – The first officially recognised gold is found in Australia, by surveyor James McBrien at Fish River, near Bathurst, New South Wales, predating the Australian gold rushes.source
  • Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • February 11 – Carnival tragedy of 1823: About 110 boys are killed during a stampede at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta, Malta.source
  • July 15 – The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome is almost completely destroyed by fire.source
  • November 3 – An explosion at the Rainton Colliery Company's Plain Pit mine at Chilton Moor in the north-east of England, kills at least 57 coal miners.source

Culture & Society

  • February 3 – Gioachino Rossini's opera Semiramide is first performed, at La Fenice in Venice.source
  • February 3 – Jackson Male Academy, precursor of Union University, opens in Alabama.source
  • February 10 – The first worldwide carnival parade takes place in Cologne, Prussia.source
  • April 13 – Franz Liszt, 11, gives a concert in Vienna, after which he is personally congratulated by Ludwig van Beethoven.source
  • May 9 – Russian author Alexander Pushkin begins work on his verse novel Eugene Onegin.source
  • May 25 – The Catholic Association, a campaign for Catholic emancipation within the United Kingdom, begins in Ireland at a meeting of 13 people at a bookseller's house on Capel Street in Dublin.source
  • June 5 – Raffles Institution is established (as the Singapore Institution) by the founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles.source
  • July 28 – The first theatrical adaptation of the Frankenstein story, Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, opens at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London. On August 29, Mary Shelley attends a performance, the only version of her novel she will ever see.source
  • August 1 – William Pitt Amherst arrives in Calcutta with Lady Amherst to become the new Governor-General of India.source
  • August 5 – The Royal Hibernian Academy is founded in Dublin.source
  • October 5 – The Lancet medical journal is founded by Thomas Wakley in London.source
  • November – According to tradition, William Webb Ellis invents the sport of rugby football at Rugby School in England.source
  • The Oxford Union is founded as a student debating society in England.source
  • Work begins on the British Museum in London, designed by Robert Smirke, and the Altes Museum in Berlin, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.source

Births

  • January 8 – Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist, biologist (d. 1913)source
  • February 15 – Li Hongzhang, Chinese politician, general and diplomat (d. 1901)source
  • February 28 – Ernest Renan, French philosopher, philologist, historian and writer (d. 1892)source
  • April 1 – Simon Bolivar Buckner, American soldier, politician and Confederate soldier (d. 1914)source
  • April 25 – Abdülmecid I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1861)source
  • May 9 – Sir Frederick Weld, 6th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1891)source
  • May 26 – William Pryor Letchworth, American businessman, philanthropist, founder of Letchworth State Park, New Yorksource
  • July 9 (date uncertain) – Phineas Gage, improbable American head injury survivor (d. 1860)source
  • August 3 – Thomas Francis Meagher, American Civil War general (d. 1867)source
  • August 5 – Eliza Tibbets, mother of the California orange industry (d. 1898)source
  • August 13 – Goldwin Smith, English historian (d. 1910)source
  • November 25 – Henry Wirz, Swiss-born American Confederate military officer, prisoner-of-war camp commander (d. 1865)source
  • December 22 – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American Unitarian minister, abolitionist (d. 1911)source
  • December 27 – Sir Mackenzie Bowell, 5th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1917)source

Deaths

  • January 22 – John Julius Angerstein, Russian-born English merchant, insurer and art collector (b. 1735)source
  • January 26 – Edward Jenner, English physician, medical researcher (b. 1749)source
  • February 7 – Ann Radcliffe, English writer (b. 1764)source
  • March 14 – Charles François Dumouriez, French general (b. 1739)source
  • March 14 – John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, British Royal Navy admiral (b. 1735)source
  • March 18 – Henry Brockholst Livingston, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (b. 1757)source
  • June 19 – William Combe, English writer, poet and adventurer (b. 1742)source
  • August 18 – John Treadwell, the fourth Governor of Connecticut (b. 1745)source
  • August 20 – Pope Pius VII dies after a reign of more than 23 years that began on March 14, 1800; he is remembered for crowning Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France.source
  • August 22 – Lazare Carnot, French general, politician and mathematician (b. 1753)source
  • September 11 – David Ricardo, English economist (b. 1772)source
  • September 17 – Abraham-Louis Breguet, Swiss horologist, inventor (b. 1747)source
  • September 28 – Charlotte Melmoth, English-born American actress (b. 1749)source
  • December 3 – Giovanni Battista Belzoni, Italian explorer, pioneer archaeologist of Egypt (b. 1778)source