istoryworld
All Events
The first train on the new London and South Western Railway line from Nine Elms passes through Barnes on its way to a rapturous arrival in Richmond, with a brass band and church bells ringing
Brigham Young leads the migration of Mormons west up the Missouri from Illinois
Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah has its premiere in England, in the city of Birmingham
After marrying secretly, the English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett go abroad to live in Florence
The US Congress establishes the Smithsonian Institution with a bequest to the nation by Englishman James Smithson
A dentist in Boston, William Morton, uses ether as an anaesthetic while surgeon John Collins Warren removes a tumour in a patient's neck
Landlords in Scotland begin to clear crofters from Highland estates so as to provide pasture for sheep
Members of the Donner Party, on the trail to California, survive by eating human flesh when trapped by snow in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada
William Chillingworth, who bought Radnor House in 1842, substantially remodels it in the fashionable Italianate style.
The three Brontë sisters jointly publish a volume of their poems and sell just two copies
Queen Victoria leases Pembroke Lodge, as a country retreat, to her Prime Minister, Lord John Russell
Napoleon's widow, the empress Marie Louise, now the duchess of Parma, dies in Parma
A new Factory Act is passed in Britain, limiting the working day of women and children to a maximum of ten hours
Scottish obstetrician James Simpson uses anaesthetic (ether, and later in the year choloroform) to ease difficulty in childbirth
English author William Makepeace Thackeray begins publication of his novel Vanity Fair in monthly parts (book form 1848)
Frances, Lady Waldegrave, inherits Strawberry Hill on her husband's death in 1846, marries George Granville Harcourt, an elderly Liberal MP, and establishes herself as a leading Liberal hostess.
Camillo Benso di Cavour founds a newspaper in north Italy and calls it Il Risorgimento ('The Resurgence')
At a congress in London Engels persuades a group of radical Germans to adopt the name Communist League
Charlotte becomes the first of the Brontë sisters to have a novel published — Jane Eyre
Pretorius leads the last Boer families out of Natal and over the Drakensberg to the high veld
Don Pacifico's house in Athens is burnt by an anti-Semitic crowd, provoking an international incident
Brigham Young selects the site of Salt Lake City as the place for Mormon settlement
Barry's new House of Lords is opened, with lavishly beautiful interiors and furnishings by Pugin
Liberia wins independence and international recognition as a republic
English mathematician George Boole describes Boolean algebra in his pamphlet Mathematical Analysis of Logic
