At the end of his Partial Pressure paper, John Dalton makes brief mention of his radical theory of differing atomic weights

Richard Trevithick runs the first locomotive on rails, pulling heavy weights a distance of 9 miiles (15 km) near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales

Napoleon has himself proclaimed emperor of France by the Senate

Beethoven changes the dedication of his third symphony on hearing that his hero, Napoleon, has made himself an emperor

William Blake includes his poem 'Jerusalem' in the Preface to his book Milton

Napoleon crowns himself emperor of the French in a magnificent ceremony in Notre Dame

Napoleon has himself crowned king of Italy in the cathedral in Milan

Horatio Nelson dies on the deck of the Victory after winning the battle of Trafalgar

Napoleon enters Vienna and then defeats an Austrian and Russian army at Austerlitz

The first version of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, is performed in Vienna under the title Leonore

Lord Castlereagh becomes secretary of state for war in William Pitt's government

Walter Scott publishes The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the long romantic poem that first brings him fame

Francis II formally brings to an end the 1000-year-old Holy Roman Empire, to keep it from the clutches of Napoleon

Napoleon announces that Holland is to be a kingdom, with his 28-year-old brother Louis Bonaparte on the throne

The Carbonari, an Italian group of revolutionaries, make their first appearance in Naples in opposition to French rule

Napoleon merges the majority of the German states into a Confederation of the Rhine with himself as its protector

Napoleon imposes his Continental System, designed to strangle Britain's trade

Karageorge captures Belgrade and wins a limited independence for Serbia within the Ottoman empire

French painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres moves to Rome and lives there for 18 years

To counteract Napoleon's Continental System, Britain passes orders in council penalizing any vessel trading into French-held ports

English chemist Humphry Davy uses electrolysis to isolate the elements sodium and potassium

A Scottish clergyman, Alexander Forsyth, invents the percussion cap to help in his pursuit of wildfowl

Napoleon and the Russian tsar Alexander I meet on a raft at Tilsit and set about carving up Europe

Part of Poland is recovered from Prussia to become the grand duchy of Warsaw, a small state dependent upon Napoleon

Legislation abolishing the slave trade is passed in both Britain and America