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The 1820s

1,468 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.

1820 CE156 entries

  • 28 January – German-Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen discovers the continent of Antarctica during the First Russian Antarctic Expedition
  • August 24 – A Constitutionalist insurrection breaks out at Oporto, Portugal.
  • November 20 – After the sinking of the American whaleship Essex of Nantucket, by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific Ocean, the survivors are left afloat in three small whaleboats. They eventually resort, by common consent, to cannibalism to allow some to survive.

1821 CE135 entries

  • June 14 – Egyptian conquest of Sudan (1820–1824): King Badi VII of Sennar surrenders his throne and realm without a fight to Ismail Pasha, general of the Ottoman Empire, ending the existence of the Funj Sultanate in Sudan.
  • August 10 – Missouri is admitted as the 24th U.S. state (see History of Missouri).
  • December 1 – History of the Dominican Republic: On the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, General José Núñez de Cáceres ends the España Boba era of Spanish rule in the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo by establishing the Republic of Spanish Haiti. It will last for three months before being invaded by Haiti.

1822 CE158 entries

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

1823 CE153 entries

  • February 15 (approx.) – The first officially recognised gold is found in Australia, by surveyor James McBrien at Fish River, near Bathurst, New South Wales, predating the Australian gold rushes.
  • September 22 – Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel (according to what he writes in 1838).
  • November – According to tradition, William Webb Ellis invents the sport of rugby football at Rugby School in England.

1824 CE144 entries

  • 2 April – The British government buys John Julius Angerstein's art collection for £60,000 for the purpose of establishing a National Gallery in London which opens to the public in his former townhouse on 10 May.
  • September 13 – With his crew and 29 convicts aboard the Amity, John Oxley arrives at and founds the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement at what becomes Brisbane, Queensland, in Australia, after leaving Sydney.
  • December 1 – U.S. presidential election: Since no candidate received a majority of the total electoral college votes in the election, the United States House of Representatives is given the task to decide the winner (as stipulated by the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

1825 CE166 entries

  • February 9 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of United States Electoral College votes following the 1824 United States presidential election, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams President of the United States in a contingent election.
  • February 9 – After no presidential candidate receives a majority of U.S. Electoral College votes, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as President of the United States in a contingent election.
  • 4 July – The sloop Restauration set sail from Stavanger to New York City. It is considered the first organized emigration from Norway to the United States.

1826 CE142 entries

  • May 5 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed by George Stephenson and Joseph Locke, destined to open as the world's first purpose-built passenger railway operated by steam locomotives in 1830, receives authorisation by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
  • June 14–15 – The Auspicious Incident: Mahmud II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, crushes the last mutiny of janissaries in Istanbul.
  • June 20 – The Burney Treaty is signed in Bangkok between the United Kingdom and the Rattanakosin Kingdom of Siam, securing British power in southeast Asia.

1827 CE138 entries

  • January – In Laos, King Anouvong of Vientiane leads the Laotian Rebellion against Siam and successfully attacks Nakhon Ratchasima (the Siamese later invade Vientiane and nearly destroy the whole city).
  • May 20 – Zarafa, the first giraffe to be seen in Europe for over three centuries, arrives in Marseille as a gift from the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha, to King Charles X of France. The giraffe then begins a 50-day journey to Paris, walking with its handlers toward Paris where it will arrive on July 9.
  • 10 November – A banquet is held in the Thames Tunnel under construction in London, attended by the Duke of Wellington and Isambard Kingdom Brunel

1828 CE142 entries

  • February 22 – Treaty of Turkmenchay: By this Russian-Persian peace treaty signed on February 10 at Torkamanchay, Persia (Iran), the latter country is forced irrevocably to cede the territories of the Erivan Khanate (most of modern-day central Armenia and the northern Iğdır Province of Turkey), the Nakhichevan Khanate (most of the modern-day Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan), the remainder of the Talysh Khanate (southeastern Azerbaijan), and the Ordubad and Mughan regions (also part of modern-day Azerbaijan) to Imperial Russia. By this and the Treaty of Gulistan (1813) Persia has now lost all its territories north of the Aras River, comprising modern-day Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan and Armenia to Russia. Armenians from Persian Azerbaijan are to be resettled in the Caucasus.
  • August 27 – In South America, the Empire of Brazil and United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (modern-day Argentina) recognize the independence of Uruguay, causing the end of the Cisplatine War. Simón Bolívar declares himself dictator of Gran Colombia.
  • 1 October – James Beaumont Neilson patents the hot blast process for ironmaking.

1829 CE134 entries

  • March 25 – Ignacio Zaragoza, General of the Mexican Army best known for his 1862 victory against the French forces during the Battle of Puebla on May 5.
  • 13 April – the Roman Catholic Relief Act, granting Catholic emancipation, becomes law, thanks to Daniel O'Connell and the Catholic Association. Roman Catholics are eligible to sit in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and in the judiciary. However, Forty Shilling Freeholders are disenfranchised by raising the value of the property qualification to vote in county constituencies to ten pounds.
  • October 25 – Eastern State Penitentiary opens in Philadelphia as Cherry Hill State Prison, a pioneering example of the separate system in the history of United States prison systems.