1839

Events in 1839 28

• 1566 – 1839 Wars & Stagnation (1566–1839) The period from Suleiman's death to the Tanzimat reforms spans 273 years of gradual but accelerating decline punctuated by moments of recovery. The failed siege of Vienna (1683) marks the definitive end of Ottoman expansion in Europe; the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) begins the long territorial retreat. Russia emerges as the empire's most dangerous enemy, fighting six wars and pushing the Ottoman frontier steadily south. The Janissaries -- once the empire's elite force -- become a conservative political force that murders reforming sultans. The empire earns its 19th-century epithet: 'the sick man of Europe.'
• 1772 – 1839 Mikhail Speransky (1772-1839) Died 11 February 1839, aged 67 Mikhail Speransky served as a leading statesman and legal reformer under Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I of Russia. He is best known for overseeing the compilation of the Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire, the first systematic codification of Russian law. He died in Saint Petersburg shortly after being made a count.
• 1785 – 1839 Mahmud II (1785-1839) Died 1 July 1839, aged 53 Mahmud II ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1808 and pursued sweeping military and administrative reforms, including the destruction of the Janissary corps in 1826. He died in Constantinople shortly after learning of his army's catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Nezib. His son Abdulmejid I succeeded him as sultan.
• 1838 – 1839 Schleiden and Schwann — cell theory All living things are made of cells In 1838-1839, Matthias Schleiden (plants) and Theodor Schwann (animals) independently proposed that all living organisms are composed of cells and that the cell is the fundamental unit of life. Virchow added in 1855 that all cells come from pre-existing cells. Cell theory is one of the three pillars of modern biology alongside evolution and genetics.
• 1839 – 1899 Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) Died 29 January 1899, aged 59 British-born painter and leading figure of French Impressionism, known for landscapes along the Seine and Loing rivers. He spent most of his career in France but never obtained French citizenship. He died in Moret-sur-Loing in poverty, only gaining wide recognition after his death.
• 1839 – 1914 Carol I of Romania (1839-1914) Died 10 October 1914, aged 75 A German prince installed as ruler of Romania in 1866, Carol I became the country's first king in 1881 and oversaw its modernization and independence from Ottoman suzerainty. His nearly five-decade reign was the longest in Romanian history. He died weeks into the war, having clashed with his government over Romania's neutrality.
• 1839 Charles Goodyear discovers rubber vulcanization A chance accident yields a durable, weatherproof rubber American inventor Charles Goodyear found that heating natural rubber with sulfur produced a durable material that resisted melting in heat and cracking in cold. The process, later named vulcanization, transformed rubber into a practical industrial material. Goodyear patented the process in 1844 and spent years defending it in court.
• 1839 – 1914 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) Died 19 April 1914, aged 74 An American philosopher, logician, and scientist, Peirce founded the philosophical school of pragmatism and made lasting contributions to semiotics and logic. He worked much of his life in poverty and obscurity, gaining wider recognition only after his death. He is now regarded as one of America's most original thinkers.
• 1839 – 1842 First Opium War Britain forces China to open — the century of humiliation begins Britain went to war with China to force it to continue accepting opium imports from British India, which China had banned. The technologically superior British fleet defeated China decisively. The 1842 Treaty of Nanking ceded Hong Kong to Britain, opened five treaty ports, and paid a massive indemnity. It was the first of the "unequal treaties" that humiliated China and began what Chinese call the "century of humiliation" lasting until 1949.
• 1839 – 1876 George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) Died 25 June 1876, aged 36 George Armstrong Custer was a US Army officer who rose to fame as a cavalry commander in the Civil War. He was killed with his command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.
• 1839 – 1922 Reform & Collapse (1839–1922) The final 83 years of Ottoman history are the most dramatic -- a race between modernisation and disintegration that the empire ultimately loses. The Tanzimat reforms (1839-1876) attempt to create a modern centralised state with equal rights for all subjects. The Constitutional period (1876, 1908) produces two parliaments. But the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) strip the empire of nearly all its European territory; the First World War (1914-1918) destroys it; the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) kills over a million people; and Ataturk's War of Independence (1919-1922) produces the Turkish Republic from the ruins. The sultanate is abolished on 1 November 1922.
• 1839 Stephens and Catherwood reach Copán Copán, Honduras An American lawyer and an English architect hacked through forest to find carved monuments nobody outside the region knew existed. Stephens bought the site for fifty dollars.
• 1839 – 1907 Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907) Died 6 September 1907, aged 68 French poet who became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, honored for his combination of poetic feeling and intellectual rigor. He was a founding figure of the Parnassian movement in French poetry. He died in Chatenay-Malabry near Paris.
• 1839 – 1894 Walter Pater (1839-1894) Died 30 July 1894, aged 54 Pater was an English essayist and critic whose writing on aesthetics, notably Studies in the History of the Renaissance, influenced the Aestheticism and Decadent movements. His prose style shaped younger writers including Oscar Wilde. He died suddenly of heart failure in Oxford.
• 1839 British forces capture Aden East India Company seizes a port on the Arabian coast A British East India Company naval force captured the port of Aden from local rulers, establishing a coaling and garrison station on the route to India. Aden remained under British control for more than a century afterward. The seizure followed the plunder of a shipwrecked British vessel near the port.
• 1839 – 1906 Paul Cézanne Post-Impressionism · France Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French Post-Impressionist whose geometric approach to form and colour became the bridge between 19th-century Impressionism and 20th-century Cubism. Picasso called him the father of us all.
• 1839 Aroostook War border crisis The United States and Britain mobilize over a disputed frontier A long-running dispute over the border between Maine and New Brunswick escalated into a military standoff, as Maine mobilized its militia and the United States Congress authorized federal troops. The crisis ended without serious bloodshed after General Winfield Scott negotiated a truce between the two sides. The border was finally settled by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842.
• 1839 – 1881 Modest Mussorgsky Russian nationalist composer Russian composer of the nationalist school, known for Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain, often orchestrated by Ravel.
• 1839 Trail of Tears relocation concludes Final forced removal parties reach Indian Territory The last detachments of Cherokee people forcibly removed from their homelands in the southeastern United States arrived in Indian Territory, completing a removal that began in 1838. Thousands died from cold, disease, and exhaustion during the journey, which came to be known as the Trail of Tears. The removal followed the Indian Removal Act and the disputed Treaty of New Echota.
• 1839 Treaty of London guarantees Belgian neutrality Great powers settle the Belgian-Dutch separation Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia signed the Treaty of London recognizing Belgium as an independent and perpetually neutral state, while the Netherlands retained part of Luxembourg. The treaty settled the territorial disputes left over from the 1830 Belgian Revolution. Germany's violation of this guaranteed neutrality in 1914 helped draw Britain into the First World War.
• 1839 – present Patek Philippe High Horology One of the oldest and most prestigious watch manufacturers in the world, based in Geneva.
• 1839 Battle of Nezib Egyptian army routs Ottoman forces in Syria An Egyptian army under Ibrahim Pasha decisively defeated the Ottoman army near Nezib in the Second Ottoman-Egyptian War. The victory left the Ottoman Empire dependent on European intervention to prevent the collapse of its authority in Syria. News of the defeat reached Constantinople around the time Sultan Mahmud II died.
• 1839 Amistad slave ship revolt Enslaved Africans seize control of a Spanish schooner Enslaved Africans led by Sengbe Pieh rose up and took control of the schooner La Amistad off the coast of Cuba, killing the captain and the cook. The ship eventually came ashore near Long Island, New York, where the US Navy seized it and the Africans were jailed pending trial. The case became a landmark in the American abolitionist movement.
• 1839 British forces capture Ghazni and Kabul First Anglo-Afghan War reaches its climax An East India Company army stormed the fortress of Ghazni and went on to occupy Kabul, driving out Dost Mohammad Khan. The British installed Shah Shuja Durrani as a client ruler of Afghanistan. The occupation provoked growing resistance that would end in disaster for the British three years later.
• 1839 Daguerreotype process unveiled France presents photography to the world The French government announced Louis Daguerre's photographic process as a free gift to the world at a joint session of the Academy of Sciences and Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. The daguerreotype fixed an image on a silver-coated copper plate after exposure to light and mercury vapor. It became the first practical and widely used photographic technique.
• 1839 Treaty of Vergara ends the First Carlist War Spanish civil war over the succession concludes Generals Baldomero Espartero and Rafael Maroto signed the Treaty of Vergara, ending most of the fighting in Spain's First Carlist War between supporters of Queen Isabella II and her uncle Carlos. The agreement, sealed with a public embrace between the two commanders, absorbed many Carlist officers into the regular Spanish army. Scattered Carlist resistance in Catalonia continued into 1840.
• 1839 Queen Victoria proposes to Prince Albert The British monarch takes the unusual step of proposing herself Queen Victoria asked her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to marry her, a proposal she made herself because protocol forbade anyone from proposing to the reigning monarch. The couple married in February 1840. Their marriage shaped the character of the British royal family for the rest of the century.
• 1839 Newport Rising Chartists stage an armed uprising in Wales Several thousand Chartist supporters marched on Newport, Wales, intending to seize the town and spark a wider rising for political reform. British troops met the marchers at the Westgate Hotel and opened fire, killing more than twenty people. The rising's leaders, including John Frost, were later sentenced to transportation.