1800
Pierre L'Enfant completes the White House in Washington, D. C.
1800
Tobacco plantations are established in Ontario.
1800
Paste smoking arises in China.
1800
The Levant Company purchases nearly half of the opium traded through Smyrna.
1800
The shako becomes a common form of military headgear.
1800
Matthias Koops experiments with using wood pulp to make paper.
1800
Napoleon founds the Bank of France.
1800
Battle of Marengo - Napoleon achieves a decisive victory over the Habsburg forces.
1800
Robert Fulton designs the Nautilus, the first successful submarine. It was commissioned by Napoleon.
1800 - 1839
US imports about 10,000 chests of Ottoman opium to China.
1800
Act of Union. Ireland was to be joined to Great Britain into a single kingdom.
1801
Joseph Marie Jacquard invents the Jacquard loom, to help weave complex fabrics.
1801
The world's first sugar beet factory is opened in Cunern, Silesia.
1801
Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal writes Traité Théorique et Pratique sur la Culture de la Vigne and suggests the addition of sugar to unfermented grape must.
1801 - 1809
Thomas Jefferson serves as 3rd President of the USA.
1801 - 1803
Matthew Flinders explores the Australian coast on board HMS Investigator. He names the continent Australia, following the term used by Alexander Dalrymple in 1771.
1801
The London Stock Exchange is founded.
1801 - 1811
The US South becomes a major area of production of raw cotton.
1801
The Josiah Bent bakery in Massachusetts creates a hard biscuit and names it a cracker.
1802 - 1870
Alexandre Dumas.
1802 - 1885
Victor Hugo.
1802
Manuel Lisa establishes trading relations with the Osage Nation.
1802
Napoleon Bonaparte declares himself Emperor for life and gets Pope Pius VII to crown him. He introduces the Code Napoleon.
1802
Napoleon's attempt to retake Haiti fails.
1802
The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India is undertaken. George Everest compiles the Nepal section.
1803 - 1882
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
1803
Over 20,000 African slaves are brought into Georgia and South Carolina to work on cotton plantations.
1803
American trader John Perkins Cushing arrives in China to trade furs for Perkins & Co.
1803
Gold is discovered in Georgeville, North Carolina.
1803 - 1807
Simon Fraser of the North West Company explores the route from Peace River to the Rockies and beyond.
1803 - 1805
The Second Anglo-Maratha War is a decisive British victory and gives the East India Company control of Central India.
1803
Wellesley wins a decisive victory at the Battle of Assaye.
1803
The Louisiana Purchase. Napoleon sells all of France's American possessions to the US to raise funds.
1803 - 1806
The War of the Third Coalition ends in French victory. France takes over large sections of Europe, creating a buffer between Prussia and itself.
1803
Ohio is added as a state of the Union.
1803
British settlers establish a colony in Tasmania.
1803 - 1806
Adam von Krusenstern leads the first Russian circumnavigation of the world in an attempt to improve trade with China and Japan and to establish a colony in California.
1803
The first offshore oil extraction takes place in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan.
1804
Haitian Revolution.
1804
Thomas De Quincey takes opium to relieve toothache and becomes addicted.
1804
Nicholas Longworth moves to Cincinnati and starts to establish successful vineyards, growing new grape varieties, with the help of German immigrant labourers.
1804
Joseph Banks sponsors William Smith's stratigraphical survey (published 1815), which lays the foundations for modern geology.
1804 - 1806
The Lewis & Clark Expedition traverses America from St Charles, Missouri, along the Missouri River and across the Continental Divide to the Pacific. They receive significant help from Native Indians en route and note the abundance of beaver, elk and bison.
1804
John Pintard, first Health Inspector in the US, is appointed in response to the epidemics of yellow fever.
1804
Lewis and Clark begin their expedition up the Missouri River to explore the geography, flora and fauna of North America.
1804
Richard Trevithick builds the first railway steam locomotive and it makes its first journey in Wales.
1805
Britain transplants nutmeg and other spices to India, Malaya, Grenada and Zanzibar.
1805
German scientist Friedrich Sertürner breaks down opium and discovers morphine.
1805
Battle of Trafalgar - Nelson achieves a decisive victory against the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, ending all hopes of a French invasion of Britain.
1805
Battle of Austerlitz - Napoleon beats the combined Russian and Austrian armies and forces the Treaty of Pressburg which humbles Austria and destroys the Holy Roman Empire.
1805
Mungo Park sets out on his second exploration of the Niger, but dies in the attempt to trace its source.
1805 - 1827
EIC vainly attempts to ban Malwa opium in its Indian territories.
1806
Napoleon Bonaparte commissions the construction of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, by Jean Chalgrin.
1806
Continental Blockade. Britain's normal northern European sources of timber are cut off by Napoleon, resulting in a massive increase in demand for timber from Canada.
1806
The San Gabriel vineyards of California are established.
1806
The Holy Roman Empire is dissolved by Francis II, King of Germany, Hungary, Austria, Bohemia and Croatia, and the final Holy Roman Emperor, after defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz.
1806 - 1807
The War of the Fourth Coalition ends in French victory against the combined forces of Prussia, Russia, Britain, Sweden and Saxony. France takes much territory from Prussia and now controls most of central and western Europe. Britain and Sweden are left alone facing France.
1806
Britain takes control of the Cape Colony when Napoleon invades the Netherlands.
1806
Ulrich Seetzen commences his travels around the Middle East including a circuit around the Dead Sea.
1806 - 1807
Zebulon Pike explores Colorado and the Southwest of America.
1807
The 2nd battle of Copenhagen - the British Navy decisively beats the Danish navy and ensures continuing control of the seas.
1807
The first commercial steamboat is built by Robert Fulton, following work in France with Jouffroy d'Abbans and others.
1807
The Slave Trade Act abolishes the slave trade in the British Empire.
1808
Publication of Goethe's Faust.
1808
John Jacob Astor founds the American Fur Company to trade furs between the Pacific Northwest, China and New York City.
1808
Simon Fraser of the North West Company explores the Fraser River and opens up the fur trade west of the Rockies.
1808
The Enclosure Act reaffirms the Crown's rights to control sections of forests in the UK.
1808 - 1814
The Peninsular War. France invades Spain and Portugal, but is eventually repulsed by British, Portuguese and Spanish forces.
1808
A wave of revolutions in Spanish colonies starts when Napoleon's brother Joseph takes the Spanish throne by force.
1808
The Portuguese Court flees to Brazil to escape Napoleon.
1808
Santo Domingo returns to Spanish control with British help.
1808
Thousands of freed slaves are settled in Sierra Leone.
1808 - 1856
Silver circulating in China drops by about 19%.
1809 - 1847
Felix Mendelssohn.
1809 - 1849
Edgar Allen Poe.
1809 - 1892
Alfred Tennyson.
1809
The Missouri Fur Company is created in St Louis, Missouri.
1809 - 1811
Pierre Menard and Andre Henry explore and set up trading posts along the Missouri River.
1809
90,000 cargoes of timber leave Canada for Britain.
1809
Wellington relieves Portugal from the French invasion.
1809
The War of the Fifth Coalition ends in French victory over Austria. The Battle of Wagram is a decisive French victory, although their army sustains heavy losses.
1809 - 1817
Johann Burckhardt explores the Middle East on behalf of the African Association. He learns Arabic and poses as a Muslim trader. He 'discovers' Petra (1812), Abu Simnel (1813) and visits Mecca (1814) but dies before he can visit Africa.
1810 - 1856
Robert Schumann.
1810 - 1849
Frédéric Chopin.
1810
John Jacob Astor founds the Pacific Fur Company, to get furs in the Oregon territory.
1810 - 1823
The Chilean War of Independence. Chilean forces under the leadership of Jose de San Martin and Bernardo O'Higgins defeat the Spanish.
1810
Mexico declares independence from Spain.
1810
Chile declares independence from Spain (recognised 1844).
1810
Thomas and William Daniell publish their influential 'Picturesque voyage to India by way of China.'
1810 - 1815
William Burchell explores South Africa collecting over 50,000 specimens.
1811 - 1886
Franz Liszt.
1811 - 1896
Harriet Beecher Stowe.
1811
French Emperor Napoleon establishes sugar schools in France and promotes the cultivation of sugar beet.
1811
The Tonquin sails to Fort Astoria to establish the first American owned trading outpost on the Pacific.
1811
David Thompson of the North West Company explores the length of the Columbia River.
1811
Venezuela declares independence from Spain, winning it by 1823 with help from Simon Bolivar.
1811
The increased use in steamboats in the US causes deforestation along the Mississippi and other rivers as timber is cut for fuel. This leads to erosion and flooding.
1811
William Hunt establishes the 'Oregon Trail' from the Mississippi to the Blue Mountains and then to the Pacific. The trip is funded by John Jacob Astor who wants to develop an overland fur trading route from the West.
1812 - 1870
Charles Dickens.
1812 - 1889
Robert Browning.
1812
French scientist Benjamin Delessert discovers a method to extract sugar from sugar beet on an industrial scale.
1812
Perkins & Co. diversify into the opium trade, selling Turkish opium to China.
1812 - 1814
The War of the Sixth Coalition sees Austria, Russia, Prussia, Britain, Sweden, Spain and Portugal combine forces against France. Despite early French victories, Napoleon is beaten decisively at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, following his disastrous retreat from Russia.
1812
Napoleon invades Russia and achieves a tactical victory at the Battle of Borodino and seizes a deserted Moscow, before being forced to retreat in the face of a Russian winter.
1812 - 1815
The War of 1812. The US declares war on Britain due to restrictions on trade caused by the Napoleonic wars, British support for Native Indians and American expansionism. It is inconclusive.
1812
Louisiana is added as a state of the Union.
1812
William Moorcroft leads an expedition across the Himalayas to Tibet and obtains the right to trade for cashmere wool.
1812
Charles Waterton commences his exploration of the hinterland of British Guiana, walking to Brazil on foot and serving as an inspiration for Darwin and Wallace.
1812
Foundation of the world's first gas company in Britain - the Gas Light and Coke Company.
1813 - 1883
Richard Wagner.
1813 - 1901
Giuseppe Verdi.
1813
Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice.
1813
Napoleon bans the importation of sugar cane from the Caribbean.
1813
Miguel Hidalgo starts the revolutionary war in Mexico by declaring independence, achieving it by 1822.
1813
Gregory Blaxland crosses the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in the first European expedition to explore and open up the interior of Australia for agricultural development.
1813
Edward Charles Howard patented a vacuum pan that was used to convert juice to sugar. It was employed in both the beet and cane sugar industries and in both raw and refined sugar production.
1813
Gregory Blaxland crosses the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in the first European expedition to explore and open up the interior of Australia for agricultural development.
1814
The Coalition captures Paris and Napoleon is sent to exile on the Island of Elba.
1814
Louis XVIII is restored as French monarch.
1814
George Stephenson designs his first steam locomotive for hauling coal.
1814
Tobago becomes a British colony.
1814
Cape Town is ceded to Britain in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty.
1814
Samuel Marsden establishes a missionary base in the Bay of Islands and explores the interior.
1814
Thomas Dobbs invents the mechanical reaping machine.
1815
John Nash designs Brighton Pavilion in an 'oriental' style for the Prince Regent.
18150226
Napoleon escapes from Elba and the Hundred Days commences.
18150320
Napoleon reaches Paris.
18150618
Battle of Waterloo - in a close-run but decisive victory, the combined forces of Britain, Prussia, the Netherlands and several German states defeat Napoleon's army. Napoleon is exiled on St Helena.
1815
The Congress of Vienna establishes the Confederation of Germany, linking together the economies of a number of German states.
1815
Demerara and Berbice are ceded to the UK by the Netherlands.
1815
Britain takes control of Sri Lanka.
1815
Introduction of the Corn Laws in Great Britain to protect domestic cereal producers.
1815
On July the 9th, the first natural gas well in the U.S. was discovered accidentally at Burning Springs during the digging of a salt brine well in West Virginia.
1816 - 1855
Charlotte Bronte.
1816 - 1882
Arthur de Gobineau, author of the theory of an Aryan master race.
1816
The stethoscope is invented by Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec.
1816
John Jacob Astor trades Turkish opium to China.
1816
Britain introduces the Gold Sovereign.
1816
Argentina declares independence from Spain, winning it by 1826.
1816
The miner's safety lamp is developed by Humphry Davy.
1816
Indiana is added as a state of the Union.
1816
The Seminole wars begin, starting a wave of wars with Native Indians due to resettlement or encroachment on their territory.
1816
Baltimore is the first American city illuminated using gas lamps which was supplied by the Gas Light Company of Baltimore.
1816
Natural gas is used to light the streets of Baltimore. Natural gas was used for lighting in Europe and North America throughout much of the 19th century.
1817 - 1818
The Third Anglo-Maratha War gives the British East India Company rule over most of India.
1817
Mississippi is added as a state of the Union.
1817 - 1822
Philip Parker King circumnavigates Australia and charts the coast.
1817 - 1820
A Brazilian expedition is led by Carl Friedrich von Martius and Johann von Spix exploring the Amazon and the Rio Negro. The expeditions specimens are purchased by the Belgian Government.
1818
Mary Shelley publishes Frankenstein.
1818 - 1895
Frederick Douglass.
1818 - 1883
Karl Marx. He writes Das Kapital in exile in England.
1818
Illinois is added as a state of the Union.
1818
John Ross searches for the Northwest passage, but finds that Lancaster Sound in Canada is blocked.
1819 - 1900
John Ruskin - British art critic and social thinker.
1819 - 1877
Gustave Courbet.
1819 - 1891
Herman Melville.
1819 - 1892
Walt Whitman.
1819
François Louis Cailler establishes Switzerland's first chocolate factory in Vevey.
1819
Alabama is added as a state of the Union.
1819
Britain sets up a trading post on Singapore and takes over the entire island in 1824.
1819 - 1820
William Parry explores the Arctic and completes half the distance from Greenland to the Bering Strait, reviving hopes that there may be a Northwest Passage.
1819
The Atkinson-Long expedition establishes Fort Atkinson in Nebraska, the first fort west of the Missouri.
1819
Thomas Raffles establishes Singapore as a trading post for the East India Company.
1820
Muhammad Ali establishes cotton as a major crop in Egypt.
1820
Vineyards start to spring up in New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.
1820
Johnnie Walker starts a grocery shop in Kilmarnock, Scotland, and his whisky is popular. His successor offers the first blend in 1865 and uses squared bottles from 1870.
1820
Maine is added as a state of the Union.
1820
The beginning of a century of immigration into America, which transforms the nation. The peak years are 1880-1914.
1820
First sighting of Antarctica by Fabian Bellingshausen on his circumnavigation of the world. Shortly after it is also sighted by British explorer Edward Bransfield and American sealer, Nathaniel Palmer.
1821 - 1881
Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
1821 - 1880
Gustave Flaubert.
1821 - 1890
Richard Burton, explorer and orientalist, whose translations of Arabian Nights and the Kama Sutra encouraged interest in 'orientalism'.
1821
The electric motor is invented by Michael Faraday.
1821
Thomas De Quincey writes Confessions of an Opium Eater.
1821 - 1830
China imports an annual average of 10,361 chests of Indian opium.
1821
Britain adopts a gold standard, tying the pound to a specific gold value.
1821
The North West Company becomes a part of the Hudson's Bay Company.
1821
Peru declares independence from Spain.
1821
Simon Bolivar is made president of the new country of Gran Colombia, comprising Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela and Northern Peru.
1821
Missouri is added as a state of the Union.
1821
Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador declare independence from Spain.
1821
The Dominican Republic (formerly San Domingo) gains independence from Spain.
1821
Peru declares independence from Spain (recognised 1879).
1822
Charles Babbage designs the first mechanical computer.
1822
The first Espresso machine is made in France.
1822
J. S. Fry & Sons is founded when Joseph Storrs Fry takes his sons into the business. They become the largest cocoa manufacturer in England.
1822
Gregory Blaxland wins a silver medal for his Australian wine at a London wine tasting.
1822
Brazil is declared an independent country.
1822
Huntley & Palmers is founded in Reading, England. It goes on to become the most global biscuit brand over the following Century.
1822 - 1823
Indian Malwa opium outsells Bengal opium in the China traffic for the first time.
1822
Huntley & Palmer's is founded in Reading, Berkshire, to make biscuits.
1823
The Rocky Mountain Fur Company was founded in St Louis.
1823
Scottish distiller James Crow moves to Kentucky and invents the sour mash process for creating bourbon whiskey.
1823
France invades Spain in support of royalist forces.
1823
The Monroe Doctrine declares that any future attempts by European powers to colonise or interfere with the Americas will be seen as an act of aggression requiring US intervention.
1823 - 1826
Otto von Kotzebue leads a Russian circumnavigation of the world stopping in Hawaii, the West Coast of America, the Philippines, South Africa, the Baltic and rounding Cape Horn.
1823
James Weddell sails into Antarctic waters in what is now the Weddell Sea.
1824
Portuguse planters introduce Cacao Forestero from the Amazon to Gabon and Guinea in West Africa.
1824
John Cadbury starts a business selling tea, coffee, chocolate and other commodities in Birmingham.
1824
The Missouri Fur Company is dissolved.
1824
The Hudson's Bay Company builds Fort Vancouver to manage the Pacific Northwest fur trade.
1824
New Brunswick introduces a regulatory system to control tree felling.
1824 - 1826
British forces invade Burma to gain trading concessions for the East India Company.
1824
The British take control of Malacca on the Malay peninsula, from the Dutch.
1824
An overland route from Adelaide to Sydney is discovered by Hamilton Hume and William Hovell.
1824
Dent & Co. is formed in Canton. It was a successful British merchant company which traded in tea, silk and opium.
1825 - 1899
Johann Strauss II. Strauss popularised the waltz in Vienna during his lifetime.
1825
Coffee is introduced to Hawaii via Brazil.
1825
The Levant Company is wound up.
1825
Bolivia is founded - named after Simon Bolivar.
1826
John Horniman sells pre-packaged tea, rather than selling it by weight.
1826
Philippe Suchard establishes a chocolate factory in Serrieres, Switzerland.
1826
End of the First Anglo-Burmese war. Britain seizes Assam and opens trade with Burma.
1826
Scottish inventor Robert Stein patents the Column Still for whisky distillation.
1827
Petrache Poenaru invents the fountain pen with a replaceable ink cartridge.
1827
English chemist, John Walker, invents the match making fire lighting easier.
1827
The commercial production of morphine starts at E. Merck & Co. of Darmstadt.
1828 - 1910
Leo Tolstoy.
1828 - 1905
Jules Verne.
1828 - 1906
Henrik Ibsen.
1828
Dutch chemist Coenraad Van Houten produces a new powdered chocolate with a low fat content using a hydraulic method. He also uses alkaline salts to reduce the bitterness and make it easier to work (known as 'Dutching').
1828
Tobacco rolled in paper becomes popular in Spain.
1828
The Dahlonega Gold Rush in Georgia is the first major US gold rush.
1828
Uruguay is made independent of Brazil.
1828
René Caillié 'discovers' Timbuktu, following extensive exploration of Senegal.
1828 - 1839
Ottoman empire maintains a state opium monopoly.
1829
The state of Western Australia is created.
1829
British settlers establish a colony in Perth, Western Australia.
1829
John Ross searches for the Northwest passage, but has to abandon his ship.
1829
William Parry establishes the Northern Magnetic Pole. James Clark Ross accompanies him on the expedition.
1830 - 1903
Camille Pissarro.
1830 - 1839
Earl Grey Tea is named after Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, British Prime Minister.
183 - 192
Temperance movements around the world advocate tea as a replacement for alcohol.
1830
US Congress reduces taxation on tea and coffee.
1830
W. D. & H. O. Wills is founded in Bristol, having traded in that area since 1786. It becomes Britain's leading tobacco manufacturer.
1830
Heinrich Kahn at Meissen establishes a method for decorating porcelain with bright gold.
1830
The House of Bourbon is overthrown in the July Revolution in France and replaced with the Orleans monarchy.
1830
France invades Algeria and exerts influence over Morocco.
1830
The Indian Removal Act is introduced to force Native Indians to relocate from their homelands to the west of the Mississippi.
1830
Charles Sturt explores the Murray River.
1830
Humane Policy; or, Justice to the Aborigines of New Settlements is published by S. Bannister.
1830
China's first formal anti-poppy cultivation operations (along the southwest and souteastern coast).
1830
McVitie & Price, Ltd are founded in Edinburgh to make biscuits, including the Digestive.
1831 - 1903
Paul du Chaillu, anthropologist and explorer, who confirmed the existence of gorillas and pygmies.
1831
Charles Darwin begins his voyage on HMS Beagle.
1831
Michael Faraday produces an electric current from a moving magnet.
1831
Aeneas Coffey patents the 'Coffey Still', an improvement on Stein's Column Still.
1831
Jean Louis Vignes establishes vineyards in California, creating new varieties of grape by crossing old and new world varieties.
1831
Silk workers protest in France in the Canut Revolt.
1831
Giuseppe Mazzini forms the Young Italy movement, arguing for the unification and independence of Italy.
1831
The Voyage of the Beagle sets out with Charles Darwin on board. His discoveries of fossils in South America and variant species in the Galapagos Islands provoke his evolutionary theories.
1831 - 1840
China imports an annual average of 26,003 chests of Indian opium.
1831
Carr's is founded in Carlisle to mill flour and make biscuits.
1832 - 1883
Edouard Manet.
1832
Joseph Livesey starts the Temperance Movement in Preston.
1832
Coffee is first planted in Brisbane, Australia.
1832
John Player & Sons is founded in Nottingham.
1832
Coffee takes over as the major export from Dominica.
1832
Jardine, Matheson & Co. is founded in Canton by Scottish traders William Jardine and James Matheson. They trade in a wide variety of commodities, among which opium becomes a principal item.
1832
French scientist Pierre Robiquet first isolates codeine from opium. It is widely used for pain relief.
1832
James Busby is the first British Resident in New Zealand and comes to an understanding with Maori tribes.
1832
Powdered milk is invented by Russian chemist M. Dirchoff.
1833 - 1897
Johannes Brahms.
1833
Britain re-established rule in the Falkland Islands.
1833
Slavery Abolition Act abolishes slavery in the British Empire.
1833
East India Company trade monopoly ends.
1833
Obed Hussey of Ohio invents the Hussey Reaper.
1833
Oil production begins in the Chechen Republic.
1834 - 1917
Edgar Degas.
1834
The refrigerator is invented by Jacob Perkins with the introduction of the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle.
1834
The combine harvester is invented by Hiram Moore.
1834
The East India Company establishes the Tea Committee with a view to planting tea in the colonies.
1834
Spain's Council of the Indies is abolished.
1834 - 1835
Chinese imports of Bengal and Malwa opium almost equally split.
1834
Cyrus McCormick patents his father's reaping machine.
1834
The combine harvester is invented by Hiram Moore.
1835
Alexis de Toqueville publishes the first of two volumes with Democracy in America after travelling in the United States.
1835 - 1910
Mark Twain.
1835
Morse Code is invented by Samuel Morse.
1835
Tea plants are discovered in the Assam region of India. Tea plantations are established.
1835
Chili powder is invented by English settlers in Texas. Paprika is made from ground Bell Peppers.
1835
The Treaty of New Echota confirms the translocation of the Cherokee Nation from NW Georgia to the Indian Territories in what is known as the Trail of Tears.
1835 - 1836
The Texas War of Independence against Mexico.
1836
Arkansas is added as a state of the Union.
1836
South Australia is created as a separate state of Australia.
1836 - 1839
Joseph Nicollet explores the Upper Mississippi in Minnesota and the Dakotas.
1836
British settlers establish a colony in Adelaide, South Australia.
1836
Thomas Mitchell explores the Lachlan River and finds rich grazing lands in what is now Victoria.
1836
Ralph Waldo Emerson writes Nature. He is a leader of the Transcendentalist movement that includes Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Thoreau, Ruskin, Whitman and others.
1836
Qing empire debates, and rejects, opium legalization.
1837
There are 542 sugar beet factories in France.
1837
Elizabeth Barrett Browning takes morphine regularly.
1837
The Financial Panic of 1837 precipitates the decline of the American fur trade.
1837
Michigan is added as a state of the Union.
1837 - 1901
Reign of Queen Victoria.
1837
John Deere & Company is founded in Moline, Illinois to make agricultural equipment.
1837
John Avery and Hiram Pitts improve the threshing machine.
1837
John Lawes establishes an agricultural experimental station in Rothamstead, Hertfordshire and pioneers the development of modern chemical fertilisers.
1838 - 1913
John Muir, environmentalist.
1838
The electric telegraph is developed by Charles Wheatstone.
1838
The British Government abolishes slavery, but freed slaves are still used to work the sugar plantations and indentured labourers are brought in from China and India.
1838
The Anti-Corn Law League is founded in Britain as control of cereal imports is causing higher food prices.
1839 - 1906
Paul Cezanne.
1839
Vulcanisation of rubber is developed by Charles Goodyear.
1839 - 1842
First Opium War between Britain and China. Britain prevails and forces the opening of five Chinese ports for trade. Hong Kong is ceded to the British.
1839 - 1843
James Clark Ross charts the Antarctic coastline.
1839
Confessions of a Thug is written by Captain Meadows Taylor.
1839
Qing empire expands capital punishment to cover many more opium offenses, including consumption.
1839
Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu confiscates 21,603 chests of opium from foreign traffickers in Canton (Guangzhou).
1839
The first pasta recipe with tomatoes is published.
1839
19 year-old Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect, a breakthrough in the evolution of solar energy. Photovoltaics are devices that transform ultraviolet radiation into electrical energy.
1840 - 1893
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
1840 - 1926
Claude Monet.
1840
Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin commence rebuilding the Houses of Parliament in a neo-Gothic style.
184
Samuel Colt makes the mass-production of the revolver commercially viable.
1840 - 1849
Tea Clippers race to bring home the first fresh tea from Asia.
1840 - 1849
The habit of 'Afternoon Tea' with tea, sandwiches and cakes is introduced in aristocratic circles.
1840 - 1849
British planters re-establish coffee plantations in Ceylon.
1840
Miflin Marsh invents the oldest cigar company in the US in Wheeling, West Virginia, and creates the Marsh Wheeling Cigar brand.
1840 - 1849
Cotton is used to make flour and feed sacks.
1840
500,000 cargoes of timber leave Canada for Britain.
1840
The Treaty of Waitangi. Maoris cede sovereignty, but not land rights, to Britain.
1840
Wilkes Land, Antarctica, is named by American explorer Charles Wilkes.
1840
Porcelain exports from China diminish with the rise of European factories and demise of trading companies.
1841 - 1919
Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
1841
Elizabeth Dakin invents the coffee plunger.
1841
Lead and Silver are discovered in Glen Osmond, South Australia.
1841
Henry Fox-Talbot patents the calotype photographic process using silver salts.
1841 - 1850
China imports an annual average of 40,484 chests of Indian opium.
1842
A substantial order from Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, helps to boost sales of Suchard's drinking chocolate throughout Europe.
1842
The British Government ceases to give preference to colonial timber, as it can now source timber from Scandinavia and the Baltic.
1842
Jardine, Matheson & Co. move their main operations to Hong Kong after the cession of the island to Britain with the Treaty of Nanking.
1842
Edwin Chadwick writes the 1842 Report on Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain.
1842
David Fife of Ontario develops Hard Red Fife wheat for cultivation on the Prairies.
1842
Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar invent the Grain Elevator in Buffalo, New York, to help improve the storage and transportation of cereal crops.
1843
The typewriter is invented by Charles Thurber.
1843
Scottish doctor Alexander Wood pioneers the process of injecting morphine to relieve pain.
1843
Wood pulp is widely used in the paper-making process.
1843
The power of the Cahudiere Falls is harnessed to cut logs that have been floated down the Ottawa River.
1843
Portland, Oregon, becomes a dry town banning alcohol.
1844 - 1900
Friedrich Nietzsche.
1844
Charles Sturt names the Simpson Desert in Australia.
1844
The Settlers in Canada is written by Captain Marryat.
1845
Sprungli & Sons pastry shop in Zurich starts experimenting with chocolate - this is the beginning of Lindt & Sprungli.
1845
Prosper Mérimée writes Carmen about a girl in a cigar factory in Seville.
1845 - 1861
Saw mills proliferate in Canada.
1845
Absinthe or the 'green fairy', a high alcoholic content drink flavoured with wormwood, gains popularity with artists and writers in France, known as 'bohemians'.
1845
Florida and Texas are added as states of the Union.
1845
John Franklin searches for the Northwest passage, but dies in the attempt. Many subsequent expeditions searched for Franklin but evidence of their fate did not emerge until the 1850s and 1860s.
1845
African explorer Heinrich Barth starts more than 20 years of travel in North Africa, the Near East, the Sudan, Sahara and West Africa. He records many African languages for the first time.
Irish Famine. Around a million people are said to have died from starvation and epidemic disease.
1845
Poor harvests in Britain and the Great Famine in Ireland put pressure on the Corn Laws.
1846 - 1935
Auguste Escoffier, French culinary writer.
1846
The sewing machine is invented by Elias Howe.
1846 - 1848
The Texas-American War ends with the addition of New Mexico and California to the US.
1846
Iowa is added as a state of the Union.
18460615
The Oregon Treaty is signed between Britain and the US, setting the US-Canadian boundary at the 49th parallel except for Vancouver Island.
1846
Abolition of the Corn Laws in Great Britain is a major advance for Free Trade policy.
1846
Abraham Pineo Gesner discovers how to refine kerosene from coal.
1847
After various experiments J. S. Fry & Sons produce the first solid bar of chocolate suitable for mass production and consumption.
1847
Philip Morris opens a tobacconists in Bond Street, London.
1847
Daniel Massey founds a company in Newcastle, Ontario, to manufacture farm machinery.
1848 - 1903
Paul Gaugin. Famous for his sojourn in Tahiti.
1848
John Marshall discovers gold at Sutter's Mill, Sacramento, prompting the California Gold Rush.
1848
Republican riots in France cause the overthrow of the monarchy. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon, becomes President of the new Republic and is later known as Napoleon III.
1848
Revolutions break out across Europe in France, Germany, Austria and Italy.
1848
Wisconsin is added as a state of the Union.
1848 - 1850
Britain sends settlers to New Zealand provoking land disputes with Maori people.
1848
The Rae-Richardson arctic expedition searches for Franklin. In 1854 Rae gets the first reports of the fate of that expedition.
1848
California Gold Rush begins after gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma.
1849 - 1912
August Strindberg.
1849
J. E. Liggett & Brother is founded in St Louis, Missouri, specialising in chewing tobacco.
1849 - 1855
Huge numbers of prospectors descend on San Francisco in 1849 and are known as the forty-niners.
1849
The bowler hat is first made by Thomas and William Bowler, to a design by William Coke.
1849
The California Gold Rush causes a massive upsurge in requirements for timber for housing, for tools and for machinery.
1849
Adolphe and Edouard-Jean Cointreau establish a distillery in Angers, France. The first bottles of Cointreau liqueur are sold in 1875.
1850 - 1894
Robert Louis Stevenson.
1850
The Pioneer Steam Coffee and Spice Mills Company is founded in San Francisco.
1850
Cotton is one of the staple crops of the South, yielding 3 million bales a year.
1850
San Francisco's Chinatown becomes the site of numerous opium dens.
1850
Gold is discovered in British Columbia, Canada.
1850 - 1859
The arrival of the railways opens up much of Canada for timber felling.
1850 - 1859
Lumbering starts in earnest in British Columbia.
1850
California is added as a state of the Union.
1850 - 1864
The Taiping Rebellion. A civil war in China ends in victory for the Qing dynasty with British and French support.
1850 - 1854
Robert McClure successfully traverses the Northwest passage, partly by land, partly by sea.
1850
A U Bergmans is founded in Stockholm, Sweden, to produce wheat crispbread.
1850
Increasing trend for early Chinese porcelain as art and collectors' pieces.