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The 1800s

1,473 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 19th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1800 CE140 entries

  • 1 January – Robert Owen becomes manager of the New Lanark spinning mills.
  • April 3 – The first voting, albeit indirect, begins in the 1800 United States presidential election as voters in the state of New York make their selections for the New York state legislature, which in turn will vote on October 31 for the state's 12 presidential electors. A majority of state legislature members are from the Democratic-Republican Party, rather than the Federalist Party. At the time, only 4 of the 16 U.S. states (Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia) have a popular vote for the presidential electors and the President. The other 12, including New York, have a popular vote for the state legislature, but not for the president. At the time, neither of the major parties have picked their nominees for president and vice president. The result will not be certified until February, 1801.
  • May 15 – Napoleon and his French army (40,000 men)—not including the field artillery and baggage trains—(35,000 light artillery and infantry, 5,000 cavalry) begin crossing the Alps. He selects the shortest route through the Great St Bernard Pass, and invades after five days traversing the northern region of Italy.

1801 CE143 entries

  • February 17 – An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved, when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
  • February – Contingent election of 1801: An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved, when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
  • 16 March – Edinburgh music teacher Anne Gunn is granted the first British patent for a board game, designed as a music teaching aid.

1802 CE142 entries

  • January 5 – Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens, claiming they are at risk of destruction during the Ottoman occupation of Greece; the first shipment departs Piraeus on board Elgin's ship, the Mentor, "with many boxes of moulds and sculptures", including three marble torsos from the Parthenon.
  • 5 January – Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, begins removal of the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens, where they are at risk of destruction during the Ottoman occupation of Greece; the first shipment departs Piraeus on board Elgin's ship, the Mentor, "with many boxes of moulds and sculptures", including three marble torsos from the Parthenon.
  • July 22 – Gia Long captures Hanoi, completing his unification of Vietnam.

1803 CE138 entries

  • May - The First Consul of France Citizen Bonaparte begins making preparations to invade England.
  • 23 July – Emmet's insurrection: United Irishman Robert Emmet stages a rising in Dublin which is quelled by the military, with approximately fifty rebels and twenty soldiers dead. The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord Kilwarden, is hacked to death. Neither Michael Dwyer (from County Wicklow), nor Thomas Russell (in the North), nor rebels from Kildare, are able to offer support for the rebellion as planned.
  • 23 July – Emmet's insurrection in Ireland: United Irishman Robert Emmet stages a rising in Dublin which is quelled by the military, with approximately fifty rebels and twenty soldiers dead. The Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord Kilwarden, is hacked to death.

1804 CE150 entries

  • November 30 – The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase, on charges of political bias (he is acquitted by the United States Senate of all charges on March 1, 1805).
  • November 30 – The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begin an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase (he was charged with political bias but was acquitted by the United States Senate of all charges on March 1, 1805).
  • December 2 – Coronation of Napoleon I: At the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, Napoleon crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years. Witnessing this, Simón Bolívar dedicates himself to liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule.

1805 CE136 entries

  • March 1 – Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted of impeachment charges by the United States Senate.
  • August 27 – Napoleon orders the Grande Armée ("The Great Army") of some 165,000 men to march to the Rhine River to deal with the Austrian and Russian threats on the frontier. The French army is organized into seven corps and is supported by 36–40 cannons each. Napoleon orders Marshal Joachim Murat with his I Cavalry Corps (some 20,000 men), to make feint attacks through the Black Forest in south-west Germany.
  • 21 October - Battle of Trafalgar: A British Royal Navy fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain. About 465 of the 18,000 men on the British ships were born in Wales.

1806 CE150 entries

  • 8 April – Proceedings for the impeachment of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (on the initiative of Samuel Whitbread) for the misappropriation of public money at the Admiralty begin; he will be acquitted in the last impeachment trial ever held in the House of Lords.
  • 27 April – The Ferret arrives in London with Te Mahanga (Moehanga) aboard. He is the first Māori known to have visited England. In London he is rejoined by John Savage who left the ship at Cork. While in London Te Mahanga meets King George III and Queen Charlotte.
  • 21 October - Battle of Trafalgar: A British Royal Navy fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats a combined French and Spanish fleet off the coast of Spain. About 465 of the 18,000 men on the British ships were born in Wales.

1807 CE150 entries

  • June 22 – Chesapeake–Leopard affair: British Royal Navy fourth rate HMS Leopard attacks and boards United States Navy frigate USS Chesapeake off Norfolk, Virginia, seeking deserters. This act of British aggression plays a role in the run-up to the War of 1812.
  • July 20 – Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Emperor Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powers a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.
  • 20 July – Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powers a boat upstream on the river Saône.

1808 CE157 entries

  • June 30 – English chemist Humphry Davy informs the Royal Society of London of his isolation and discovery of two elements by electrolysis. From lime, he has produced calcium and established that lime is calcium oxide; by heating boric acid and potassium in a copper tube, he creates a substance he calls boracium, which is eventually called boron. This year he also isolates magnesium and strontium.
  • September 27 – The Congress of Erfurt, between the emperors Napoleon I of France and Alexander I of Russia, begins.
  • 27 September – The Congress of Erfurt, between the emperors Napoleon I of France and Alexander I of Russia, begins.

1809 CE167 entries

  • May 17 – Napoleon I of France orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire. When he announces that the Pope's secular power has ended, the Pope excommunicates him.
  • July 16 – The city of La Paz (in modern-day Bolivia) declares its independence from the Spanish Crown and forms the Junta Tuitiva, the first independent government in Spanish America, led by Pedro Domingo Murillo.
  • October 8 – Prince Klemens von Metternich becomes foreign minister of the Austrian Empire.