Percy Bysshe Shelley drowns when sailing in the gulf of Spezia, in northwest Italy, at the age of 29

Austrian composer Franz Schubert begins, but never completes, the great work now known as his 'Unifinished' symphony (no 8.in B minor)

Lord Byron arrives in Greece to support the cause of Greek independence

Daniel O'Connell organizes Catholic Associations throughout Ireland, funded by the members' penny subscriptions

12-year-old Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt wins a reputation as a virtuoso performer

Austrian composer Franz Schubert writes the song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin ('The beautiful miller's wife')

A Rugby schoolboy, William Webb Ellis, picks up the football and runs with it in rugby union's founding myth

With the help of an army from France, the Spanish king Ferdinand VII is freed from confinement and restored to his throne

The Portuguese prince Dom Miguel briefly topples his father, John VI, from the throne

The Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800, outlawing trade unions in Britain, are repealed

Lord Byron dies of a fever in Greece, in Missolonghi, at the age of thirty-six

Beethoven's ninth symphony (the Choral, because of its finale, setting Schiller's Ode to Joy) has its first performance in Vienna

Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini moves to Paris, where he becomes director of the Théatre Italien

The reactionary Charles X succeeds to the throne of France on the death of his brother Louis XVIII

12-year-old Charles Dickens works in London in Warren's boot-blacking factory

Italian author Alessandro Manzoni begins publication (completed 1827) of his novel I Promessi Sposi ('The Betrothed')

The elderly Francisco de Goya becomes the first great artist to attempt lithography

Franz Schubert composes his 'Great' C major symphony (previously often attributed to 1828)

Active (later called Locomotion) is the engine on the first passenger railway, between Stockton and Darlington

A December uprising in St Petersburg ends when troops fire on the crowd, but the 'Decembrists' become revolutionary martyrs

Pedro I, emperor of Brazil, inherits the throne of Portugal (as Pedro IV) but continues to rule from Brazil

17-year-old Felix Mendelssohn composes an overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, amplifed with huge success eighteen years later

Carl Maria von Weber's opera Oberon has its premiere (in London, at Covent Garden)

Scottish engineer Thomas Telford completes two suspension bridges in Wales, at Conwy and over the Menai Strait

Britain, France and Russia, supporting Greek independence, defeat the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino