Directory

1843 CE

Victoria, British Columbia, is founded by the Hudson's Bay Company as a trading post and fort. Margaret Fuller's "The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women" appears in The Dial magazine in the United States. Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea's notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 25 – Paulet Affair: Lord George Paulet occupies the Kingdom of Hawaii in the name of Great Britain.source
  • March 8 – The Danish government re-establishes the Althing in Iceland as an advisory body, by royal decree.source
  • May 4 – Natal is proclaimed a British colony.source
  • May 23 – Chile takes possession of the Strait of Magellan.source
  • June 6 – In Barbados, Samuel Jackman Prescod is the first non-white person elected to the House of Assembly.source
  • November 28 – Hawaii is recognized as an independent nation by the United Kingdom and France. The holiday is celebrated annually as La Ku'oko'a (Independence Day).source
  • December 13 – Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.source
  • In Asia, the House of Jamalullail is established in the state of Perlis Darul Sunnah (formally as Perlis Indera Kayangan) after separation from the state of Kedah.source

Conflict & Security

  • February 3 – Uruguayan Civil War: Argentina supports Oribe of Uruguay, and begins a siege of Montevideo.source
  • February – Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa captures the fort and town of Riffa after the rival branch of the family fails to gain control of the Riffa Fort and flees to Manama. Shaikh Mohamed bin Ahmed is killed at the battle, called the Battle of Hunayniya.source
  • March 24 – Battle of Hyderabad: The Bombay Army, led by Major General Sir Charles Napier, defeats the Talpur Mirs, securing Sindh as a province of British India.source
  • June 17 – In New Zealand, a posse of British settlers sent to arrest Māori chief Te Rauparaha clash with members of his Ngāti Toa tribe, resulting in 26 deaths.source
  • July – Margaret Fuller's "The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women" appears in The Dial magazine in the United States.source
  • September 15 (Sept. 3, O.S.) – A Popular uprising in Athens, Greece, including citizens and military captains, demands from King Otto a liberal Constitution from the state, which has been governed since independence (1830) by various domestic and foreign business interests.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 6 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island.source
  • April 16 or 17 – A group of 24 West Indian Moravians from Jamaica and Antigua, recruited by the Danish minister and Basel missionary, Andreas Riis, arrive in Christiansborg (Osu), Gold Coast, now Ghana, to set up schools and Presbyterian churches in the country.source
  • July 25 – Père Antoine Désiré Mégret, a Capuchin missionary, purchases the land that will become Abbeville, Louisiana for $900, a town founded by descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia.source
  • August 15 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world still intact, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.source
  • September 21 – The crew of schooner Ancud, including John Williams Wilson, takes possession of the Strait of Magellan on behalf of the Chilean government.source
  • October 30 – Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean settlement in the strait of Magellan, is founded.source
  • November 17 – The city of Shanghai opens for trade with foreigners for the first time, welcoming a party of traders from the United Kingdom.source
  • Kurdish leader Bedir Khan Beg launched an expedition against the Assyrians in the Hakkari region.Thousands of Assyrians were massacred during the campaign.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 20 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná is appointed by the Emperor, Dom Pedro, as the leader of the Brazilian Council of Ministers, although the office of Prime Minister of Brazil will not be officially created until 1847.source
  • March 21 – The world does not end, contrary to the first prediction by American preacher William Miller.source
  • May 18 – In Edinburgh, the Free Church of Scotland is disrupted from the Church of Scotland.source
  • September 4 – Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil marries Dona Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, in a state ceremony in Rio de Janeiro Cathedral.source
  • October 3 – Elling Eielsen is ordained as the first Norwegian Lutheran minister in the United States.source
  • December 9 – Bishop's University is founded as Bishop's College by Bishop George Jehoshaphat Mountain in Lennoxville, Quebec, for the education of members of the Church of England.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 13 – Catawba County, North Carolina is created, and its first court is held in Mathias Barringer Jr.'s house.source
  • March 15 – Victoria, British Columbia, is founded by the Hudson's Bay Company as a trading post and fort.source
  • March 25 – Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under the River Thames and the world's first bored underwater tunnel, is opened in London for pedestrians.source
  • May 22 – The first major wagon train headed for the American Northwest sets out with 1,000 pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.source
  • June 21 – Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Gold-Bug" begins serialization in American newspapers.source
  • July 19 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's is launched from Bristol; it will be the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.source
  • September – Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea's notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.source
  • December – The world's first Christmas cards, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London from the artist John Callcott Horsley, are sent.source
  • The steam powered rotary printing press is invented, by Richard March Hoe in the United States.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 11–14 – Eta Carinae flares, to become the second-brightest star.source
  • August 1 – Brazil becomes the second country, after Great Britain, to issue nationally valid postage stamps, with the release of its Bull's Eye series.source
  • August 19 – Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat" is first published in The Saturday Evening Post.source
  • October 16 – Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical book Fear and Trembling is first published, in Denmark.source
  • October 16 – Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton discovers the calculus of quaternions and deduces that they are non-commutative.source
  • December 19 – Charles Dickens's novella A Christmas Carol is first published in London, England. Released on December 19, it sells out by Christmas Eve.source
  • December 21 – The first total solar eclipse of Saros 139 occurs over southern Asia.source
  • The Quaker magazine The Friend is first published in London.source
  • James Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat.source

Climate & Environment

  • February 8 – The 1843 Guadeloupe Earthquake hits the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, killing 1,500–5,000 people.source
  • November 25 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, and kills 69 people in the village of Bronte.source

Culture & Society

  • January 3 – The Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms (海國圖志, Hǎiguó Túzhì) compiled by Wei Yuan and others, the first significant Chinese work on the West, is published in China.source
  • February 6 – The Virginia Minstrels perform the first minstrel show, at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.source
  • February 11 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata premieres at La Scala in Milan.source
  • February 14 – The event that will inspire The Beatles' 1967 song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is held in England.source
  • March 16 – The city of Petrópolis is founded by the government of Brazil.source
  • April 7 – The Indian Slavery Act, 1843 removes legal support for slavery within the territories of the East India Companysource
  • September 2 – The Economist newspaper is first published in London (preliminary issue dated August).source
  • Saint Louis University School of Law becomes the first law school west of the Mississippi River.source
  • Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is published in The Pioneer, a Boston magazine.source
  • Serial publication of Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit begins in London; in the July chapters, he lands his hero in the United States.source

Births

  • January 8 – Karl Eduard Heusner, Vice-Admiral of the German Imperial Navy (d. 1891)source
  • January 8 – Frederick Abberline, Chief Inspector of the London Metropolitan Police, investigator in the Jack the Ripper murders (d. 1929)source
  • March 14 – Léon Dehon, French Roman Catholic priest, founder of Priests of the Sacred Heart (d. 1925)source
  • April 13 – Thomas Pennington Lucas, Scottish-born Australian medical practitioner, naturalist, author, philosopher and utopianist (d. 1917)source
  • April 25 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, third child of Queen Victoria (d. 1878)source
  • April 29 – Pedro Américo, Brazilian novelist, poet, scientist, art theorist, essayist, philosopher, politician and professor (d. 1905)source
  • May 30 – Louis Boehmer, German-American agronomist (d. 1896)source
  • June 9 – Bertha von Suttner, Austrian writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1914)source
  • June 13 – Adolf Neuendorff, German American composer (d. 1897)source
  • July 7 – Camillo Golgi, Italian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1926)source
  • August 1 – Robert Todd Lincoln, American politician, businessman, first son of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln (d. 1926)source
  • August 10 – Joseph McKenna, American politician, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1926)source
  • August 11 – Louis Gathmann, German American inventor (d. 1917)source
  • August 17 – Mariano Rampolla, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (d. 1913)source

Deaths

  • January 11 – Francis Scott Key, American songwriter of The Star-Spangled Banner (b. 1779)source
  • February 13 – Nathaniel Chipman, United States federal judge (b. 1752)source
  • March 21 – Robert Southey, English poet (b. 1774)source
  • March 21 – Guadalupe Victoria, 1st President of Mexico (b. 1786)source
  • April 17 – Samuel Morey, American inventor (b. 1762)source
  • May 28 – Noah Webster, American lexicographer (b. 1758)source
  • June 7 – Friedrich Hölderlin, German writer (b. 1770)source
  • July 2 – Samuel Hahnemann, German physician (b. 1755)source
  • August – Sequoyah, Native American silversmith, creator of the Cherokee syllabary (b. c. 1767)source
  • September 16 – Ezekiel Hart, Canadian entrepreneur, politician (b. 1767 or 1770)source
  • October 6 – Sir Archibald Campbell, 1st Baronet, British army general (b. 1769)source
  • November 10 – John Trumbull, American painter (b. 1756)source
  • November – Esther Leach, English-Indian actress and director (b. 1809)source
  • December 18 – Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch, British Governor-General of India (b. 1748)source