Timeline December 1845

Events in December 1845 5

• 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.