1831 CE

Battle of Warsaw: The Army of Russia takes the Polish capital after a two-day battle to crush the Polish uprising. Charles Darwin embarks from Plymouth on the second voyage of HMS Beagle which will be the foundation for his life of scientific study. Charles Darwin embarks on his historic voyage aboard HMS Beagle from Plymouth.

In the 1830s, the 19th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 7 – The Belgian Constitution of 1831 is approved by the National Congress.source
  • March 10 – The French Foreign Legion is founded.source
  • 10 March - The French Foreign Legion is founded.Francesource
  • April 7 – Pedro I abdicates as Emperor of Brazil in favor of his 5-year-old son Pedro II, who will reign for almost 59 years.source
  • April 27 – Charles Albert becomes king of Sardinia after the death of King Charles Felix.source
  • May 2: Emperor Pedro I abdicates from his post, leaving the throne for his 5-year-old son Pedro II. Since Pedro II was a minor, the country entered a regency period until he reached the age of 15 in 1840.Brazilsource
  • 26 June – At the Conference of London the five great powers (Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, Russia) finalise the Treaty of the Eighteen Articles, an unsuccessful peace proposal for Belgium and the NetherlandsBelgiumsource
  • July 13 – Russian imperial officials in Wallachia adopt Regulamentul Organic, introducing a period of unprecedented reforms that provide for Westernization of this region of Romania.source
  • July 21 – Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is inaugurated as the first King of the Belgians, in Brussels.source
  • 29 August – Belgian general election, 1831, first elections for the Belgian ParliamentBelgiumsource
  • September 22 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Great Reform Bill to expand the franchise, but this is later defeated in the House of Lords.source
  • 22 September – The House of Commons passes the Great Reform Bill to expand the franchise, but this is later defeated in the Lords.United Kingdomsource
  • November 17 – Ecuador and Venezuela are separated from Gran Colombia.source
  • December 31 – Gramercy Park is deeded to New York City.source
  • The Ripon Land Regulation Act provides land grants.Australiasource
  • Many African-Canadians were protesting at the time about voting rights, although these weren't granted to them until 7 years later.Canadasource
  • William Rees (Gwilym Hiraethog) becomes a minister.Walessource

Conflict & Security

  • February 5 – Dutch naval lieutenant Jan van Speyk blows up his own gunboat in Antwerp rather than strike his colours on the demand of supporters of the Belgian Revolution.source
  • February 14 – Battle of Debre Abbay: Ras Marye of Yejju marches into Tigray, and defeats and kills the warlord Sabagadis.source
  • 14 February – Vicente Guerrero, leader of Mexican War of Independence and 2nd President of Mexico, assassinated (born 1782)Mexicosource
  • February 25 – Battle of Olszynka Grochowska (Grochów): Polish rebel forces divide a Russian army.source
  • March 13-15: Night of the Bottle Fight – A street fight between the Portuguese and the Brazilians.Brazilsource
  • March 18 – Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: An injunction requested by the Cherokee nation, claiming that Georgia's state legislature had created laws which, "go directly to annihilate the Cherokees as a political society", is denied.United Statessource
  • March 29 – The Bosnian uprising (1831–32) against the Ottoman Empire begins.source
  • April 27 – Ending of the First Anglo-Ashanti War (1823–1831).source
  • 6 May: The Battle of Balakot took place which saw the Sikh forces under prince Sher Singh defeat the Mujahideen under Syed Ahmad Barelvi at Balakot.Indiasource
  • May 26 – Battle of Ostrołęka: The Poles fight another indecisive battle.source
  • August 2 – The Dutch Ten Days' Campaign against Belgium is halted by a French army.source
  • August 21 - Nat Turner's slave rebellion in the United States breaks out in Southampton County, Virginia.source
  • 2–12 August – Ten Days' Campaign – Dutch attempt to re-establish rule over Belgium fails, but Dutch forces retain control of Antwerp Citadel.Belgiumsource
  • September 8– Battle of Warsaw: The Army of Russia takes the Polish capital after a two-day battle to crush the Polish uprising.source
  • October 21 – The November Uprising ends in the defeat of Polish forces.source
  • 22 October – John Jones of Ystrad and Robert Fulke Greville fight a duel at Tafarnspite.Walessource
  • October 29 – The 1831 Bristol riots ("Queen Square riots") in Bristol (England) begin, in connection with the Great Reform Bill controversy. Quelled by the authorities and the military on October 31, 100 city centre properties are destroyed, at least 120 are estimated to have been killed, 31 of the rioters will be sentenced to death and a colonel facing court-martial for failure to control the riot commits suicide.source
  • October 30 – In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.source
  • November 22 – First Canut Revolt: After a bloody battle with the military causing 600 deaths, rebellious silk workers seize Lyon, France.source
  • November 26 – Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833): The start of the one year Siege of Akka by Egyptian forces.source
  • December 27 – The Baptist War (Christmas Rebellion) begins in Jamaica, with the setting afire of the Kensington House in St James Parish, inspiring thousands of black slaves to revolt against their British masters. At its peak, more than 20,000 people will be involved, and more than 500 killed.source
  • Scholar Rifa'a at-Tahtawi returns from study in Paris to Egypt, where he will participate in the Nahda.source
  • Egyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833): Egyptian forces under Muhammad Ali occupy Ottoman Syria.source
  • Ngāti Toa under chief and war leader Te Rauparaha besiege Ngāi Tahu stronghold of Kaiapoi pā.New Zealandsource
  • Order of the White Eagle (Russian Empire)Russiasource

Exploration & Expansion

  • February 8 – French-born botanical explorer Aimé Bonpland leaves Paraguay for Argentina.source
  • May 31 – Auxiliary paddle steamer Sophia Jane arrives at Sydney from London, becoming the first steamboat to operate in the coastal waters of New South Wales.source
  • June 1 – British Royal Navy officer James Clark Ross locates the position of the North Magnetic Pole, at this time on the Boothia Peninsula.source
  • 5 August – Charles Darwin travels from Shrewsbury to Llangollen with his tutor, Rev Adam Sedgwick, to carry out geological studies. They remain in Wales for more than two weeks.Walessource
  • 13 September – HDMS Hvalfisken arrives back in Copenhagen, marking the end of the 1929–1831 Danish East Greenland Expedition.Denmarksource
  • December 27 – Charles Darwin embarks from Plymouth on the second voyage of HMS Beagle which will be the foundation for his life of scientific study.source
  • 27 December – Charles Darwin embarks on his historic voyage aboard HMS Beagle from Plymouth.United Kingdomsource
  • Fjallvegafélagið (The Society for Mountain Trails) was founded under the leadership of Bjarni Thorarensen.Icelandsource
  • African American actor Ira Aldridge tours Ireland.Irelandsource
  • Joseph Brooks Weller arrives in Otago Harbour on the Sir George Murray and makes an agreement with local Māori claiming territory for King William IV before returning to Sydney.New Zealandsource
  • Joseph Brooks Weller commissions a vessel from shipbuilders on Stewart Island.New Zealandsource
  • Alexis de Tocqueville visits the United States.United Statessource

Religion & Belief

  • February 2 – Pope Gregory XVI succeeds Pope Pius VIII, as the 254th pope.source
  • 3 February – Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, elected king of the Belgians but declined the honour.Belgiumsource
  • February–March – Revolts in Modena, Parma and the Papal States are put down by Austrian troops.source
  • 1 August – the Roman Catholic St Thomas's Church, Keith, is opened for worship.Scotlandsource
  • August 7 – American Baptist minister William Miller preaches his first sermon on the Second Advent of Christ in Dresden, New York, launching the Advent Movement in the United States.source
  • 23 October – George Joseph Plunket Browne is consecrated as first Bishop of the new Roman Catholic Diocese of Galway, created by the Holy See following abolition of the Wardenship of Galway (Edmund Ffrench being the last Warden).Irelandsource
  • 25 December – John Guard Junior baptised in Sydney. (see above)New Zealandsource
  • December – First meeting in England of the Plymouth Brethren, organised primarily by George Wigram, Benjamin Wills Newton and John Nelson Darby.United Kingdomsource
  • The house which will eventually contain Abbey Road Studios is built in the St John's Wood district of London.United Kingdomsource
  • Autumn – Y Drysorfa, a Calvinistic Methodist publication, restarts under the editorship of John Parry.Walessource
  • John Evans (I. D. Ffraid) – Hanes yr IddewonWalessource

Economy & Finance

  • January 10 – Japanese department store, Takashimaya in Kyoto established.source
  • 16 April – Trade in preserved Māori heads as curios is outlawed by the Governor of New South Wales.New Zealandsource
  • 15 October – Truck Act prohibits payment of wages other than in cash.United Kingdomsource
  • November 7 – Slave trading is forbidden in Brazil.source
  • December 26 – Global financial services business Assicurazioni Generali is founded in Trieste (at this time in the Austrian Empire) as Imperial Regia Privilegiata Compagnia di Assicurazioni Generali Austro-Italiche.source
  • Glenugie distillery is established as Invernettie at Peterhead by Donald McLeod; Talisker distillery is opened at Carbost, Talisker, Skye, by Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill.Scotlandsource
  • Private banks are allowed to issue their own banknotes.Swedensource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • 4 March - James Stirling commissioned as Lieutenant-Governor of Western Australia, rectifying the absence of a legal instrument providing the authority detailed in Stirling's Instructions of 30 December 1828.Australiasource
  • 14 March - The Surprise, the first paddle steamer built in Australia, was launched in Sydney.Australiasource
  • 10 May – first steam locomotive to be built in Glasgow completed by Murdoch, Aitken & Co. for the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway.Scotlandsource
  • 1 October – John and Betty Guard's son, John Guard, is born at his father's whaling station at Te Awaiti in Tory Channel. He is the first European child born in the South Island.New Zealandsource
  • 15 October – Board of Works formed as a department of state by merger of the Office of the Surveyor-General for Ireland, the Barracks Board, and the Navigation Board.Irelandsource
  • October 28 – Michael Faraday constructs an early form of dynamo.source
  • October – King's College London opens.United Kingdomsource
  • A charter for a railway, from La Prairie, Quebec to St. John's, is granted; it will be the first railway in Canada.Canadasource
  • The Visingo oak forest was started, leading to the planting of 300,000 oak trees intended to build naval ships.Swedensource

Science & Discovery

  • 7 March – Royal Astronomical Society receives its Royal Charter.United Kingdomsource
  • 2 April – HDMS Galathea is launched at Nyholm in Copenhagen.Denmarksource
  • August 29 - Michael Faraday demonstrates electromagnetic induction at the Royal Society of London. Joseph Henry recognises it at about the same time.source
  • Frédéric Chopin arrives in Paris.Francesource
  • 19–21 March – one of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches runs from Edinburgh to Glasgow.Scotlandsource
  • William Wallace invents the eidograph.Scotlandsource
  • James Hogg publishes Songs, by the Ettrick Shepherd.Scotlandsource

Health & Medicine

  • February – at a public meeting in Maryborough, Queen's County, farmer Patrick "Patt" Lalor declares that he will no longer pay tithes.Irelandsource
  • 26 October – Cholera epidemic begins in Sunderland.United Kingdomsource
  • 23 December – the second cholera pandemic (1829–51) reaches Scotland.Scotlandsource

Crime & Justice

  • May–June – Merthyr Rising in Merthyr Tydfil.United Kingdomsource
  • 5 August – Edward Broughton, an English convict turned serial killer and bushranger is hanged after he escaped from Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour with four other convicts and later confessed to murdering three of his companions and resorting to cannibalism.Australiasource
  • 15 October – Special Constables Act regularises operation of the Special Constabulary.United Kingdomsource
  • The Literary and Commercial Society of Glasgow is last known to be active.Scotlandsource
  • Spring – the 12th-century Lewis chessmen are found in a sand-bank on the Isle of Lewis.Scotlandsource
  • Sweden begins tracking conviction statistics.Swedensource

Disasters & Accidents

  • May–June – Merthyr Rising: Coal miners and others riot in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for improved working conditions.source
  • 1 June – One of Goldsworthy Gurney’s steam road coaches suffers a boiler explosion in Glasgow.Scotlandsource
  • June 21 – The North Carolina State House and Canova's George Washington are destroyed by fire in Raleigh, North Carolina.source
  • 18 August – The paddle steamer Rothsay Castle is wrecked at the eastern end of the Menai Strait with the loss of 93 lives.United Kingdomsource
  • 9–11 October – Reform riots in Nottingham: Nottingham Castle and a silk mill at Beeston are gutted by fire.United Kingdomsource

Climate & Environment

  • January – agrarian unrest breaks out in counties Clare and Limerick.Irelandsource
  • July 15 – The volcanic Graham Island briefly emerges in the Mediterranean.source

Culture & Society

  • January 1 – William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • January 1 – Abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper, in Boston, Massachusetts.United Statessource
  • March 16 – Victor Hugo's historical romantic Gothic novel Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, is published in Paris.source
  • 31 March - Chilean presidential election, 1831Chilesource
  • April 18 – The University of Alabama is founded.source
  • April 18 – The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper is first published, as the Sydney Herald.source
  • 18 April - The Sydney daily newspaper and Australia's oldest newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald is first published.Australiasource
  • 2 May - The Polytechnic Institute, today's Leibniz University Hanover established. Founded on 2 May 1831, it is one of the largest and oldest science and technology universities in Germany.Germanysource
  • September 8 – Coronation of King William IV of the United Kingdom (he will reign until 1837).source
  • September 28– The first national presidential nominating convention in the United States concludes after three days as the Anti-Masonic Party selects its nominee for president in Baltimore, Maryland.source
  • 9 October: The Nagar revolt which began in 1830, ended when the British East India Company took over.Indiasource
  • 11 October – The first marriage between two Europeans in New Zealand is performed at Waimate North. William Gilbert Puckey marries Mathilda Davis.New Zealandsource
  • November 8 – The Kings School (Parramatta) was approved to be established.source
  • New York University in New York Citysource
  • Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticutsource
  • Wallinska skolan, the first secondary school for girls in the Swedish capital of Stockholm.source
  • Xavier University in Cincinnati (as "The Athenaeum")source
  • Denison University in Granville, Ohiosource
  • José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi's El Periquillo Sarniento is published.Mexicosource
  • The first issue of Grahamstown Journal is printedSouth Africasource

Births

  • January 3 – Savitribai Jyotirao Phule, Indian social reformer, poet (died 1897)source
  • 26 January – Heinrich Anton de Bary, German botanist, mycologist (died 1888)Germanysource
  • February 24 – Leo von Caprivi, Chancellor of Germany (died 1899)source
  • March 6 – Philip Sheridan, American general (died 1888)source
  • 5 May – Gezina Susanna Fredricka Wilhelmina du Plessis, who later married South African Republic general and future politician Paul Kruger, and had seven daughters and nine sons with him, is born.South Africasource
  • 19 May: Steingrímur Thorsteinsson, poet and writer.Icelandsource
  • June 1 – John Bell Hood, American Confederate general (died 1879)source
  • June 13 – James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist (died 1879)source
  • June 28 – Joseph Joachim, Austrian violinist (died 1907)source
  • July 16 – Naser al-Din Shah Qajar born in TabrizIransource
  • August 12 – Helena Blavatsky, Russian-born author, theosophist (died 1891)source
  • August 28 – Lucy Webb Hayes, First Lady of the United States (died 1889)source
  • September 29 – John Schofield, American general (died 1906)source
  • October 18 – Frederick III, German Emperor (died 1888)source
  • October 29 – Othniel Charles Marsh, American paleontologist (died 1899)source
  • November 5 – Anna Leonowens, Anglo-Indian educator (Anna of The King and I) (died 1915)source
  • November 7 – Mélanie Calvat, French Roman Catholic nun, Marian Visionary, canonized (died 1904)source
  • November 19 – James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States (died 1881)source

Deaths

  • February 14 – Vicente Guerrero, 2nd President of Mexico, Independence War hero (born 1782)source
  • February 17 – Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (born 1785)source
  • 25 February – Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, German dramatist and novelist, originator of Sturm und Drang (born 1752)Germanysource
  • 21 March - José Tomás Ovalle y Bezanilla (born 1787)Chilesource
  • April 27 – Charles Felix of Sardinia, King of Sardinia (born 1765)source
  • June 8 – Sarah Siddons, English actress (born 1755)source
  • June 27 – Sophie Germain, French mathematician (born 1776)source
  • June 30 – William Roscoe, English abolitionist and writer (born 1753)source
  • July 4 – James Monroe, 73, 5th President of the United States (born 1758)source
  • 12 September – Macedonio Alcalá in Oaxaca, Oaxaca (died 1869)Mexicosource
  • October 9 – Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greek head of state and founder of Greek independence, is assassinated in Nafplion.source
  • November 11 – Nat Turner, American slave rebel (born 1800)source
  • November 14 – Georg Hegel, German philosopher (born 1770)source
  • November 16 – Carl von Clausewitz, German military strategist (born 1780)source
  • December 15 – Hannah Adams, American author (born 1755)source
  • 22 December – Charles Fraser, botanist (born 1788)Australiasource
  • December 23 – Emilia Plater, Polish heroine (born 1806)source
  • December 26 – Stephen Girard, French-American banker (born 1750)source