istoryworld
All Events
The 14-year-old Dom Pedro, son of Pedro I, becomes emperor of Brazil as Pedro II
William Henry Harrison wins the US presidential election as the Whig candidate, but dies 30 days after taking office
US lawyer Richard Henry Dana has immediate popular success with Two Years Before the Mast, his account of his time as a merchant seaman
Herman Melville goes to sea on the whaler Acushnet and spends moe than a year in the south Pacific
The Straits Convention, agreed between the European powers and Turkey, is a concerted attempt to prop up the Ottoman empire
Robert Peel replaces Lord Melbourne as prime minister after a Conservative victory in the British general election
August Dupin solves the case in Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders in the Rue Morgue, considered to be the first example of a detective story
Fox Talbot patents the 'calotype', introducing the negative-positive process that becomes standard in photography
Brook Farm, the most famous of the Charles Fourier phalanxes, is established at Dedham near Boston
Horace Greeley founds and edits the New-York Tribune, which will survive for more than a century (till 1966
On the sudden death of US president William Henry Harrison, from pneumonia, he is succeeded in the office by his vice-president John Tyler
Sir William Hooker, the first Director of Kew Gardens, rents Brick Farm and re-names it West Park
With a teetotallers' rail trip for 570 people, Thomas Cook introduces the notion of the package tour
Pugin publishes The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems includes 'The Village Blacksmith' and 'The Wreck of the Hesperus'
US social reformer Catherine Beecher publishes an influential book to empower women, Treatise on Domestic Economy
Fire demolishes the Armoury in the Tower
Britain sends four naval ships up the river Niger to make anti-slavery treaties with local kings
Robert Peel's Conservative administration reintroduces income tax in Britain, at a fixed level of approximately 3%
Lord Shaftesbury's Mines Act makes it illegal for boys under 13, and women and girls of any age, to be employed underground in Britain
The British abandon Kabul, losing most of the garrison force in the withdrawal to India and bringing to an end the first Anglo-Afghan war
The seventh Earl is heavily in debt and sells off the contents of Strawberry Hill. 'The Great Sale' starts on 25 April 1842 and last for 32 days raising over £33,000.
The young Friedrich Engels is sent from Germany to manage the family cotton-spinning factory in Manchester
The success of the opera Nabucco, premiered in Milan, is a turning point in the fortunes of Giuseppe Verdi
Irish nationalist Daniel O'Connell pioneers mass political demonstrations, which become known as 'monster meetings'
