Directory

1837 CE

Queen Victoria moves from Kensington Palace into Buckingham Palace, the first reigning British monarch to make this, rather than St James's Palace, as her London home. The Tsarskoye Selo Railway, the first in the Russian Empire, opens between Saint Petersburg Tsarskoselsky station and Tsarskoye Selo (modern-day Pushkin), engineered by Franz Anton von Gerstner. In what will become the world's leading consumer goods brand, Procter & Gamble is founded in Ohio in the United States.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 26 – Michigan becomes the 26th state admitted to the United States.source
  • June 5 – The city of Houston is incorporated by the Republic of Texas.source
  • December 23 – The Slave Compensation Act is signed into law by the government of the United Kingdom. This pays a substantial amount of money, constituting 40% of the Treasury’s tax receipts at the time, to former enslavers but nothing to those formerly enslaved.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 4 – Seminoles attack Fort Foster in Florida.source
  • May 10 – The Panic of 1837 begins in New York City.source
  • June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.source
  • August 16 – The Dutch colonial forces sack the fortress of Bonjol, Indonesia, ending the Padri War.source
  • September 19 – First Carlist War: Battle of Aranzueque – The liberal forces loyal to Queen Isabel II of Spain are victorious, ending the Carlist campaign known as the Expedición Real.source
  • October 13 – The French army under Sylvain Charles Valée captures the city of Constantine in French Algeria after a siege of three days.source
  • November 6 Louis-Joseph Papineau begins the Lower Canada Rebellion in the Quebec city of Montreal.source
  • December 4 – Samuel Lount begins the Upper Canada Rebellion by marching with rebel followers to Toronto, one month after a similar rebellion against British rule had begun in Lower Canada.source
  • December 29 – The Caroline Affair, on the Niagara River, becomes the basis for the Caroline test for anticipatory self-defence in international relations.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • July – Charles W. King sets sail on the American merchant ship Morrison. In the Morrison incident, he is turned away from Japanese ports with cannon fire.source

Religion & Belief

  • March 1 – The Congregation of Holy Cross is formed in Le Mans, France, by the signing of the Fundamental Act of Union, which legally joins the Auxiliary Priests of Blessed Basil Moreau, CSC, and the Brothers of St. Joseph (founded by Jacques-François Dujarié) into one religious association.source
  • November 20 – The Prussian king has Clemens August Droste zu Vischering, archbishop of Cologne, arrested over differences concerning the treatment of mixed protestant-catholic marriages. The archbishop remains in custody for over a year.source

Economy & Finance

  • April 12 – The conglomerate of Procter & Gamble has its origins, when British-born businessmen William Procter and James Gamble begin selling their first manufactured goods (soap and candles) in Cincinnati, Ohio.source
  • October 31 – In what will become the world's leading consumer goods brand, Procter & Gamble is founded in Ohio in the United States.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • May – W. F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patent an electrical telegraph system.source
  • September 28 – Samuel Morse files a caveat for a patent for the telegraph.source
  • October 30 – The Tsarskoye Selo Railway, the first in the Russian Empire, opens between Saint Petersburg Tsarskoselsky station and Tsarskoye Selo (modern-day Pushkin), engineered by Franz Anton von Gerstner.source
  • The first electric locomotive built is a miniature battery locomotive constructed by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and powered by galvanic cells (batteries).source
  • Atlanta is fixed as the terminal of the Western and Atlantic Railroad; it is originally named Marthasville.source

Science & Discovery

  • Louis Daguerre develops the daguerreotype.source

Crime & Justice

  • February – Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist begins publication in serial form in London.source
  • November 7 – American abolitionist and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy is killed by a pro-slavery mob, at his warehouse in Alton, Illinois.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • April 24 – The great fire in Surat, a city of India, begins. Over a three-day period, the fire kills more than 500 people and destroys more than 9,000 houses.source
  • December 17 – Fire breaks out in the Winter Palace, in Saint Petersburg, Russia killing 30 guards.source

Climate & Environment

  • January 1 – The destructive Galilee earthquake causes thousands of deaths in Ottoman Syria.source
  • September 26 – The destructive "Racer's hurricane" sweeps across the Caribbean, northeastern Mexico, the Republic of Texas and the Gulf Coast of the United States and lasts until October 9, after killing at least 105 people.source
  • November 17 – An earthquake in Valdivia, south-central Chile, causes tsunamis that led to significant destruction along Japan's coast.source

Culture & Society

  • February 25 – In Philadelphia, the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded, as the first institution for the higher education of black people in the United States.source
  • July 13 – Queen Victoria moves from Kensington Palace into Buckingham Palace, the first reigning British monarch to make this, rather than St James's Palace, as her London home.source
  • November 8 – Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, later Mount Holyoke College, is founded in South Hadley, Massachusetts.source
  • The Olney Friends School is founded in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States.source
  • The 5th century B.C. Berlin Foundry Cup is acquired for the Antikensammlung Berlin in Germany.source

Births

  • March 1 – William Dean Howells, American writer, historian, editor, and politician (d. 1920)source
  • March 23 – Sir Charles Wyndham, English actor, theatrical manager (d. 1919)source
  • April 29 – Georges Ernest Boulanger, French general, politician (d. 1891)source
  • May 27 – Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (d. 1876)source
  • June 28 – Petre P. Carp, 2-time prime minister of Romania (d. 1919)source
  • August 1 – (bapt.) Mary Harris Jones ("Mother Jones"), Irish-American labor leader (d. 1930)source
  • September 2 – James H. Wilson, Union Army major general in the American Civil War (d. 1925)source
  • September 24 – Mark Hanna, United States Senator from Ohio (d. 1904)source
  • October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the American Civil War, social reformer (k. 1863)source
  • November 1 – John Leary, American businessman, politician, and civic leader (d. 1905)source
  • November 23 – Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1923)source
  • December 24 – Cosima Wagner, wife of German composer Richard Wagner (d. 1930)source
  • December 24 – Empress Elisabeth of Austria, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I (d. 1898)source
  • December 26 – George Dewey, American admiral (d. 1917)source

Deaths

  • January 20 – John Soane, British architect (b. 1753)source
  • January 23 – John Field, Irish composer (b. 1782)source
  • February 10 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian author, wound received in duel (b. 1799)source
  • February 23 – Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, German Protestant theologian, pastor and radical, suicide (b. 1791)source
  • March 31 – John Constable, English painter (b. 1776)source
  • June 14 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian writer (b. 1798)source
  • June 20 – Queen Victoria, 18, accedes to the throne of the United Kingdom, on the death of her uncle King William IV without legitimate heirs (she will reign for more than 63 years). Under Salic law, the Kingdom of Hanover passes to William's brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, ending the personal union of Britain and Hanover which has persisted since 1714.source
  • June 29 – Nathaniel Macon, American politician (b. 1757)source
  • September 7 – Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken, Russian military leader (b. 1752)source
  • October 10 – Charles Fourier, French philosopher (b. 1772)source
  • October 12 – Charles-Marie Denys de Damrémont, French governor-general of French Algeria (killed during the siege of Constantine) (b. 1783)source
  • October 17 – Peter Lebeck, French trapper and namesake of Lebec, California (birth unknown)source
  • October 17 – Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Austrian composer (b. 1778)source
  • November 7 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, American abolitionist (b. 1802)source