Year '1839' ('
MDCCCXXXIX') was a
common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the
Gregorian Calendar (or a
common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower
Julian calendar).
Events of 1839
January - March
★
January 9 - The
French Academy of Sciences announces the
Daguerreotype photography process.
★
January 19 -
British East India Company captures
Aden
★
January 20 - In the
Battle of Yungay,
Chile defeats a
Peruvian and
Bolivian alliance.
★
February 11 - The
University of Missouri is established, becoming the first public university west of the
Mississippi River.
★
February 24 -
William Otis receives a
patent for the
steam shovel.
★
March 5 -
Longwood University founded,
Farmville,
Virginia.
★
March 7 -
Baltimore City College, the third public high school in the United States, is established in
Baltimore,
Maryland.
★
March 23 - First recorded use of "OK"
oll korrect (''
Boston Morning Post'').
★
March 26 - The first
Henley Royal Regatta is held
★
March 29 - British naturalist
Charles Darwin marries his cousin
Emma Wedgwood.
April - June
★
April - Sultan Mahmud II of Turkey declares war on Mehemet Ali of Egypt in revenge.
★
April 9 - The world's first commercial electric
telegraph line comes into operation alongside the
Great Western Railway line from
Paddington station to
West Drayton.
★
April 19 - The
Treaty of London establishes
Belgium as a
kingdom.
★
June 22 -
Louis Daguerre receives patent for his camera (commercially available by September with the prize of 400 Francs)
July - September
★
July 1
★
★ Slave rebellion of
Amistad
★
★ Change of
emperor of the
Ottoman Empire from
Mahmud II (
1808-1839) to
Abd-ul-Mejid (1839-
1861).
★
July 23 - British forces capture the fortress city of
Ghazni,
Afghanistan in the
Battle of Ghazni during the
First Anglo-Afghan War
★
August 8 - The
Beta Theta Pi fraternity was founded in
Oxford, Ohio
★
August 19 - French government gives
Louis Daguerre a pension and gives the
daguerreotype "for the whole world"
★
August 23 - British forces seized
Hong Kong as a base, as it prepared to wage war against
Qing China. The ensuing 3-year conflict would become known as the
First Opium War.
October - December
★
October 3 - In the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies a railway between
Napoli and
Portici (7.4km length) has been inaugurated by H.M. the King
Ferdinand II of
Bourbon. It is the very first railway in the Italian peninsula.
★
November 11 - The
Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington,
Virginia.
★
November 17 -
Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, ''
Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio'' opens in
Milan.
★
November 25 - Disastrous
cyclone slams
India with terrible winds and a giant 40 foot
storm surge, wiping out the port city of
Coringa. 300,000 people die.
★
November 27 - In
Boston, Massachusetts, the
American Statistical Association is founded
★
October 1839 - Joseph Smith Jr. went to ask the President of the United States for help from the mobs. The President replied saying, "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you. If I take up for you I shall lose the vote of Missouri."
Undated
★ In the United States, the first state law permitting women to own property is passed in
Jackson, Mississippi.
★ The first
parallax measurement of the distance to
Alpha Centauri is published by
Thomas Henderson.
★
Michael Faraday publishes
"Experimental Researches in Electricity" clarifying the true nature of
electricity.
★ Excavation on
Copan begins.
★ Half of the
Limburg province of
Belgium was added to the
Netherlands, since 1839 there is a
Belgian Limburg and
Dutch Limburg.
★
Abd al-Kader declares a
jihad against the
French.
★
Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia is founded.
★
John Frost,
Zephaniah Williams and
William Jones are transported to
Australia for their part in a
Chartist rally in
Newport, Monmouthshire.
Ongoing events
★
First Opium War (1839-
1842)
Births
January - June
★
January 19 -
Paul Cézanne, French painter (d.
1906)
★
February 11 -
Josiah Willard Gibbs American physicist and chemist (d.
1903)
★
February 22 -
Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher (d.
1906)
★
March 9 -
Phoebe Knapp, American hymn writer (d.
1908)
★
March 16 -
John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist (d.
1922)
★
March 21 -
Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (d.
1881)
★
April 12 -
Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian explorer (d.
1888)
★
April 30 -
Floriano Peixoto, Brazilian president (d.
1895)
★
June 17 -
Arthur Tooth,
Anglican clergyman prosecuted for
Ritualist practices in the
1870s (d.
1931)
★
June 21 -
Machado de Assis, Brazilian author (d.
1908)
July - December
★
July 8 -
John Davison Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist (d.
1937)
★
July 17 -
Ephraim Shay, inventor of the
Shay locomotive (d.
1916)
★
November 20 -
Christian Wilberg, German painter (d.
1882)
★
December 5 -
George Armstrong Custer, American cavalry officer (d.
1876)
★
December 12 -
Caroline Lake Ingalls, née Quiner, mother of author
Laura Ingalls Wilder (d.
April 20,
1924)
: ''See also .''
Deaths
January - June
★
February 7 -
Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b.
1799)
★
April 1 -
Benjamin Pierce, U.S. politician (b.
1757)
★
April 2 -
Hezekiah Niles, American editor and publisher (b.
1777)
★
April 11 -
John Galt, Scottish novelist (b.
1779)
★
April 22 -
Denis Davydov, Russian general and poet (b.
1784)
★
May 17 -
Archibald Alison, Scottish author (b.
1757)
July - December
★
August 10 -
John St Aubyn, British fossil collector (b.
1758)
★
August 22 -
Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (b.
1789)
★
August 28 -
William Smith, English geologist and cartographer (b.
1769)
★ October -
William Light, British Army colonel and the first Surveyor-General of
South Australia (b.
1786)
★
November 15 -
William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (b.
1754)
★
December 3 -
Frederick VI, King of Denmark, ex-King of Norway (b.
1768)
★
December 15 -
Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, court councillor and minister to Alexander I (b.
1756)
: ''See also .''
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
