1844 CE

In the Philippines, 1844 had only 365 days instead of 366, when Tuesday, December 31 was skipped as Monday, December 30 was immediately followed by Wednesday, January 1, 1845, the next day after. The change also applied to Caroline Islands, Guam, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands and Palau as part of the Captaincy General of the Philippines; these became the first places on Earth to redraw the International Date Line.

In the 1840s, the 19th century.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 27 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.source
  • March 8 – The Althing, the parliament of Iceland, is reopened after 45 years of closure.source
  • March 13 – The dictator Carlos Antonio López becomes first President of Paraguay.source
  • March 23 – The Edict of Toleration is passed in the Ottoman Empire.source
  • May 10 – Government moves from Kingston to Montreal.Canadasource
  • July 3 – The United States signs the Treaty of Wanghia with the Qing Empire. The treaty establishes five U.S. treaty ports in China with extraterritoriality and is the first unequal treaty that the United States imposes on the dynasty.source
  • 3 July — Treaty of Wanghia signed by the Great Qing Empire and the United States at the Kun Iam Temple in Macau, Portuguese MacauChinasource
  • August 28 – Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx meet in Paris, France.source
  • 29 September – Norfolk Island was transferred from the Colony of New South Wales to the Colony of Van Diemen's LandAustraliasource
  • 19 October – Postal convention between Britain and Belgium signed in London.Belgiumsource
  • November 6 – The Dominican Republic drafts its first Constitution.source
  • December 4 – 1844 United States presidential election: James K. Polk defeats Henry Clay.source
  • December 4 – 1844 United States presidential election: James K. Polk of Tennessee defeats Henry Clay of Kentucky.United Statessource
  • December 13 – Hungarian becomes the official language of Hungary.source
  • Flags of the Ottoman Empire: a national flag is adopted for the Empire.source
  • date unknown - Spain recognizes the independence of Chile.Chilesource
  • The Althing, Iceland's supreme national parliament is restored by royal decree and moved to Reykjavík, after being made defunct in 1800.Icelandsource
  • The settlement of Victoria West is establishedSouth Africasource

Conflict & Security

  • February 28 – The "Peacemaker", the largest naval gun in the world, explodes during a demonstration aboard the USS Princeton on the Potomac River, killing six, including Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur and Secretary of the Navy Thomas Walker Gilmer.United Statessource
  • June 4 – Start of the Silesian weavers' uprising. It is crushed by Prussian military on June 6, with 11 weavers killed and numerous arrested.source
  • 6 August - First Franco-Moroccan War begins.Francesource
  • August 14 – Abdelkader El Djezairi is defeated at the Battle of Isly in Morocco; sultan Abd al-Rahman of Morocco soon repudiates his ally.source
  • 14 August – Battle of Isly, French victory over Moroccan forces near Oujda, Morocco, ending the First Franco-Moroccan War.Francesource
  • 8 October – Louis-Phillipe, King of the French, arrives in Portsmouth on a visit to Britain.United Kingdomsource
  • "Surplice riots" in Exeter and London break out in opposition to supposed Catholicisation of the Church of England.United Kingdomsource

Exploration & Expansion

  • August – Charles Sturt explores the Stony Desert, fails to establish existence of an inland sea.Australiasource
  • 1 October – Ludwig Leichhardt leads expedition starting from Jimbour on the Darling Downs to Port Essington, Northern Territory, arriving in December 1845.Australiasource
  • December 21 – The Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England.source
  • 21 December – The Rochdale Pioneers, usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, open their store in Rochdale, forming the basis for the modern cooperative movement.United Kingdomsource
  • December 31 – This date is omitted from the calendar in the Philippines in order to align it with the calendar elsewhere in East Asia, essentially moving the International Date Line to the east of the archipelago.source
  • Joseph Patrick Haverty paints Patrick O'Brien: The Limerick Piper and his brother Martin Haverty publishes Wanderings in Spain in 1843.Irelandsource
  • Voortrekkers from Natal cross back over the Drakensberg Mountains and settle at Potchefstroom.South Africasource
  • The Voortrekker leader Hendrik Potgieter settles at Delagoa Bay, MozambiqueSouth Africasource
  • King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony makes an informal summer tour of Britain.United Kingdomsource
  • English watercolour landscape painter David Cox spends his first summer at Betws-y-Coed, which he will continue to do until 1856.Walessource

Religion & Belief

  • 1 January – Australia's first ringing peal rang from the bells of St Mary's Cathedral, SydneyAustraliasource
  • 1 January – Royal decree establishes spelling rules for Dutch in Belgium.Belgiumsource
  • March 21 – The Baháʼí calendar begins.source
  • May 23 – Persian prophet The Báb privately announces his revelation to Mullá Husayn, just after sunset, founding the Bábí faith (later evolving into the Baháʼí Faith as the Báb intended) in Shiraz, Persia (modern-day Iran). Contemporaneously, on this day in nearby Tehran, is the birth of `Abdu'l-Bahá; the eldest Son of Bahá'u'lláh, Prophet-Founder of the Baháʼí Faith. The Báb's mission is to proclaim He whom God shall make manifest. `Abdu'l-Bahá Himself is later proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh to be His own successor, thus being the third "central figure" of the Baháʼí Faith.source
  • August 8 – During a meeting held in Nauvoo, Illinois, the Quorum of the Twelve, headed by Brigham Young, is chosen as the leading body of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.source
  • August 16 – Narciso Claveria, Governor-General of the Philippines, makes a decree announcing that Monday, December 30, 1844, will be immediately followed by Wednesday, January 1, 1845. (Tuesday, December 31, 1844, is removed from the Philippine calendar because since 1521 the country has been one day behind its Asian neighbors.)source
  • October 22 – This second date predicted by the Millerites for the Second Coming of Jesus (and said to be 6,000 years from creation, relating them to the 6 days of creation, using a day-for-a-year bible principle, with which they proved that the 1,000 years of rest in heaven with God would total to 7,000 years, indicating the completion of creation in the beginning, which make 7 days, but the 7th day is for rest, same as the 7,000th year is for rest in heaven), leads to the Great Disappointment. The Seventh-day Adventist Church believes this date to be the starting point of the Investigative judgment, just prior to the Second Coming of Jesus, as declared in the 26th of 28 fundamental doctrines of Seventh-day Adventists.source
  • October 22 – The Great Disappointment: Millerites (including future members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church) find that the Second Coming of Jesus does not occur as predicted by preacher William Miller.United Statessource
  • October 23 – The Báb is publicly proclaimed to be the promised one of Islam (the Qá'im, or Mahdi). He is also considered to be simultaneously the return of Elijah, John the Baptist and the "Ushídar-Máh" referred to in the Zoroastrian scriptures. He announces to the world the coming of "He whom God shall make manifest". He is considered the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh – the founder of the Baháʼí Faith – whose claims include being the return of Jesus.source
  • 15 December – Saint Malachy's Church, Belfast is dedicated by Dr William Crolly, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.Irelandsource
  • The Free Church Institution is established by Reverend Alexander Duff in Calcutta, India. This is later merged with the General Assembly's Institution to form the Scottish Church College, one of the pioneering institutions that ushers in the Bengali Renaissance.source
  • Belgian Pontifical College establishedBelgiumsource
  • Rabbinical Conference of BrunswickGermanysource
  • 21 & 27 August – Consecration of two new major urban Roman Catholic churches, both designed by Augustus Pugin, which will in the 1850s be elevated to cathedral status: St Mary's Church, Newcastle upon Tyne and St Barnabas Church, Nottingham. (In October, Pugin occupies The Grange, Ramsgate, a house designed for himself which is influential in the development of domestic Gothic Revival architecture.)United Kingdomsource
  • Rowland Prichard - Cyfaill y Cantorion (The Singer's Friend)Walessource

Economy & Finance

  • July 19 – The Bank Charter Act 1844 is approved, which restricts the powers of British banks, limiting note-issuing powers outside the central Bank of England.source
  • 19 July – Bank Charter Act restricts powers of British banks other than the Bank of England to issue banknotes of the pound sterling.United Kingdomsource
  • July – Glasgow Stock Exchange opens.Scotlandsource
  • 16 December – Edinburgh Stock Exchange formed.Scotlandsource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • February – public ferry service commences between Balmain East ferry wharf and the Australian Gas Light Company wharf at Millers Point, Sydney.Australiasource
  • March 12 – The Columbus and Xenia Railroad, the first railroad planned to be built in Ohio, is chartered.source
  • 15 March – opening of Gößnitz stationGermanysource
  • May 1 – The Hong Kong Police Force, the world's second and Asia's first modern, police force is established.source
  • May 24 – The first electrical telegram is sent by Samuel Morse from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad "outer depot" in Baltimore, saying "What hath God wrought".source
  • May 24 – The first electrical telegram is sent by Samuel F. B. Morse from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad "outer depot" in Baltimore, Maryland, saying "What hath God wrought".United Statessource
  • 11 June – Hans Christian Lumbye's Telegraph Galop premiers in Tivoli's Concert Hall in Copenhagen.Denmarksource
  • June 15 – Charles Goodyear receives a United States patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.source
  • 12 October: The New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian begins publishing in Wellington. It publishes weekly until its demise in 1865.New Zealandsource
  • 28 October – the first paddlewheel Jackal-class gunvessel, HMS Jackal (or Jackall) is launched by Robert Napier at Govan on the River Clyde as the Royal Navy's first iron ship. It is followed a month later by its sister HMS Lizard.Scotlandsource
  • Utsira Lighthouse is established.Norwaysource
  • A prospectus is issued to potential investors in a railway to be built through south Wales from a junction with the Great Western Railway at Standish in Gloucestershire.Walessource

Science & Discovery

  • 8 March - John Jones (Shoni Sguborfawr) embarks on the Blundell for transportation to Norfolk Island, his sentence for shooting at a man during the Rebecca Riots.Walessource
  • August 10 – German astronomer Friedrich Bessel deduces from the motion of the bright stars Sirius and Procyon that they have dark companions.source
  • 25 September: The New Zealand Gazette and Wellington Spectator prints its final issue. 369 issues were produced.New Zealandsource
  • Swedish chemistry professor Gustaf Erik Pasch is granted a privilege for his invention of a safety match.source
  • The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List is first published by Charles Kemp and John Fairfax.Australiasource
  • Undated – Aborigines' Evidence Act 1844 permitting Indigenous South Australians to give unsworn evidence in Court.Australiasource
  • Mary Ann Aldersey, an eccentric British woman, who opens a school for girls in NingboChinasource
  • Judicial Committee Act (British statute)Indiasource
  • 11–18 July – The 4th Scandinavian Scientist Conference is held in Oslo.Norwaysource
  • Maria Jane Williams - Ancient National Airs of Gwent and MorgannwgWalessource

Health & Medicine

  • 26 January: Governor Robert FitzRoy arrives in Wellington to investigate the Wairau Affray.New Zealandsource
  • February: The Bay of Islands Advocate ceases publishing. It began in 1843.New Zealandsource
  • 11 December – Health of Towns Association formed to press for public health improvements.United Kingdomsource
  • Undated – Aboriginal Girls Protection Act 1844, is enacted in Western Australia to prevent Aboriginal girls from leaving or running away from school or their employed service.Australiasource
  • Renji Hospital, the first western hospital in Shanghai, establishedChinasource
  • Irish physician Francis Rynd utilises a hollow hypodermic needle to make the first recorded subcutaneous injections, specifically of a sedative to treat neuralgia.Irelandsource
  • Owen Owen Roberts is instrumental in setting up the first hospital for Caernarvonshire and Anglesey, at Bangor.Walessource

Crime & Justice

  • 6 April – John Gavin is the first European settler to be legally executed in Western Australia. Gavin, a fifteen-year-old apprentice, was found guilty of the murder of his employer's son, George Pollard.Australiasource
  • 14 April – The murder of Charlotte Dymond in Cornwall.United Kingdomsource
  • 3 July: The last great auk is reported to have been killed on Eldey.Icelandsource
  • Amnesty in Montreal provides for Papineau's return.Canadasource
  • Freiburger Turnerschaft von 1844Germanysource
  • Hugh Derfel Hughes - Blodau'r GânWalessource

Disasters & Accidents

  • February 28 – A gun on the USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing U.S. Secretary of State Abel Upshur, U.S. Secretary of the Navy Thomas Walker Gilmer and four other people. President John Tyler is below decks and is uninjured.source
  • 11 May – Major fire at Lyme Regis.United Kingdomsource
  • 28 September – A blackdamp explosion at Haswell Colliery in the Durham Coalfield kills 95, with just four survivors.United Kingdomsource
  • In Tibet, the Temple of Guardians burns down.source

Climate & Environment

  • 2 May – Commission of Enquiry set up to inquire into the system of poor relief in Scotland and suggest improvements delivers its report, leading to the Scottish Poor Law Act the following year.Scotlandsource
  • June 12 –In the United States, after nine days of heavy rains, the Missouri River and the Mississippi River overflow their banks as the Great Flood of 1844 begins. The water begins to recede by June 28 and the rivers return to their normal level by mid-July.source
  • June–July – The Great Flood of 1844 hits the Missouri River and Mississippi River.United Statessource
  • July 25 – Exclusion Law in Oregon prohibits African Americans (including slaves) from entering or remaining in the territoryUnited Statessource
  • October 18 – 1844 Salta earthquake. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hits Argentina's Salta Province.source
  • Undated – Aboriginal Orphans Act 1844, is enacted in South Australia, whereby the Protectors of Aborigines was made legal guardian of "every half-caste and other unprotected Aboriginal child whose parents are dead or unknown".Australiasource
  • Undated – Wellington Convict and Mission Site, convict agricultural station and Aboriginal mission closed.Australiasource
  • Fighting erupts between Boers and the Griqua as Boers reject the authority of Adam Kok III.South Africasource

Culture & Society

  • 1 January – Vlaemsch België, first Dutch-language daily newspaper in Belgium, launched.Belgiumsource
  • January 4 – The first issue of the Swedish-languaged Saima newspaper founded by J. V. Snellman is published in Kuopio, Finland.source
  • January 15 – The University of Notre Dame, based in the city of the same name, receives its charter from Indiana.source
  • March 5 – The Toronto Globe is founded by George BrownCanadasource
  • March 8 – King Oscar I ascends to the throne of Sweden–Norway upon the death of his father, Charles XIV/III John.source
  • 8 March – King Oscar I ascends to the throne of Sweden-NorwayNorwaysource
  • March 9 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Ernani debuts at Teatro La Fenice, Venice.source
  • June 6 – George Williams sets up (in London) what is often cited as the first youth organisation in the world – "The Young Men's Christian Association", commonly known as YMCA. It will grow to a worldwide organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 57 million beneficiaries from 125 national associations. George Williams aims to put Christian principles into practice by developing a healthy "body, mind, and spirit." These three angles are reflected by the different sides of the (red) triangle – part of all YMCA logos.source
  • June 17 – Søren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety is published in Denmark (as Begrebet Angest by 'Vigilius Haufniensis').source
  • June 22 – The Delta Kappa Epsilon student fraternity is founded at Yale College in the United States. ΔΚΕ will be home to many well known figures, such as U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford and Theodore Roosevelt.source
  • June 22 – Influential North American student fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon is founded at Yale College.United Statessource
  • 4 July – A National Language Meeting is held at Skamlingsbanken.Denmarksource
  • September 25–27 – The first ever international cricket match is played in New York City, United States v Canadian Provinces.source
  • November 3 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera I due Foscari debuts at Teatro Argentina, Rome.source
  • In Munich, the Feldherrnhalle is completed.source
  • Robert Chambers' anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which paves the way for acceptance of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, is published in Britain.source
  • Penfolds winery is established in Adelaide by Christopher Rawson Penfold & Mary Penfold.Australiasource
  • The Chinese Union, an early Chinese Protestant Christian missionary society that was involved in preaching to Chinese and sending Chinese workers to mainland China during the late Qing dynasty was founded by Karl Gützlaff in 1844, Hong KongChinasource
  • Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum HildesheimGermanysource

Births

  • January 7 – Bernadette Soubirous, French visionary from Lourdes (died 1879)source
  • February 20 – Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist (died 1906)source
  • March 18 – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (died 1908)source
  • March 24: Padre Cícero, Roman Catholic priestBrazilsource
  • April 22 – Lewis Powell, attempted assassin of United States Secretary of State William H. Seward, conspirator with John Wilkes Booth (died 1865)source
  • May 22 – Mary Cassatt, American painter and printmaker (died 1926)source
  • May 23 – `Abdu'l-Bahá, Persian Baháʼí religious leader (died 1921)source
  • 15 July - Enrique Mac Iver (died 1922)Chilesource
  • July 25 – Thomas Eakins, American painter, sculptor (died 1916)source
  • August 6 – Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (died 1900)source
  • August 17 – Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia (died 1913)source
  • October 15 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (died 1900)source
  • October 22 – Louis Riel, Canadian-American leader (died 1885)source
  • October 23 – Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (died 1923)source
  • November 25 – Karl Benz, German automotive pioneer (died 1929)source
  • December 1 – Alexandra of Denmark, Queen of Edward VII of the United Kingdom (died 1925)source
  • ? – ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, son of Bahá'u'lláh and leader of the Bahá'í Faith.Iransource
  • José Simões Dias, poet, short-story writer, literary critic, politician, pedagogue (died 1899).Portugalsource

Deaths

  • January 27 – Charles Nodier, French writer (born 1780)source
  • February 15 – Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1757)source
  • 23 February: Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada, politician (born 1775)Brazilsource
  • February 27 – Nicholas Biddle, president of the Second Bank of the United States (born 1786)source
  • March 6 – Gabriel Duvall, American politician and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (born 1752)source
  • March 8 – King Charles XIV John of Sweden-Norway, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, French Napoleonic general (born 1763)source
  • March 22 – Mohammad Bagher Shafti, Iranian imam.Iransource
  • March – Carlota, Cuban slave rebel leadersource
  • 9 April - José Miguel Infante (born 1778)Chilesource
  • June 3 – The last definitely recorded pair of great auks are killed on the Icelandic island of Eldey.source
  • June 27 – Hyrum Smith, American Latter Day Saint leader (born 1800)source
  • June 27 – Joseph Smith, American founder of the Latter Day Saint movement (born 1805)source
  • June 27 – Killing of Joseph Smith: Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum, are murdered in Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois by an armed mob, leading to a succession crisis in the movement. John Taylor, future president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is severely injured but survives, while the fourth man inside the upper room, then-apostle Willard Richards, escapes with only a graze to his upper ear.source
  • July 27 – John Dalton, English chemist, physicist (born 1766)source
  • July 28 – Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, King of Naples and Spain (born 1768)source
  • July 29 – Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer (born 1791)source
  • November 14 – Flora Tristan, French feminist (born 1803)source
  • 18 November – Bernardo Peres da Silva, governor of Portuguese India (born 1775)Portugalsource