1822 CE

The Holy Alliance sends the Ottoman Empire a final ultimatum after Ottoman repression of Austrian subjects in Bucharest during the Wallachian uprising, otherwise facing war with Austria. 3 – U.S. House of Representatives elections begin in Louisiana and continue until the last elections are held in North Carolina on August 14, 1823. 13 – A sequence of earthquakes occurs in the northern part of the Ottoman Empire, causing severe damage from Gaziantep to Antakya in modern Turkey and from Aleppo to Khan Sheikhun in modern Syria. At least 20,000 people are killed.

In the 1820s, the 19th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

January 1 – The Greek Constitution of 1822 is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus.source
January 7 – The first freed slaves from the United States arrive on the west coast of Africa, founding Monrovia on April 25.source
January 9 – The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portugal's King João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process.source
9 January: D. Pedro I refuses to heed the order of the Cortes of Lisbon to return to Portugal, initiating the process of Brazilian independence. The date became known as Dia do Fico.Brazil source
January 14 – Greek War of Independence: Acrocorinth is captured by Theodoros Kolokotronis and Demetrios Ypsilantis.source
February 24 – The first Swaminarayan temple, Kalupur Swaminarayan Mandir at Ahmedabad in the British Raj, is inaugurated.source
March 19 – Boston, Massachusetts, is incorporated as a city following a vote.source
April 30 – George Canning, President of the Board of Control in the House of Commons, moves to repeal a law that prohibited Roman Catholic peers from sitting or voting in the House of Lords. The motion passes, 235–223, on its second reading, but the House of Lords declines to pass it.source
18 June – The Wellington Monument is inaugurated close to the Duke's London residence Apsley House on the seventh anniversary of his victory at Waterloo.United Kingdom source
July 1–3 – U.S. House of Representatives elections begin in Louisiana and continue until the last elections are held in North Carolina on August 14, 1823.United States source
July 8 – The Chippewa people cede a huge tract of land in Ontario to British control.source
July 13 – Greek War of Independence: Greek soldiers defeat Ottoman forces at Thermopylae.source
July 27 – Guayaquil Conference: Simón Bolívar and General José de San Martín meet in Guayaquil, which Bolívar later annexes.source
8 August – Bernardo O'Higgins institutes a new constitution, which is seen by opponents to be an attempt to keep himself in power, leading to O'Higgins being deposed and replaced by Ramón Freire in 1823.Chile source
September 7 – Brazil declares its independence from Portugal.source
7 September - Independence of BrazilPortugal source
September 16 – George Canning is appointed British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.source
September 16 – The Constituent Congress of Peru begins its first session.source
September 22 – Portugal approves its first Constitution.source
October 12 – Pedro, Crown Prince of Portugal, is declared the constitutional Emperor of Brazil, as Pedro the First.source
October 20 – The Congress of Verona opens in the Austrian-ruled province of Lombardy-Venetia. The event is the largest diplomatic gathering since the Congress of Vienna seven years earlier. The Congress lasts until December 14, and Russia, Austria and Prussia approve French intervention in Spain.source
October 31 – Emperor Agustín de Iturbide of the First Mexican Empire dissolves the country's Congress of the Union, and replaces it with a military junta.source
December 1 – Pedro I is crowned as the first Emperor of Brazil.source
December 14 – The Congress of Verona ends having endorsed French Intervention in Spainsource
John Bigge's first report on all aspects of the colonial government, then under the governorship of Lachlan Macquarie, including finances, the church and the judiciary, and the convict system, was published.Australia source
Louis-Joseph Papineau and John Neilson, both members of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, travel from Montreal to England to oppose an Act of Union identifying the French Canadians as a minority without language rights. The act is not passed in the British Parliament.Canada source
Ngāti Toa under senior chief Te Pēhi Kupe capture Kapiti Island.New Zealand source

Conflict & Security

February 9 – The invading Haitian forces, led by Jean-Pierre Boyer, arrive in Santo Domingo, to overthrow the newly founded Dominican Republic.source
2 March: The start of the Siege of Salvador, where the newly formed Brazilian army would attempt to capture the city of Salvador in Bahia from its Portuguese defenders.Brazil source
March 19 – The Holy Alliance sends the Ottoman Empire a final ultimatum after Ottoman repression of Austrian subjects in Bucharest during the Wallachian uprising, otherwise facing war with Austria.source
March 31 – Greek War of Independence – Chios massacre: 20,000 Greeks on the island of Chios are slaughtered by Ottoman troops, and 23,000 more are exiled.source
May 16 – Nairs, the upper caste in British Raj, attack Sandar women for covering their upper body and breasts.source
May 24 – Battle of Pichincha: Simón Bolívar secures the independence of Quito.source
June 18 – Greek War of Independence: Konstantinos Kanaris blows up the Ottoman navy's flagship at Chios, killing the Kapudan Pasha Nasuhzade Ali Pasha.source
July 2 – Denmark Vesey is hanged for plotting a slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina.United States source
July 7 – July 1822 Spanish coup d'état, an attempt by supporters of Ferdinand VII to overthrow the Liberal government of Spain, fails.source
September 8–13 – Battle of Nauplia: In a series of naval engagements, the Ottoman Fleet fails to break through the Greek Fleet, under Admiral Andreas Vokos Miaoulis.source
8 November: The Battle of Pirajá. It was the largest engagement in the fight for the independence of Bahia, involving approximately 10,000 troops.Brazil source
November 13 – Greek War of Independence: Nafplio falls to the Greek rebels.source
Large group of Griqua join Koranna, form "Bergenaars," and begin to raid cattle and attack communities along the Orange & Vaal Rivers.South Africa source
A committee is formed to collect remains from the remote location where the Battle of Minisink had been fought in 1779.United States source
Beginning of "Rhyfel y Sais Bach" ("War of the Little Englishman"), a dispute over enclosures in Pembrokeshire.Wales source
William Owen Pughe - Hu GadarnWales source

Exploration & Expansion

January 3 – The famous French explorer, Aimé Bonpland, is imprisoned in Paraguay on charges of espionage.source
22 January – Samuel Leigh and his wife arrive in the Bay of Islands to start the first Wesleyan mission. They stay at Te Puna with the Hall family of the Church Missionary Society for the next 16 months.New Zealand source
April 25 – The American Colonization Society lands at Cape Mesurado on the West African coast, after purchasing 60 mi of coastline. The settlement will soon become Monrovia, as the nation of Liberia is established to fill the ACS mission of freeing black American slaves and sending them "back to Africa".source
13 June - William Lloyd climbs Boorendo in the Himalayas.Wales source
July 26 – Guayaquil Conference: José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet Simón Bolívar.source
August 22 – The English ship Orion lands at Yerba Buena on the North American west coast of Mexico, under the command of William A. Richardson. The area is later acquired by the U.S. and becomes the site of San Francisco.source
22 August – English ship Orion lands at Yerba Buena, later named San Francisco, under the command of William A. RichardsonUnited Kingdom source
24 August – The Victorine a schooner under command of Captain William Risk, left Sydney bound for Mauritius. Carrying a crew of seven or eight the ship disappeared en route and was presumed lost.Australia source
November 9 – Action of 9 November 1822: USS Alligator engages three pirate schooners off Cuba, as part of the West Indies anti-piracy operations of the United States.source
November 9 – Action of 9 November 1822: USS Alligator engages three pirate schooners off the coast of Cuba as part of the West Indies anti-piracy operations of the U.S.United States source
29 November – Thomas Cochrane leaves the service of the Chilean Navy.Chile source
The Rocky Mountain Fur Company (Ashley's Hundred) leave from St. Louis, Missouri, setting off a major increase in fur trade.source
The Rhine Province, the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, established from 1822 to 1946.Germany source
AmaMfengu refugees of the Difaqane settle in the Eastern Cape.South Africa source

Religion & Belief

16 January: Dom Pedro I organizes a ministry formed by only Brazilians, under the leadership of José Bonifácio.Brazil source
March – The Noctes Ambrosianae, imaginary colloquies, begin to appear in Blackwood's Magazine (Edinburgh).Scotland source
13 May: D. Pedro I is acclaimed Perpetual Defender of Brazil by Freemasonry.Brazil source
19 July – Percy Jocelyn, Anglican Bishop of Clogher, is caught in a compromising position with a young Grenadier Guardsman at a public house in London. He breaks bail and flees England. In October, an Irish ecclesiastical court deprives him of office.Ireland source
August 12 – St David's College (the modern-day University of Wales, Lampeter) is founded in Wales by Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St David's.source
12 August – St David's College (the modern-day University of Wales, Lampeter) is founded by Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St David's.United Kingdom source
12 August - St David's College (now the University of Wales, Lampeter) is founded by Thomas Burgess, Bishop of St David's.Wales source
November 13 – The Congregation of St. Basil is founded in France.source
24 December – Reverend Archibald Macarthur, Hobart's first Presbyterian minister arrived in Australia and held his first service on 12 January the following year.Australia source
The Kerikeri Mission House is completed.New Zealand source

Economy & Finance

28 February – Spare- og Laanekassen i Marstal, a savings bank on the island of Ørø, is founded by a group of local residents.Denmark source
Dissolution of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the AlgarvesBrazil source
Motala Verkstad is founded by Baltzar von Platen.Sweden source
Stonemason John Mowlem establishes the contracting firm Mowlem.United Kingdom source

Technology & Infrastructure

24 April – Salon of 1822 opens at the Louvre in ParisFrance source
May – the Edinburgh and Glasgow Union Canal, engineered by Hugh Baird, is opened throughout, from a terminus at Fountainbridge in Edinburgh to a junction with the Forth and Clyde Canal at Camelon near Falkirk, including Scotland's only canal tunnel (at Falkirk) and completion of Slateford Aqueduct; passenger boats have been operating on the canal from the beginning of the year.Scotland source
July 3 – Charles Babbage publishes a proposal for a difference engine, a forerunner of the modern computer, for calculating logarithms and trigonometric functions. Construction of an operational version will proceed under British Government sponsorship (1823–1832), but it will never be completed.source
3 July – Charles Babbage publishes a proposal for a "difference engine", a mechanical forerunner of the modern computer for calculating logarithms and trigonometric functions. Construction of an operational version will proceed under Government sponsorship 1823–32 but it will never be completed.United Kingdom source
The fifth and last prohibition of coffee in Sweden is lifted.source
Röchling SE & Co. KG, a plastics engineering company headquartered in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany is established.Germany source
Public gas lighting in Belfast.Ireland source
Inauguration of the National Portrait Gallery (Sweden).Sweden source
Gist Mansion is built in Wellsburg, West Virginia (used some 100 years later for the Brooke Hills Spooktacular).United States source
Horse-drawn trams begin a passenger service between Tredegar and Newport.Wales source

Science & Discovery

23 May – HMS Comet launched at Deptford Dockyard, the first steamboat commissioned by the Royal Navy.United Kingdom source
August 22 – The English ship Orion lands at Yerba Buena, modern-day San Francisco, under the command of William A. Richardson.United States source
September 27 – Jean-François Champollion announces his success in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, using the Rosetta Stone, in a letter to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris (based on the work of Thomas Young).source
27 December – The Snapper is the first deep-sea vessel to enter what will become the port at Bluff. (see also 1813)New Zealand source
Hieroglyphs deciphered by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion using the Rosetta Stone.France source
Egyptian hieroglyphs are deciphered by Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion using the Rosetta Stone.United Kingdom source
A fossil Iguanodon tooth is discovered by Gideon Mantell and his wife Mary in West Sussex; in 1825 it will be the first fossil to be recognised as that of a dinosaur.United Kingdom source

Health & Medicine

15 January – HM Treasury directs that the Preventive Water Guard, Revenue cruisers and Riding officers should all be placed under the authority of the Board of Customs as HM Coast Guard.United Kingdom source
June 6 – Alexis St. Martin is accidentally shot in the stomach, which leads the way to William Beaumont's studies on digestion.source
July 31 – The last public whipping is carried out in Edinburgh.source
The teaching and practice of acupuncture and moxibustion were banned from the Imperial Medical Academy (Taiyuyuan)China source
London Missionary Society, led by Dr. Philip, establishes a mission station for the San at Philippolis.South Africa source
The last major outbreak of yellow fever in New York City occurs.United States source

Crime & Justice

12 August – The Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh cuts his own throat at his house in Kent.United Kingdom source
27 November – Outside Newgate Prison in London, William Reading becomes the last person to be hanged for shoplifting.United Kingdom source
The piracy trial of Johanna Hård.Sweden source
Amorina by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist.Sweden source

Disasters & Accidents

3 January – Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland is gutted by fire.United Kingdom source
February 6 – The Chinese junk Tek Sing sinks in the South China Sea, drowning more than 1,800 people on board. The wreckage will not be located until 1999.source
March 11 – A powerful sudden storm struck the western Norwegian coast killing about 300 men at sea.Norway source
May 26 – Grue Church fire: The biggest fire disaster in Norway's history kills 116 people.source
May 26 – 116 people die in the Grue Church fire. It's the biggest fire disaster in Norway's history.Norway source
November 22 – A fire in Guangzhou (Canton) kills 500 people, and destroys 13,070 homes and several European-owned businesses.source
The old town of Cullen, Moray, is demolished.Scotland source

Climate & Environment

June – August: Following an eruption the previous year, another sequence of explosive eruptions occurred at Eyjafjallajökull The eruption columns were shot to considerable heights, with ashfall in both the far north of the country, in Eyjafjörður, and in the southwest, on the peninsula of Seltjarnarnes near Reykjavík.Iceland source
August 5–13 – A sequence of earthquakes occurs in the northern part of the Ottoman Empire, causing severe damage from Gaziantep to Antakya in modern Turkey and from Aleppo to Khan Sheikhun in modern Syria. At least 20,000 people are killed.source
October 8 – The Galunggung volcano erupts on West Java, and is followed four days later by a second, more violent outburst. The two events kill more than 4,000 people and destroy 114 villages.source
October 21 – The volcano Mount Vesuvius near Naples erupts.source
November 19 – An earthquake near Valparaíso in Chile kills around 200 people, causes a tsunami and raises the coastal area.source
November 23 – The USS Alligator wrecks on Carysford Reef off the coast of Florida.United States source

Culture & Society

January 13 – The design of the modern-day flag of Greece is adopted by the First National Assembly at Epidaurus, for their naval flag.source
6 May – The Royal Academy Exhibition of 1822 opens at Somerset House. The exhibition is noted for portraits by Thomas Lawrence and David Wilkie's Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Waterloo DispatchUnited Kingdom source
July 1 – Mumbai Samachar, a Gujarati daily newspaper, is establishedIndia source
5 July – The Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales was founded.Australia source
August 15 — The visit of King George IV to Scotland begins and lasts until –August 29.source
October – English actor Edmund Kean acquires an estate on the Isle of Bute.Scotland source
Over the middle of the year Franz Schubert begins writing his Symphony No. 8, but leaves it unfinished.source
Carl Nielsen's Wind Quintet is performed in public for the first time.Denmark source
Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co., a media publishing house based in Stuttgart, Germany, founded.Germany source
Era of Good Feelings (1817–1825)United States source
Y Cymmrodor (first, unnumbered volume)Wales source

Births

January 6 – Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist (died 1890)source
6 January-Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist (died 1890)Germany source
January 28 – Alexander Mackenzie, 2nd Prime Minister of Canada (died 1892)source
February 16 – Sir Francis Galton, English biologist (died 1911)source
March 5 – Ali Reza Khan Azod-ol-Molk, Iranian politician.Iran source
March 14 – Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, Empress consort of Brazil (died 1889)source
April 26 – Frederick Law Olmsted, American landscape architect (died 1903)source
April 27 – Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States (died 1885)source
May 18 – Mathew Brady, American photographer (died 1896)source
May 20 – Frédéric Passy, French economist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (died 1912)source
July 20 – Gregor Mendel, Czech geneticist (died 1884)source
August 27 – William Hayden English, American politician (died 1896)source
October 4 – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (died 1893)source
8 October (in France): Francis Dillon Bell, politician.New Zealand source
13 October – Joaquín Larraín Gandarillas (died 1897)Chile source
December 10 – César Franck, Belgian composer, organist (died 1890)source
December 24 – Matthew Arnold, English poet (died 1888)source
December 27 – Louis Pasteur, French microbiologist, chemist (died 1895)source

Deaths

January 24 – Ali Pasha of Yanina, ruler of European Turkey (born 1741)source
19 February: Insurrection for Brazilian independence in Bahia, where nun Joana Angélica is killed.Brazil source
19 February - Jerónimo Francisco de Lima, composerPortugal source
23 February – Vicente Benavides (born 1777)Chile source
March 1 – Jack Jouett, American politician (born 1754)source
April 20 – Allegra Byron, illegitimate daughter of Lord Byron (born 1817)source
May 8 – John Stark, American Revolutionary War general (born 1728)source
May 25 – Christos Palaskas and Alexis Noutsos are executed by Odysseas Androutsos' forces.source
June 3 – René Just Haüy, French "father of modern crystallography" (born 1743)source
June 25 – E. T. A. Hoffmann, German Romantic author (born 1776)source
July 8 – Percy Bysshe Shelley, British poet (born 1792)source
July 15 – Manuel Torres, first Colombian ambassador to the United States (born 1762)source
August 12 – Lord Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, commits suicide at his house in Kent. He is judged to have been insane at the time.source
August 12 – Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, British foreign secretary (suicide) (born 1769)source
August 16 — The body of British poet Percy Bysse Shelley, who died on July 8 in the sinking of his boat Don Juan, is cremated at the beach, 10 days after his decomposed remains had washed ashore in Italy near Viareggio, in the presence of Lord Byron and Edward John Trelawny, who claims to have seized Shelley's heart from the flames.source
August 25 – William Herschel, German-born British astronomer (born 1738)source
25 August – William Herschel, German-born British astronomer (born 1738)Germany source
October 13 – Antonio Canova, Italian sculptor (born 1757)source