Directory

1833 CE

A mob in Jackson County, Missouri, destroys the printing office of the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints containing what becomes known as The Doctrine and Covenants. The settlement of Chicago is established by 350 settlers at the estuary of the Chicago River in the U.S. state of Illinois. The Parliament of the United Kingdom votes to pass the Factory Acts, limiting child labour.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 3 – The United Kingdom reasserts British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean.source
  • April 1 – General Antonio López de Santa Anna is elected President of Mexico by the legislatures of 16 of the 18 Mexican states. During his frequent absences from office to fight on the battlefield, Santa Anna turns the duties of government over to his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías.source
  • May 6 – The Ottoman Empire promulgates a firman ratifying the Peace Agreement of Kütahya, bringing an end to the Egyptian-Ottoman War.source
  • May 25 – The Chilean Constitution of 1833 is promulgated.source
  • July 8 – The Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi creates an alliance between the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire.source
  • August 26 – The Canton of Basel is partitioned by the Swiss Tagsatzung to create the two half-cantons of Basel-City and Basel-Country.source
  • August 28 – The British Slavery Abolition Act 1833, beginning the process of giving slaves in much of the British Empire their freedom, receives royal assent, with an effective date of August 1, 1834. A £20 million fund is established to compensate slaveowners.source
  • August 29 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom votes to pass the Factory Acts, limiting child labour.source
  • Greece recaptures the Acropolis of Athens.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 6 – Prince Otto Friedrich Ludwig of Bavaria arrives at the port of Nafplio to assume the title King Othon the First of Greece.source
  • May 6 – In Alexandria, Virginia, an attack is made on U.S. President Andrew Jackson.source
  • May 10 – The Le Van Khoi revolt breaks out in southern Vietnam against Emperor Minh Mang, who has desecrated the deceased mandarin Le Van Duyet.source
  • June 9 – Dubai secedes from Abu Dhabi.source
  • July 5 – Liberal Wars: The forces of Queen Maria II of Portugal win the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, defeating the supporters of her uncle, King Miguel, who usurped the throne in 1828.source
  • September 29 – Three-year-old Isabella II becomes Queen of Spain, under the regency of her mother, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies. Her uncle Don Carlos, Conde de Molina challenges her claim, beginning the First Carlist War.source
  • November 12–13 – A very spectacular occurrence of the Leonid meteor shower is observed all over North America, and is the inspiration for the song "Stars Fell on Alabama".source

Exploration & Expansion

  • August 12 – The settlement of Chicago is established by 350 settlers at the estuary of the Chicago River in the U.S. state of Illinois.source
  • August 18 – The Canadian ship sets out from Pictou, Nova Scotia on a 25-day passage of the Atlantic Ocean, primarily under steam, to Gravesend in England.source

Religion & Belief

  • February 16 – The United States Supreme Court hands down its landmark decision of Barron v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore.source
  • July 14 – At Oxford University, John Keble preaches a sermon against the Church Temporalities (Ireland) Act 1833. Keble's sermon, published afterwards published as National Apostasy, is traditionally considered as the beginning of the Oxford Movement of High Church Anglicans.source
  • Madras College in St Andrews, Scotland.source

Economy & Finance

  • American healthcare brand McKesson Corporation established as a partnership.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • May 6 – In Germany, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber obtain permission to build an electromagnetic telegraph in Göttingen.source
  • June 5 – Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, both pioneers in developing a computer, are introduced to each other by Mary Somerville.source

Science & Discovery

  • The dawn of biochemistry: The first enzyme, diastase, is discovered by Anselme Payen.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • May 11 – At least 170 people—and perhaps as many as 265—are killed when the British brig Lady of the Lake sinks off Cape St. Francis at Newfoundland. Only 15 people survive.source
  • July 20 – A mob in Jackson County, Missouri, destroys the printing office of the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints containing what becomes known as The Doctrine and Covenants.source
  • August 31 – The chartered ship Amphitrite sinks off Boulogne-sur-Mer while transporting 108 British female convicts and 12 children from Woolwich in England to New South Wales in what is now Australia. All of the passengers die, along with 13 of the 16 crew, leaving 3 survivors.source

Climate & Environment

  • June 29 – An earthquake at Fort Nisqually is experienced by William Fraser Tolmie; his journal entry records the first written eyewitness account of an earthquake in the Puget Sound region.source
  • September 6 – At least 6,000 people are killed when an 8.0 magnitude earthquake shakes the Chinese province of Yunnan destroying buildings, homes and temples.source
  • November 25 – An 8.7 magnitude earthquake strikes Sumatra in what is now Indonesia.source

Culture & Society

  • April 18 – Over 300 delegates from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland travel to the office of the Prime Minister, the Earl Grey, to call for the immediate abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.source
  • August 1 – King William's College opens on the Isle of Man.source
  • September 2 – Oberlin College is founded in the U.S. at Oberlin, Ohio.source
  • October 20 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, publishes his oft-quoted poem, Ulysses.source
  • December 18 – The national anthem of the Russian Empire, God Save the Tsar!, is first performed.source
  • December – The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded.source
  • H.R.H. Prince Mongkut of Siam founds the Dhammayut Buddhist reform movement.source
  • Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan.source

Births

  • January 1 – Robert Lawson, New Zealand architect (d. 1902)source
  • January 5 – Eugene W. Hilgard, German-American "Father of soil science" (d. 1916)source
  • January 28 – Charles George Gordon, British army officer, administrator (d. 1885)source
  • February 3 – Abu Bakar of Johor, Malaysian sultan (d. 1895)source
  • February 6 – J. E. B. Stuart, American Confederate general (d. 1864)source
  • February 11 – Melville Fuller, 8th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court (d. 1910)source
  • February 25 – John St. John, American temperance movement leader (d. 1916)source
  • March 20 – Daniel Dunglas Home, Scottish medium (d. 1886)source
  • June 1 – John Marshall Harlan, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1911)source
  • June 4 – Garnet Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, British field marshal (d. 1913)source
  • July 7 – Félicien Rops, Belgian artist (d. 1898)source
  • July 14 – Alfred Biliotti, Italian Levantine British consular officer and archaeologist (d. 1915)source
  • September 2 – Henry Hotze, Swiss American Confederate propagandist (d. 1887)source
  • December 20 – Samuel Mudd, American doctor to John Wilkes Booth (d. 1883)source

Deaths

  • January 16 – Banastre Tarleton, British general, politician (b. 1754)source
  • January 16 – Nannette Streicher, German piano maker, composer, music educator and writer (b. 1769)source
  • January 23 – Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth, British admiral (b. 1757)source
  • March 13 – William Bradley, British naval officer, cartographer (b. 1758)source
  • June 1 – Oliver Wolcott Jr., American lawyer, politician, 2nd United States Secretary of the Treasury, 24th Governor of Connecticut (b. 1760)source
  • July 11 – Yagan, Noongar indigenous Australian warrior (killed) (b. c. 1795)source
  • July 19 – George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland, British landowner (b. 1758)source
  • July 20 – Ninian Edwards, American politician, Governor of and Senator from Illinois (b. 1775)source
  • July 29 – William Wilberforce, English politician, abolitionist (b. 1759)source
  • September 7 – Hannah More, English religious writer, Romantic, and philanthropist (b. 1745)source
  • October 4 – Maria Jane Jewsbury, English poet and literary reviewer (b. 1800)source
  • November 16 – John McMillan, Presbyterian minister, missionary in Pennsylvania (b. 1752)source
  • December 14 – Kaspar Hauser, the well known and mysterious German youth, is fatally stabbed. He dies three days later on December 17.source
  • December 17 – Kaspar Hauser, German youth of uncertain origin (stabbed) (b. 1812?)source