Victor Hugo publishes his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which the hunchback, Quasimodo, is obsessed with Esmeralda

Russian poet Alexander Pushkin publishes a grand historical drama, Boris Godunov

HMS Beagle sails from Plymouth to survey the coasts of the southern hemisphere, with Charles Darwin as the expedition's naturalist

English scientist Michael Faraday reports his discovery of the first law of electrolysis, to be followed a year later by the second

The full text of Goethe's Faust, Parts 1 and 2, is published a few months after the poet's death

English mathematician Charles Babbage builds a sophisticated calculating machine, which he calls a 'difference engine'

The Göta canal is completed, enabling ships to cross Scandinavia from the North Sea to the Baltic

Gaetano Donizetti's opera L'elisir d'amore has its premiere in Milan

Robert Schumann's first published composition is Papillons ('Butterflies'), twelve short dance pieces for piano

English author Frances Trollope ruffles transatlantic feathers with her Domestic Manners of the Americans, based on a 3-year stay

After several rejections by Britain's House of Lords, the Reform Bill finally passes and receives royal assent

Greece wins independence, with the 17-year-old Otto of Bavaria as king

Mendelssohn's concert overture The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) has its premiere in London's Covent Garden

20-year-old English artist Edward Lear publishes Family of the Psittacidae, a collection of his paintings of parrots

Civil war breaks out in Spain between supporters of Ferdinand VII's three-year-old daughter, Isabella II, and of his brother Don Carlos

Alexander Pushkin publishes a novel in verse, Eugene Onegin

Hector Berlioz marries an Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, with whom he has been obsessed since seeing her play Ophelia and Juliet in 1827

The Tories in Britain adopt a reassuring name for an uncertain future – Conservatives

Six farm labourers, from Tolpuddle in Dorset, are transported for seven years to Australia for administering unlawful oaths in the forming of a union

Pedro IV removes his usurping brother Dom Miguel from the Portuguese throne and restores it to his daughter, Maria II

Alexander Pushkin publishes his best-known short story, The Queen of Spades

In London a great fire destroys most of the Palace of Westminster, including the two houses of parliament

English architect and designer Augustus Welby Pugin plays a major part in the second stage of the Gothic Revival

French zoologist Félix Dujardin identifies protoplasm, the viscous translucent substance common to all forms of life

Fox Talbot exposes the first photographic negatives, among them a view looking out through an oriel window in Lacock Abbey