1845

Events in 1845 44

• 1764 – 1845 Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1845) Died 17 July 1845, aged 81 Earl Grey was the British Whig Prime Minister from 1830 to 1834. His government passed the Great Reform Act of 1832 and abolished slavery across most of the British Empire. Earl Grey tea is named after him.
• 1767 – 1845 August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767-1845) Died 12 May 1845, aged 77 August Wilhelm Schlegel was a German poet, critic and translator, and one of the leading figures of German Romanticism. His translations of Shakespeare became the standard German versions. He was also a pioneering scholar of Sanskrit.
• 1767 – 1845 Andrew Jackson 7th President — Old Hickory Andrew Jackson (Mar 15, 1767 – Jun 8, 1845) was the 7th President 1829-1837, the first from a humble background. Known for the Indian Removal Act, vetoing the national bank, and his fierce populist style.
• 1771 – 1845 Sydney Smith (1771-1845) Died 22 February 1845, aged 73 Sydney Smith was an English clergyman, essayist and wit, and a co-founder of the Edinburgh Review. He campaigned for Catholic emancipation and other liberal causes. His conversation and writing made him one of the most quoted men of his time.
• 1779 – 1845 Joseph Story (1779-1845) Died 10 September 1845, aged 65 Joseph Story served as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1812 until his death. He wrote the Court's opinion in the Amistad case. His Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States became a classic of American legal scholarship.
• 1780 – 1845 Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) Died 12 October 1845, aged 65 Elizabeth Fry was an English Quaker prison reformer who campaigned for humane treatment of women prisoners, beginning at Newgate. She also worked for the homeless and founded a training school for nurses. From 2001 to 2016 her portrait appeared on the Bank of England five-pound note.
• 1788 – 1845 Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845) Died 17 June 1845, aged 56 Richard Harris Barham was an English clergyman and humorous writer. Under the pen name Thomas Ingoldsby he wrote The Ingoldsby Legends. These comic tales in verse and prose were among the most popular books of Victorian England.
• 1790 – 1845 John Frederic Daniell (1790-1845) Died 13 March 1845, aged 55 John Frederic Daniell was an English chemist and physicist who invented the Daniell cell in 1836. It gave a far steadier current than earlier batteries and was widely used in early telegraphy. He also invented a dew-point hygrometer.
• 1799 – 1845 Thomas Hood (1799-1845) Died 3 May 1845, aged 45 Thomas Hood was an English poet and humorist known for his puns and comic verse. His late poem The Song of the Shirt, about a poor seamstress, made a great impression in Victorian Britain. He also edited several literary magazines.
• 1808 – 1845 Henrik Wergeland (1808-1845) Died 12 July 1845, aged 37 Henrik Wergeland was a Norwegian poet and one of the country's most important national writers. He campaigned for popular education and for lifting the ban on Jews entering Norway. Norway's Constitution Day celebrations owe much to his promotion of them.
• 1814 – 1845 Thomas Davis (1814-1845) Died 16 September 1845, aged 30 Thomas Davis was an Irish writer and the leading figure of the Young Ireland movement. He co-founded The Nation newspaper. He wrote the ballad A Nation Once Again.
• 1845 – 1894 Alexander III of Russia (1845-1894) Died 1 November 1894, aged 49 Alexander III ruled the Russian Empire as an autocrat who reversed many of his father's liberal reforms and pursued Russification policies. He died of kidney disease at Livadia Palace in Crimea. His son Nicholas II succeeded him as the last Tsar of Russia.
• 1845 – 1924 Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) Died 4 November 1924, aged 79 Gabriel Fauré was a French composer whose Requiem and songs are among the most performed works of French Romantic music. He served as director of the Paris Conservatoire and influenced a generation of composers including Ravel.
• 1845 – 1913 George I of Greece (1845-1913) Died 18 March 1913, aged 67 King George I was shot and killed in Thessaloniki shortly after Greek forces had captured the city during the First Balkan War. He had reigned since 1863 and was the longest-serving monarch in modern Greek history. His son succeeded him as Constantine I.
• 1845 – 1846 Le Verrier and Adams predict Neptune mathematically Invisible disturbances in Uranus's orbit reveal a hidden planet Independently in 1845-1846, Urbain Le Verrier of France and John Adams of England calculated the position of an unknown planet whose gravity was perturbing Uranus's orbit. When Galle pointed his telescope to Le Verrier's predicted position, Neptune was found within 1 degree. The first planet discovered by pure mathematics.
• 1845 – 1886 Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-1886) Died 13 June 1886, aged 40 King Ludwig II of Bavaria died in mysterious circumstances in Lake Starnberg, days after being declared insane and deposed by a government commission. He was known for extravagant building projects, including Neuschwanstein Castle, and for his patronage of the composer Richard Wagner. His death, officially ruled a drowning, remains disputed by historians.
• 1845 Spiral structure of a nebula observed Lord Rosse sketches the Whirlpool Galaxy Using the Leviathan of Parsonstown, then the largest telescope in the world, the Earl of Rosse saw spiral structure in the nebula M51. It was the first time spiral form had been seen in any nebula. Such objects were later shown to be galaxies outside the Milky Way.
• 1845 The Condition of the Working Class in England published Engels documents industrial poverty Friedrich Engels published his study of the industrial working class in Leipzig. It drew on what he had seen in Manchester while working at his family's cotton firm. The book became a founding text of socialist analysis of industrial capitalism.
• 1845 – 1923 Wilhelm Rontgen (1845-1923) Died 10 February 1923, aged 77 Wilhelm Rontgen was a German physicist who discovered X-rays in 1895, a finding that transformed medical diagnosis and earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. He donated his prize money to his university and refused to patent his discovery, believing it should benefit humanity freely. He died in Munich at age 77.
• 1845 Publication of The Raven Poe's poem appears in print Edgar Allan Poe's narrative poem The Raven was published in the New York Evening Mirror. It was reprinted widely and made Poe famous almost at once. It remains one of the best-known poems in American literature.
• 1845 Treaty of Ponche Verde End of the Ragamuffin War The Treaty of Ponche Verde ended the Ragamuffin War, a decade-long republican rebellion in the southern Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul. The rebels were granted amnesty and some of their demands were met. The province was reintegrated into the Empire of Brazil.
• 1845 Florida admitted to the Union Florida becomes the 27th US state Florida was admitted as the 27th state of the United States on President John Tyler's last full day in office. It entered as a slave state. Before that it had been a US territory since 1822.
• 1845 Inauguration of James K. Polk Polk becomes 11th US President James K. Polk was sworn in as the 11th President of the United States in Washington. He had campaigned on territorial expansion, including Texas and Oregon. His presidency saw the Mexican-American War and the largest growth in US territory since the Louisiana Purchase.
• 1845 Sacking of Kororareka Flagstaff War breaks out in New Zealand Maori forces led by Hone Heke and Kawiti cut down the British flagstaff at Kororareka for the fourth time and sacked the town. The settlement was evacuated and largely burned. The attack began the Flagstaff War between Maori and British colonial forces in northern New Zealand.
• 1845 Great Fire of Pittsburgh Fire destroys a third of the city A fire spread across Pittsburgh in a single afternoon and destroyed about a third of the city. Roughly a thousand buildings burned and thousands of residents lost their homes. Rebuilding began almost immediately.
• 1845 Ramon Castilla becomes President of Peru Start of Castilla's first term Ramon Castilla took office as President of Peru after years of civil conflict. His government brought political stability, paid for by revenue from guano exports. He later abolished slavery and the tribute paid by indigenous people.
• 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass published Douglass publishes his autobiography Frederick Douglass published his first autobiography through the Anti-Slavery Office in Boston. It gave a first-hand account of his life under slavery in Maryland. The book sold widely in the United States and Europe and became central to the abolitionist movement.
• 1845 Southern Baptist Convention founded Baptists split over slavery Baptist churches from the southern states met in Augusta, Georgia, and formed the Southern Baptist Convention. They split from northern Baptists after the national mission board refused to appoint slaveholders as missionaries. It became the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
• 1845 Franklin expedition departs England Search for the Northwest Passage begins Sir John Franklin sailed from Greenhithe with HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and 129 men to chart the Northwest Passage. The ships were last seen by Europeans in Baffin Bay that summer. Every member of the expedition died, and it became the worst disaster in the history of British polar exploration.
• 1845 Phrase Manifest Destiny coined O'Sullivan names US expansionism In the July-August issue of the Democratic Review, the editor John L. O'Sullivan wrote that it was America's manifest destiny to spread across the continent. He wrote it in support of annexing Texas. The phrase became the slogan of American westward expansion.
• 1845 Thoreau moves to Walden Pond Thoreau begins his experiment in simple living Henry David Thoreau moved into a small cabin he had built beside Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. He lived there for just over two years. Walden, his account of that time, was published in 1854.
• 1845 Great Fire of New York Fire destroys much of lower Manhattan A fire that began in a whale-oil and candle business spread through lower Manhattan and set off an explosion in a warehouse storing saltpetre. Several hundred buildings were destroyed and about 30 people died. It was the last of the great fires to sweep the old city centre.
• 1845 Faraday effect discovered Magnetism shown to affect light Michael Faraday found that a magnetic field rotates the plane of polarised light passing through glass. It was the first experimental evidence of a link between light and electromagnetism. The discovery helped lay the ground for Maxwell's electromagnetic theory of light.
• 1845 Potato blight reaches Ireland Start of the Great Famine The water mould Phytophthora infestans destroyed much of Ireland's potato crop in the autumn of 1845, after appearing in continental Europe that summer. Most of the Irish rural poor depended on the potato for food. The failures that followed caused about a million deaths and drove more than a million people to emigrate over the next several years.
• 1845 Knickerbocker Base Ball Club founded Early written rules of baseball The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club was organised in New York, and its members adopted a written set of playing rules. The Knickerbocker rules introduced features such as foul lines and the tag-out instead of hitting runners with the ball. They shaped the development of modern baseball.
• 1845 John Henry Newman becomes a Catholic Leading Oxford Movement figure converts John Henry Newman, a leader of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, was received into the Roman Catholic Church at Littlemore. His conversion caused a sensation in Victorian Britain. He was later made a cardinal and was canonised in 2019.
• 1845 United States Naval Academy founded Naval School opens at Annapolis Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft established the Naval School at Fort Severn in Annapolis, Maryland. It opened with 50 midshipmen and seven faculty. It was renamed the United States Naval Academy in 1850.
• 1845 Premiere of Tannhauser Wagner's opera opens in Dresden Richard Wagner's opera Tannhauser premiered at the Royal Saxon Court Theatre in Dresden, with Wagner conducting. He revised it several times over the following decades. Its overture became one of his most performed orchestral pieces.
• 1845 Battle of Vuelta de Obligado Anglo-French fleet forces the Parana A combined British and French squadron broke through chains and shore batteries that Juan Manuel de Rosas's Argentine forces had set across the Parana River. The battle was part of the Anglo-French blockade of the Rio de la Plata. Argentina commemorates it as the Day of National Sovereignty.
• 1845 Pneumatic tyre patented Robert William Thomson patents the air-filled tyre The Scottish engineer Robert William Thomson was granted a British patent for an air-filled tyre for carriage wheels. His design was not commercially successful at the time. John Boyd Dunlop reinvented the pneumatic tyre in 1888.
• 1845 First Anglo-Sikh War begins Sikh army crosses the Sutlej The Khalsa army of the Sikh Empire crossed the Sutlej River into territory held by the British East India Company. The Company declared war two days later. The war ended in 1846 with Sikh defeat and the loss of substantial Punjabi territory.
• 1845 Sonderbund formed Catholic Swiss cantons form secret alliance Seven conservative Catholic cantons formed a separate defensive league, the Sonderbund, to resist liberal centralisation of the Swiss Confederation. Its existence broke the federal pact. The Sonderbund War of 1847 followed, and in 1848 Switzerland became a federal state.
• 1845 Battle of Ferozeshah Costly British victory over the Sikhs East India Company forces under Sir Hugh Gough and Sir Henry Hardinge attacked the Sikh entrenchments at Ferozeshah over two days. The British held the field but took heavy casualties. It was one of the hardest-fought battles of British rule in India.
• 1845 Texas admitted to the Union Texas becomes the 28th US state President James K. Polk signed the act admitting the Republic of Texas as the 28th state of the United States. Mexico had never recognised Texan independence and objected strongly to the annexation. The dispute over Texas led directly to the Mexican-American War the following year.