1848

Events in 1848 65

• 1750 – 1848 Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) Died 9 January 1848, aged 97 German-born British astronomer who discovered several comets and worked with her brother William Herschel. She was the first woman to be paid for scientific work in Britain. She received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
• 1763 – 1848 John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) Died 29 March 1848, aged 84 German-born American merchant who made his fortune in the fur trade and in New York real estate. He was the richest person in the United States when he died. His bequest founded the Astor Library, later part of the New York Public Library.
• 1767 – 1848 John Quincy Adams 6th President — son of John Adams John Quincy Adams (Jul 11, 1767 – Feb 23, 1848) was the 6th President 1825-1829 and son of the 2nd President. He later served in Congress for 17 years after his presidency, dying at his desk in the House of Representatives.
• 1768 – 1848 François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) Died 4 July 1848, aged 79 French writer, diplomat and statesman, a founder of Romanticism in French literature. His works include Atala, René and the memoirs Mémoires d'outre-tombe, which were published after his death. He was buried on the island of Grand Bé off Saint-Malo.
• 1779 – 1848 Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779-1848) Died 7 August 1848, aged 68 Swedish chemist who devised modern chemical symbols and measured atomic weights accurately. He discovered the elements cerium, selenium and thorium. He is counted among the founders of modern chemistry.
• 1779 – 1848 William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848) Died 24 November 1848, aged 69 British Whig statesman who was Prime Minister in 1834 and from 1835 to 1841. He was the political mentor of the young Queen Victoria. His wife was Lady Caroline Lamb.
• 1781 – 1848 Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848) Died 18 December 1848, aged 67 Bohemian mathematician, philosopher and priest who worked in Prague. He did pioneering work on the foundations of analysis, including the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem and the intermediate value theorem. Much of his work was recognised only after his death.
• 1781 – 1848 George Stephenson (1781-1848) Died 12 August 1848, aged 67 English engineer known as the Father of Railways. He built the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. His track gauge of 4 ft 8½ in became the standard gauge used across much of the world.
• 1786 – 1848 Christian VIII of Denmark (1786-1848) Died 20 January 1848, aged 61 King of Denmark from 1839, and briefly King of Norway in 1814. He died as revolution was about to break out across Europe. His son Frederick VII succeeded him and soon gave up absolute rule.
• 1787 – 1848 Pellegrino Rossi (1787-1848) Died 15 November 1848, aged 61 Italian economist, jurist and politician, chief minister of the Papal States under Pius IX. He was stabbed to death on the steps of the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. His murder led the Pope to flee the city.
• 1792 – 1848 Frederick Marryat (1792-1848) Died 9 August 1848, aged 56 British Royal Navy officer and novelist, an early writer of sea stories. His books include Mr Midshipman Easy and The Children of the New Forest. He also devised a widely used system of maritime signal flags.
• 1797 – 1848 Annette von Droste-Hülshoff (1797-1848) Died 24 May 1848, aged 51 German poet and novelist, among the most important German women writers of the 19th century. Her novella Die Judenbuche is a classic of German literature. She died at Meersburg on Lake Constance.
• 1797 – 1848 Gaetano Donizetti Italian bel canto opera composer Italian composer of over 70 operas including Lucia di Lammermoor and L'elisir d'amore, a pillar of the bel canto tradition.
• 1801 – 1848 Thomas Cole (1801-1848) Died 11 February 1848, aged 47 English-born American painter who founded the Hudson River School of landscape painting. His best-known works include the series The Course of Empire and The Voyage of Life. He died at Catskill, New York.
• 1807 – 1848 Robert Blum (1807-1848) Died 9 November 1848, aged 40 German radical democrat and member of the Frankfurt Parliament. He went to Vienna during the October Uprising and was arrested when imperial troops took the city. He was executed despite his parliamentary immunity and became a martyr of the 1848 revolution.
• 1808 – 1848 Mohammad Shah Qajar (1808-1848) Died 5 September 1848, aged 40 Shah of Persia from 1834. His reign included a failed siege of Herat and growing British and Russian influence. His son Naser al-Din Shah succeeded him.
• 1811 – 1848 Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848) Died 7 June 1848, aged 36 Russian literary critic who championed Gogol and the realist school and shaped the Westernizer movement. His Letter to Gogol of 1847 became a key text of the Russian intelligentsia. He died of tuberculosis in St Petersburg.
• 1817 – 1848 Branwell Brontë (1817-1848) Died 24 September 1848, aged 31 English painter and writer, the only brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. His group portrait of his sisters is in the National Portrait Gallery. Alcohol and opium addiction ruined his health and he died at Haworth.
• 1818 – 1848 Emily Brontë (1818-1848) Died 19 December 1848, aged 30 English novelist and poet whose only novel is Wuthering Heights, published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. She died of tuberculosis at Haworth Parsonage three months after her brother Branwell. Wuthering Heights is now considered a classic of English literature.
• 1848 – 1930 Arthur Balfour (1848-1930) Died 19 March 1930, aged 81 British Conservative statesman who was Prime Minister from 1902 to 1905. As Foreign Secretary he issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which supported a Jewish national home in Palestine.
• 1848 – 1933 Henri Duparc (1848-1933) Died 12 February 1933, aged 85 French composer admired for a small group of art songs, including L'invitation au voyage. Illness ended his composing career in 1885.
• 1848 – 1935 Hugo de Vries (1848-1935) Died 21 May 1935, aged 87 De Vries was a Dutch botanist who was one of the rediscoverers of Mendel's laws of heredity. He introduced the term mutation.
• 1848 – 1908 Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) Died 3 July 1908, aged 59 Harris was an American journalist and author best known for the "Uncle Remus" collection of Southern folktales featuring Br'er Rabbit. His writing drew heavily on African American oral storytelling traditions from the Reconstruction-era South. He worked for decades at the Atlanta Constitution newspaper.
• 1848 – 1907 Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) Died 12 May 1907, aged 59 French novelist best known for A Rebours (Against Nature), a landmark of the Decadent movement, and for his later conversion to Catholicism reflected in works like La-Bas. He died in Paris after a long illness. His writing influenced Oscar Wilde and the wider fin de siecle aesthetic movement.
• 1848 – 1933 Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) Died 17 January 1933, aged 84 American artist and designer famous for his leaded glass lamps and windows. He was a leading figure of the Art Nouveau movement.
• 1848 – 1931 Thomas Lipton (1848-1931) Died 2 October 1931, aged 83 Scottish grocer and tea merchant who founded the Lipton tea brand. He challenged unsuccessfully for the America's Cup five times with his yachts named Shamrock. He died in London.
• 1848 – 1934 Tōgō Heihachirō (1848-1934) Died 30 May 1934, aged 86 Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy who destroyed the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima in 1905. He was revered in Japan as a national hero.
• 1848 – 1923 Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) Died 19 August 1923, aged 75 Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist and sociologist known for the Pareto principle and his work on income distribution and elite theory. His concept of Pareto efficiency remains foundational to welfare economics. He died in Celigny, Switzerland.
• 1848 – 1929 Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) Died 13 January 1929, aged 80 American lawman and gambler of the Old West. He is best known for the 1881 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, and died in Los Angeles.
• 1848 Sicilian revolution breaks out in Palermo The first of the European revolutions of 1848 An uprising in Palermo against the Bourbon government of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies began on 12 January. Sicily set up its own independent government. The revolt came before the February Revolution in Paris and is usually counted as the first of the 1848 revolutions.
• 1848 Gold discovered at Sutter's Mill The find that set off the California Gold Rush James W. Marshall found gold flakes in the tailrace of a sawmill he was building for John Sutter at Coloma, California. News of the discovery spread by the end of the year and drew around 300,000 people to California. The rush transformed the economy and population of the American West.
• 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed Ends the Mexican-American War The United States and Mexico signed the treaty at Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War. Mexico gave up about 55 percent of its territory, including present-day California, Nevada, Utah and parts of several other states, in return for $15 million. The Rio Grande was confirmed as the border with Texas.
• 1848 The Communist Manifesto published Marx and Engels issue their political pamphlet in London The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was published in London in German on 21 February. It set out a theory of history as class struggle and called on workers of all countries to unite. It became one of the most influential political texts ever written.
• 1848 February Revolution in France Louis Philippe overthrown and the Second Republic proclaimed Protests in Paris over the banning of political banquets turned into an insurrection on 22 February. King Louis Philippe abdicated on 24 February and a provisional government proclaimed the Second Republic. The revolution set off uprisings across much of Europe.
• 1848 Statuto Albertino granted Constitution of the Kingdom of Sardinia King Charles Albert of Sardinia granted a constitution on 4 March. It set up a parliamentary monarchy. It later became the constitution of the unified Kingdom of Italy and remained in force until 1948.
• 1848 Vienna uprising and fall of Metternich Revolution reaches the Austrian capital Student and worker demonstrations in Vienna on 13 March forced the resignation of Chancellor Klemens von Metternich, who fled to England. His fall ended the conservative order he had led since 1815. Emperor Ferdinand I promised a constitution.
• 1848 Outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution Pest rises against Habsburg rule On 15 March, radicals in Pest, among them the poet Sándor Petőfi, issued the Twelve Points demanding reform and national rights. The Habsburg court gave Hungary its own responsible government under the April Laws. The revolution later became a war of independence against Austria.
• 1848 Five Days of Milan Milanese drive out the Austrian garrison From 18 to 22 March, the people of Milan fought Austrian troops under Marshal Radetzky in the streets and forced them out of the city. The uprising led Piedmont-Sardinia to declare war on Austria. This began the First Italian War of Independence.
• 1848 – 1849 German Revolutions of 1848 Liberal and nationalist uprisings Revolutionary movements across the German states demanded constitutional government and national unification.
• 1848 Hydesville rappings of the Fox sisters Origin of the Spiritualist movement At Hydesville, New York, the sisters Kate and Margaret Fox claimed that rapping sounds in their house were messages from a spirit. Their story drew national attention. It is usually taken as the start of modern Spiritualism.
• 1848 Chicago Board of Trade founded Grain exchange set up in Chicago Merchants in Chicago founded the Board of Trade on 3 April to promote trade in the city. It went on to develop standardised grain contracts and futures trading. It became one of the world's largest futures exchanges.
• 1848 Chartist meeting on Kennington Common Mass rally for the People's Charter in London Chartists gathered on Kennington Common on 10 April to deliver a petition for political reform to Parliament. The government brought in troops and special constables, and the planned march was abandoned. The petition was found to contain far fewer genuine signatures than claimed, and the movement declined afterwards.
• 1848 Franklin expedition abandons its ships Crews leave HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in the Arctic ice On 22 April, the 105 survivors of Sir John Franklin's expedition left their ships, which had been trapped in ice off King William Island. A note left at Victory Point recorded that Franklin and many others had died. None of the men survived the march south.
• 1848 Slavery abolished in the French colonies Decree drafted by Victor Schœlcher The provisional government of the Second Republic decreed the abolition of slavery in all French colonies on 27 April. About 250,000 enslaved people were freed in places such as Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion. Slave owners received compensation and the freed people did not.
• 1848 Wisconsin admitted to the Union Becomes the 30th US state Wisconsin was admitted as the 30th state of the United States on 29 May. Its capital was Madison. Its population had grown fast through immigration from the eastern states and from Germany and Scandinavia.
• 1848 – 1903 Paul Gauguin Post-Impressionism · France Paul Gauguin (June 7, 1848 – May 8, 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist who left Europe for Tahiti, seeking a more primal authenticity. His bold colour and flat forms influenced Fauvism, Expressionism and Primitivism.
• 1848 Prague Uprising Czech revolt crushed by Windischgrätz Fighting broke out in Prague on 12 June, during the Slavic Congress. Austrian troops under Prince Alfred zu Windischgrätz bombarded the city and the uprising ended on 17 June. It was the first major victory of the counter-revolution in the Habsburg lands.
• 1848 Wallachian Revolution begins Islaz Proclamation issued Liberal revolutionaries in Wallachia issued the Islaz Proclamation on 21 June, calling for reforms including the end of serfdom and equal rights. A provisional government took power in Bucharest. Ottoman and Russian troops crushed it in September.
• 1848 June Days uprising Paris workers crushed by the army The closure of the National Workshops led workers in Paris to rise on 23 June. General Cavaignac put down the uprising by 26 June, and thousands were killed or deported. The defeat moved the Second Republic sharply to the right.
• 1848 Slavery abolished in the Danish West Indies Governor von Scholten proclaims emancipation After a slave revolt on St. Croix, Governor-General Peter von Scholten declared all enslaved people in the Danish West Indies free on 3 July. He acted without authority from Copenhagen. The colony is now the US Virgin Islands.
• 1848 Washington Monument cornerstone laid Construction begins on the memorial in the capital The cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid in Washington, D.C. on 4 July. Building stopped in 1854 for lack of money and because of the Civil War. The obelisk was finished in 1884.
• 1848 Seneca Falls Convention First women's rights convention in the United States Organised by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the convention met at Seneca Falls, New York, on 19 and 20 July. It adopted the Declaration of Sentiments, which included a demand for women's suffrage. It is widely seen as the start of the American women's rights movement.
• 1848 Battle of Custoza Austria defeats Piedmont-Sardinia Austrian forces under Marshal Radetzky defeated the army of Charles Albert of Sardinia near Verona on 24 and 25 July. The Austrians retook Milan soon afterwards. An armistice in August halted the first campaign of the First Italian War of Independence.
• 1848 Young Irelander Rebellion Short-lived rising at Ballingarry Young Ireland nationalists led by William Smith O'Brien rose during the Great Famine. Police besieged in Widow McCormack's house at Ballingarry, County Tipperary, held them off on 29 July and the rising collapsed. Its leaders were transported to Van Diemen's Land.
• 1848 Battle of Boomplaats British defeat Boer forces north of the Orange River British troops under Sir Harry Smith defeated Boers led by Andries Pretorius on 29 August. The victory confirmed British control of the Orange River Sovereignty. Many Boers moved north across the Vaal River.
• 1848 Public Health Act passed in Britain First major British public health law The Public Health Act received royal assent on 31 August, as cholera returned to Britain. It created a General Board of Health and allowed local boards to manage drainage, sewers and water supply. It was a foundation of modern sanitary reform.
• 1848 Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded Rossetti, Millais and Hunt form an artistic movement Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt founded the brotherhood in London. They rejected academic conventions in favour of detail, bright colour and serious subjects. The movement went on to shape Victorian art and design.
• 1848 Serfdom abolished in the Austrian Empire Emancipation of the peasants Emperor Ferdinand I approved a law passed by the Reichstag that abolished serfdom and feudal labour obligations across the Austrian lands on 7 September. Hans Kudlich had proposed it. It was among the few lasting results of the 1848 revolution in Austria.
• 1848 The 1848 Constitution The Modern Federal State Turned Switzerland from a loose alliance into a federal state with a bicameral parliament and the Federal Council.
• 1848 Vienna October Uprising Revolutionary Vienna retaken by imperial troops Radicals in Vienna rose on 6 October to stop troops being sent against Hungary, and lynched the war minister, Count Latour. Imperial forces under Windischgrätz and Jelačić bombarded and stormed the city, which fell on 31 October. The defeat ended the revolution in the Austrian capital.
• 1848 Dutch Constitution of 1848 Parliamentary democracy established A revised constitution limited royal power and strengthened parliament.
• 1848 Zachary Taylor elected US President First presidential election held on a single national day Whig candidate Zachary Taylor, a hero of the Mexican-American War, defeated Democrat Lewis Cass and Free Soil candidate Martin Van Buren on 7 November. It was the first US presidential election held on the same day in every state. Taylor died in office in 1850.
• 1848 Pope Pius IX flees Rome Pope escapes to Gaeta after the murder of Pellegrino Rossi Pius IX fled Rome in disguise on 24 November and took refuge at Gaeta in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Unrest after the assassination of his chief minister, Pellegrino Rossi, had forced him out. The Roman Republic was proclaimed in his absence early in 1849.
• 1848 Franz Joseph I becomes Emperor of Austria Ferdinand I abdicates in his nephew's favour At Olmütz on 2 December, Emperor Ferdinand I abdicated and his 18-year-old nephew Franz Joseph took the throne. Franz Joseph went on to rule for 68 years, until his death in 1916. His reign began with the suppression of the revolutions in Hungary and Italy.
• 1848 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte elected President of France Landslide win in the first French presidential election Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, won about 74 percent of the vote in the election of 10 and 11 December. He defeated General Cavaignac and Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. He seized dictatorial power in 1851 and made himself Emperor Napoleon III in 1852.