Directory

1826 CE

James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans is first printed, by a publisher in Philadelphia. 15 – The Auspicious Incident: Mahmud II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, crushes the last mutiny of janissaries in Istanbul. The Burney Treaty is signed in Bangkok between the United Kingdom and the Rattanakosin Kingdom of Siam, securing British power in southeast Asia.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 8 – Unitarian Bernardino Rivadavia becomes the first President of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, now Argentina.source
  • February 24 – The Treaty of Yandabo ends the First Anglo-Burmese War. Britain gains Assam, Manipur, Rakhine and Tanintharyi.source
  • May 28 – The Emperor Pedro I of Brazil abdicates as King of Portugal.source
  • June 20 – The Burney Treaty is signed in Bangkok between the United Kingdom and the Rattanakosin Kingdom of Siam, securing British power in southeast Asia.source
  • June 22 – The Pan-American Congress of Panama is opened in Panama City by Simon Bolivar as an attempt to unify the republics of the Americas that have recently declared independence from Spain, or to at least make a federation to agree on a common defense policy and create a common military. The Congress lasts for 23 days without an agreement.source
  • July 15 – The Congress of Panama adjourns after 24 days without an agreement on creating a federation of Latin American nations.source
  • December 16 – Benjamin W. Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and declares himself ruler of the Republic of Fredonia.source
  • December 25 – Major Edmund Lockyer arrives at King George Sound to take possession of the western part of Australia, establishing a settlement near Albany.source
  • The British East India Company colony of the Straits Settlements is established.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 18 – In India, the Siege of Bharatpur ends in British victory as Lord Combermere and Michael Childers defeat the princely state of Bharatpur, part of the modern-day Indian state of Rajasthan.source
  • April 10 – The Third Siege of Missolonghi ends and is followed by the massacre of thousands of Greek defenders by the Ottoman besiegers.source
  • June 14–15 – The Auspicious Incident: Mahmud II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, crushes the last mutiny of janissaries in Istanbul.source
  • June 21 – Greek War of Independence: The attempted Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani begins.source
  • July 4 – Former U.S. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both die on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence.source
  • July 25 (O.S.: July 13) – Five leaders of the Decembrist revolt of 1825 in Russia (Pyotr Kakhovsky, Pavel Pestel, poet Kondraty Ryleyev, Sergey Muravyov-Apostol and Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin) are hanged in Senate Square, Saint Petersburg, where they had launched their attempted coup d'état. Other conspirators begin their journey into exile in Siberia.source
  • December 21 – American settlers in Mexican Texas begin the Fredonian Rebellion, making the first attempt to secede from Mexico. The Republic of Fredonia will survive for less than six weeks.source
  • December 25 – The Eggnog Riot breaks out at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York during the early morning hours.source

Religion & Belief

  • February 11 – Swaminarayan writes the Shikshapatri, an important text within Swaminarayan Hinduism.source
  • Mahmud II's council orders the janissaries to drill in the European manner.source

Economy & Finance

  • November 3 – The Paris Stock Exchange opens at the Palais de la Bourse.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 30 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, built by engineer Thomas Telford as the first major suspension bridge in world history, is opened between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales.source
  • April 1 – In the U.S., Samuel Morey patents an internal combustion engine.source
  • May 5 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed by George Stephenson and Joseph Locke, destined to open as the world's first purpose-built passenger railway operated by steam locomotives in 1830, receives authorisation by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.source
  • September 21 – Construction of the Rideau Canal begins in Canada.source
  • October 1 – The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway opens in Scotland.source
  • October 7 – The first train operates over the Granite Railway in Massachusetts.source

Science & Discovery

  • February 23 – Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky develops non-Euclidean geometry (independently of János Bolyai).source
  • Aniline is first isolated, from the destructive distillation of indigo, by Otto Unverdorben.source

Crime & Justice

  • March 1 – A male Indian elephant, Chunee, which was brought to London in 1811, is killed at a menagerie after running amok the week before, killing one of his keepers. After arsenic and shooting fail, the animal is stabbed to death.source
  • March 7 – Ellen Turner, a wealthy 15-year-old heiress from Cheshire in England, is kidnapped by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. On May 14, Wakefield, his brother and a servant are sentenced to three years' imprisonment for the crime. Wakefield later becomes politically active in the colonisation of New Zealand.source
  • July 26 – Cayetano Ripoll becomes the last person to be executed by the Spanish Inquisition's successor at its last auto-da-fé, held in Valencia.source
  • August 18 – Scottish explorer Alexander Gordon Laing becomes the first European to reach Timbuktu but is murdered there on September 26.source
  • September 13 – William Morgan (anti-Mason) of Batavia, New York, disappears mysteriously after being released from the jail in Canandaigua and agreeing to accompany his benefactor, a Mr. Loton Lawson.He is never seen in public again, and a number of witnesses will indicate later that on September 20, a man resembling Morgan was tied up and thrown into the Niagara River following a meeting of the Masonic Society.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 17 – The Ballantyne printing business in Edinburgh (Scotland) crashes, ruining novelist Sir Walter Scott as a principal investor. He undertakes to repay his creditors from his writings. His publisher, Archibald Constable, also fails.source

Climate & Environment

  • August 28 – The town of Crawford Notch, New Hampshire suffers a landslide; those killed include all seven members of the Willey Family, after whom Mount Willey is named.source

Culture & Society

  • January 15 – The French newspaper Le Figaro begins publication in Paris, initially as a satirical weekly.source
  • February 4 – James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans is first printed, by a publisher in Philadelphia.source
  • February 11 – University College London is founded, under the name University of London.source
  • February 13 – The American Temperance Society is founded.source
  • March – Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major, Op. 130 is first performed and is premiered by the Schuppanzigh Quartet. In its original form, the piece has Grosse Fuge (later Op. 133) as the final movement.source
  • July – Ludwig van Beethoven puts the finishing touches on the String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor, Op. 131, the jewel in the crown of his late string quartets.source
  • August 6 — The 17 year old composer Felix Mendelssohn completes the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.source
  • August 10 – The first Cowes Regatta is held in the Isle of Wight, in the U.K.source

Births

  • January 24 – William Daniel, American temperance movement leader (d. 1897)source
  • January 27 – Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russian writer (d. 1889)source
  • February 3 – Walter Bagehot, English economist and journalist (d. 1877)source
  • February 16 – Julia Grant, First Lady of the United States (d. 1902)source
  • March 24 – Matilda Joslyn Gage, American feminist (d. 1898)source
  • March 29 – Wilhelm Liebknecht, German journalist, politician (d. 1900)source
  • April 3 – Cyrus K. Holliday, cofounder of Topeka, Kansas, first president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (d. 1900)source
  • April 23 – Victoriano Sánchez Barcáiztegui, Spanish Navy officer and hero (d. 1875)source
  • May 7 – Varina Davis, First Lady of the Confederate States of America (d. 1906)source
  • June 24 – George Goyder, surveyor-general of South Australia (d. 1898)source
  • July 31 – William S. Clark, American chemist, 3rd President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College (d. 1886)source
  • August 7 – August Ahlqvist, Finnish professor, poet, scholar of the Finno-Ugric languages, author, and literary critic (d. 1889)source
  • September 13 – Zeng Laishun, Chinese interpreter and educator (d. 1895)source
  • October 24 – Léopold Victor Delisle, French medievalist and Administrator General of the Bibliothèque Nationalesource

Deaths

  • January 23 – Abraham Woodhull, Patriot spy during the American Revolutionary War (b. 1750)source
  • March 10 – Dom João VI, King of Portugal and former Emperor of Brazil, dies six days after he had been served dinner while visiting Jerónimos Monastery. An investigative autopsy 174 years later will discover that he had been killed by arsenic poisoning. King João's, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, sails back to Portugal and briefly reigns as King Pedro IV of Portugal, before turning over the Portuguese throne to his daughter, Maria.source
  • May 4 – Sebastián Kindelán y O'Regan, Spanish colonial governor in Cuba (b. 1757)source
  • May 4 – Thomas Jeffrey, English-born bushranger, serial killer and cannibal in Van Diemen's Land, hanged (b. c.1791)source
  • May 16 – Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna, consort of Alexander I of Russia (b. 1779)source
  • June 3 – Nikolay Karamzin, Russian language reformer (b. 1766)source
  • June 5 – Carl Maria von Weber, German composer (b. 1786)source
  • June 7 – Joseph von Fraunhofer, German optician (b. 1787)source
  • July 4 – Thomas Jefferson, 83, 3rd President of the United States (b. 1743), at 12:50 p.m. at his home near Charlottesville, Virginia.source
  • July 8 – Luther Martin, delegate to the American Constitutional Convention (b. 1746)source
  • August 2 – George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea, English cricketer (b. 1752)source
  • August 28 – Józef Zajączek, Polish general, politician (b. 1752)source
  • October 25 – Philippe Pinel, French physician (b. 1745)source
  • December 11 – Queen-Empress Maria Leopoldina, consort of Pedro IV of Portugal & I of Brazil (b. 1797)source