Exploration & Expansion in the 19th century

347 sourced entries, 1800 CE to 1899 CE, oldest first. Also see Exploration & Expansion across every century or everything else in the 19th century.

• 1800March 26 – British Royal Navy officer Henry Waterhouse first charts the Antipodes Islands.source
• 1800October 7 – French privateer Robert Surcouf leads the 150-man crew of his corvette to capture the 40-gun, 437-man British East Indiaman in the Indian Ocean.source
• 1802January 29 – The French Saint-Domingue expedition (40,000 troops) led by General Charles Leclerc (Bonaparte's brother-in-law) lands in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti) in an attempt to restore colonial rule following the Haitian Revolution in which Toussaint Louverture (a black former slave) has proclaimed himself Governor-General for Life and established control over Hispaniola.source
• 1803August 31 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition begins as Lewis and a crew of 11 depart on the Ohio River.source
• 1804April 4 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge sets sail on The Speedwell for the Mediterranean. In Malta, he obtains employment as a public official.source
• 1804May 14 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.source
• 1804Matthew Flinders recommends that New Holland be renamed Australia (from the Latin australis meaning "of the south").source
• 1805June 13 – Lewis and Clark Expedition in the United States: Scouting ahead of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four companions sight the Great Falls of the Missouri River, confirming they are heading in the right direction.source
• 1805August 12 – Lewis and Clark Expedition: U.S. Army Captain Meriwether Lewis reaches the Continental Divide of the Americas, crossing to the west at Lemhi Pass. Karen Jones and John Wills, The American West: Competing Visions (Edinburgh University Press, 2009) p17source
• 1805August 31 – British Army General David Baird departs from Cork, leading an expedition to capture the Cape of Good Hope. Their ship arrives on January 4.source
• 1805September 29 – Admiral Nelson of the British Royal Navy takes command of the fleet off the coast of Cádiz, in order to counteract the navies of France and Spain.source
• 1805November 7 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition arrives at the Pacific Ocean.source
• 1806March 23 – Explorers Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery, having reached the Pacific Ocean after traveling through the Louisiana Purchase, begin their journey home.source
• 1806July 15 – Pike Expedition: Near St. Louis, Missouri, United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike leads an expedition from Fort Bellefontaine, to explore the American West.source
• 1806August 18 – English seal hunter Abraham Bristow discovers the Auckland Islands.source
• 1806September 23 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition reaches St. Louis, Missouri, ending a successful exploration of the Louisiana Territory and the Pacific Northwest. Their arrival comes "much to the amazement of residents, who had given the travelers up for dead" according to one historian.source
• 1806November 15 – Pike Expedition: During his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (later named Pikes Peak in his honor).source
• 1806November 21 – Napoleon's Berlin Decree initiates the Continental System, blocking the import of British manufactured goods to the rest of Europe.source
• 1807February 10 – The Survey of the Coast (renamed the United States Coast Survey in 1836 and the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1878) is established; work begins on August 3, 1816.source
• 1808March 1 – The slave trade is abolished by the United Kingdom in all of its colonies as the Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect. This year, the British Royal Navy establishes the West Africa Squadron on the coast of West Africa to enforce the abolitionist Blockade of Africa.source
• 1808November 12 – Four large French frigates under the command of Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin, including the Venus, are sent to operate from Isle de France (Mauritius) against British trade in the Indian Ocean, triggering the Mauritius campaign of 1809–1811.source
• 1809May 31 – Mauritius campaign of 1809–11 – Action of 31 May 1809 in the Bay of Bengal: The French frigate Caroline, operating from Isle de France (Mauritius), captures most of a British East India Company fleetsource
• 1809August 8 – Seventy disciples of Vilna Gaon arrive in Palestine.source
• 1809August – The ("Old Ironsides") is recommissioned as the flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron.source
• 1809Arorae an atoll of the Gilbert Islands was sighted by Captain John Patterson, on British brig Elizabeth.source
• 1810January 4 – Australian seal hunter Frederick Hasselborough discovers Campbell Island, in the Subantarctic.source
• 1810May 3 – Lord Byron swims across the Hellespont in Turkey.source
• 1810July 11 – Frederick Hasselborough discovers Macquarie Island, in the subantarctic.source
• 1810September 8 – The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor, with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River, and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria.source
• 1811July 9 – British explorer David Thompson posts a notice at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers (in modern-day Washington), claiming the area for the United Kingdom.source
• 1811July 14 – David Thompson reaches the mouth of the Columbia River, finding Fort Astoria under construction.source
• 1811December 2 – Reverend Samuel Marsden sends the first commercial shipment of wool from New South Wales to England.source
• 1811The Red River Colony is founded in Manitoba, Canada.source
• 1812July 19 – Beethoven and Goethe meet each other in Teplice, Bohemia.source
• 1813February – War of 1812 in North America: General William Henry Harrison sends out an expedition to burn the British vessels at Fort Malden by going across Lake Erie via the Bass Islands in sleighs, but the ice is not hard enough, and the expedition returns.source
• 1813May 11 – 1813 crossing of the Blue Mountains: Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth leave on an expedition to cross the Blue Mountains of Australia.source
• 1814June 6 – Beginning of the Allied sovereigns' visit to England: Tsar Alexander I of Russia and King Frederick William III of Prussia sail from Boulogne-Sur-Mer to Dover on board the Royal Navy ship HMS Impregnable as guests of George, Prince of Wales, the regent during the incapacity of King George III.source
• 1815October 15 – Napoleonic Wars: Napoleon begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.source
• 1815October – Robert Adams, American sailor and the first Westerner to visit Timbuktu, is found wandering the streets of London, starving and half-naked, leading to the invitation for him to tell his story as a Barbary captive, which is later published as The Narrative of Robert Adams.source
• 1816April – Banjul, capital of the Gambia, is founded as a trading post named Bathurst.source
• 1816December 9–21 – The American Colonization Society is established, to support the emigration of free African Americans to Africa.source
• 1817January 1 – Sailing through the Sandwich Islands, Otto von Kotzebue discovers New Year Island.source
• 1817April 3 – "Princess Caraboo" appears in Almondsbury in Gloucestershire in England, and convinces the local residents that she had come to their town from a far-off island kingdom of "Javasu" in the Indian Ocean. A Portuguese sailor named Manuel Enes soon arrives and says that he speaks her mysterious language, and translates her story of an escape from pirates. After publicity, Princess Caraboo is discovered to be a servant girl from the village of Witheridge in Devon.source
• 1817November 22 – Frédéric Cailliaud discovers the old Mons Smaragdus emerald mines at Sikait, Egypt.source
• 1818April 7 – Brooks Brothers, the oldest men's clothier in the United States, opens its first store on the northeast corner of Catherine and Cherry Streets in New York City, where the later South Street Seaport stands.source
• 1818April 14–August 9 – The United States Survey of the Coast operations is suspended.source
• 1818April 18 – John Ross sets sail on his ship, the Isabella, in search of the Northwest Passage.source
• 1818September – Sir Stamford Raffles sets out to visit Lord Hastings, Governor-General of India, to gain his approval to establish a trading station at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula (modern-day Singapore).source
• 1818October 20 – A treaty between the U.S. and the United Kingdom establishes the boundary between the U.S. and British North America as the 49th parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, also creating the Northwest Angle.source
• 1819February 19 – Captain William Smith sights Williams Point, the northeast extremity of Livingston Island in the South Shetlands, the first land discovered south of latitude 60° S.source
• 1819April 6–June 21 – The French slave ship Le Rodeur sails from Bonny in West Africa to Guadeloupe in the West Indies. In the course of the transatlantic voyage many onboard become blind, and 30 slaves are thrown overboard as a consequence.source
• 1819May 22 – The leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship arrives at Liverpool, England, nearly a month later, on June 20, although only a fraction of the trip is made under steam.source
• 1819July 21 – Explorer William Parry, sailing in the Arctic in a quest for the Northwest Passage through North America, guides the ships HMS Hecla and HMS Griper through an iceberg-laden passage that will later be named the Parry Channel.source
• 1819October 15 – Desolation Island, in the South Shetland Islands of the Antarctic, is discovered by Captain William Smith.source
• 1819The United States African Slave Trade Patrol is founded to stop the slave trade on the coast of West Africa.source
• 1819A British Arctic expedition under William Parry, comprising HMS Hecla and HMS Griper, reaches longitude 112°51' W in the Northwest Passage, the furthest west which will be attained by any single-season voyage for 150 years.source
• 1820January 27 (NS, January 15 OS) – An Imperial Russian Navy expedition, led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in Vostok with Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, sights the Antarctic ice sheet.source
• 1820January 30 – British Royal Navy captain Edward Bransfield, an Irishman, becomes the first person to positively identify Antarctica as a land mass.source
• 1820February 6 – A group of 86 free African American colonists sail from New York City to Freetown, Sierra Leone, with a goal of creating a home for freed American slaves, to be called "Liberia".source
• 1820May 11 – , the ship that will later take young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage to examine the "origin of the species", is launched at Woolwich Dockyard.source
• 1820May 20 – At age 14, John Stuart Mill sets out on his formative trip to the south of France, staying with Samuel Bentham.source
• 1820November 17 – American seal hunter Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the third known explorer to sight Antarctica. The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.source
• 1821January 28 – Alexander Island, the largest in Antarctica, is first discovered by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.source
• 1821August 21 – Jarvis Island is discovered in the Pacific by the crew of the Eliza Frances.source
• 1821October 8 (O.S.)/October 20 (N.S.) – Tsar Alexander I of Russia issues an imperial ukase guaranteeing freedom of commerce in Russia by merchants from Persia.source
• 1821November 16 – American Old West: The Santa Fe Trail is first used by William Becknell.source
• 1821December 6 – The South Orkney Islands are discovered by seal hunters George Powell and Nathaniel Palmer.source
• 1822January 3 – The famous French explorer, Aimé Bonpland, is imprisoned in Paraguay on charges of espionage.source
• 1822April 25 – The American Colonization Society lands at Cape Mesurado on the West African coast, after purchasing 60 mi km 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
• 1822July 26 – Guayaquil Conference: José de San Martín arrives in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to meet Simón Bolívar.source
• 1822August 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
• 1822November 9 – Action of 9 November 1822: engages three pirate schooners off Cuba, as part of the West Indies anti-piracy operations of the United States.source
• 1822The Rocky Mountain Fur Company (Ashley's Hundred) leave from St. Louis, Missouri, setting off a major increase in fur trade.source
• 1823January 23 – In Paviland Cave on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial (although Buckland dates it as Roman).source
• 1823February 20 – Explorer James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W: the southernmost position any ship has reached at this time.source
• 1823March 15 – Sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reports the existence of the island of New South Greenland near Antarctica.source
• 1823August 24 – Hugh Glass gets mauled by a sow grizzly while on a fur trapping expedition in the Missouri Territory and has to crawl 200 miles for help.source
• 1823October 22 – Simón Bolívar writes to Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia to release his friend the explorer Aimé Bonpland under threat of invasion. Rodríguez never responds to the letter.source
• 1823British expedition up the St. Clair River; site of Corunna surveyed as a potential capital for Upper Canada.source
• 1824March 19 – American explorer Benjamin Morrell departs Antarctica after a voyage later plagued by claims of fraud.source
• 1824April 9 – The first permanent settlers arrive to construct the new city of Tallahassee, Florida, selected to be the capital of the Florida Territory newly acquired from the Kingdom of Spain; the area has been selected because it is roughly equidistant from the territory's main cities, Pensacola and St. Augustine.source
• 1824September 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.source
• 1824September 26 – The earliest reference by the British government to an official renaming of its South Pacific Ocean territory as "Australia" comes in a dispatch titled "Taking Possession of Melville and Bathurst Islands", as the Admiral Sir Gordon Bremer refers to "the North Coast of New Holland or Australia".source
• 1825July 30 – Malden Island (an uninhabited island in the central Pacific Ocean) is discovered by George Byron, 7th Baron Byron.source
• 1825Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan is founded as a mudfort on the Silk Roadsource
• 1827January 5 – The first regatta in Australia is held, taking place in Tasmania (called at the time Van Diemen's Land), on the River Derwent at Hobart.source
• 1827April 23 – Scottish-born novelist John Galt founds the town of Guelph in Upper Canada.source
• 1827April 26 – The Royal Netherlands Navy's British-built paddle steamer Curaçao sets off on the first transatlantic crossing by steam, departing from Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands to Paramaribo in the Netherlands South American colony of Dutch Guiana. The ship arrives after a voyage of four weeks.source
• 1827May 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.source
• 1827May 24 – The Royal Netherlands Navy's British-built paddle steamer Curaçao completes the first transatlantic crossing by steam, arriving in Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana (now Suriname) four weeks after its April 26 departure from the Netherlands.source
• 1828April 18 – Ornithologist Carl Julian (von) Graba lands in the little-studied Faroe Islands for a three-month visit to research the bird life.source
• 1828April 20 – French explorer René Caillié becomes the first non-Muslim to enter Timbuktu and later return alive.source
• 1828October 26 – English naturalist and explorer William John Burchell collects the only known specimen of Parabouchetia brasiliensis, an exceptionally rare member of the nightshade family Solanaceae, in central Brazil.source
• 1829June 5 – captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba.source
• 1830Austins of Derry is established in Northern Ireland. Until closure in 2016, it is the world's oldest independent department store.source
• 1831February 8 – French-born botanical explorer Aimé Bonpland leaves Paraguay for Argentina.source
• 1831May 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
• 1831June 1 – British Royal Navy officer James Clark Ross locates the position of the North Magnetic Pole, at this time on the Boothia Peninsula.source
• 1831December 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
• 1832February 28 – Charles Darwin and the crew of arrive at South America for the first time.source
• 1832May 16 – Juan Godoy discovers the rich silver outcrops of Chañarcillo sparking the Chilean silver rush.source
• 1832July 10 – The United States Survey of the Coast is revived within the Department of the Treasury.source
• 1832A local guide working for British explorer B. H. Hodgson during a Himalayan expedition claimed to have spotted a large bipedal creature running away in fear. It would become the first sighting of the so-called Yeti.source
• 1833August 12 – The settlement of Chicago is established by 350 settlers at the estuary of the Chicago River in the U.S. state of Illinois.source
• 1833August 18 – The Canadian ship sets out from Pictou, Nova Scotia on a 25-day passage of the Atlantic Ocean, primarily under steam, to Gravesend in England.source
• 1834January 1 – Zollverein (Germany): Customs charges are abolished at borders within its member states.source
• 1834March 11 – The United States Survey of the Coast is transferred to the Department of the Navy.source
• 1834March – John Scott Russell's Scottish Steam Carriage Company begins operating a regular passenger service in west central Scotland on the open road between Glasgow and Paisley, Renfrewshire.source
• 1834November 2 – The ship Atlas docks in Mauritius carrying the first group of laborers (from Calcutta) under the Indian indenture system to work on sugar plantations following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.source
• 1834December 11 – The Sixth Xhosa War is characterized by severe clashes between white settlers and Bantu peoples in Cape Colony; Dutch-speaking settlers colonize the area north of Orange River.source
• 1835January 7 – anchors off the Chonos Archipelago on her second voyage, with Charles Darwin on board as a scientist.source
• 1835August 30 – European settlers, landing on the north banks of the Yarra River in Victoria, Australia, found the settlement of Melbourne.source
• 1835September 7 – Charles Darwin arrives at the Galápagos Islands, aboard .source
• 1835The British East India Company negotiates a lease of the Darjeeling area west of the Mahananda River, from the Kingdom of Sikkim.source
• 1836July 27 – The settlement of Adelaide, South Australia, is founded.source
• 1836George Catlin ends his 6-year tour of 50 tribes in the Dakota Territory.source
• 1836John Murray III publishes A Hand-book for Travellers on the Continent; being a guide through Holland, Belgium, Prussia and northern Germany, and along the Rhine from Holland to Switzerland, the first of Murray's Handbooks for Travellers, in London.source
• 1837July – Charles W. King sets sail on the American merchant ship Morrison. In the Morrison incident, he is turned away from Japanese ports with cannon fire.source
• 1838February 6 – Boer explorer Piet Retief and 60 of his men are massacred by King Dingane kaSenzangakhona of the Zulu people, after Retief accepts an invitation to celebrate the signing of a treaty, and his men willingly disarm as a show of good faith.source
• 1838April 4–22 – The paddle steamer makes the transatlantic crossing to New York from Cork, Ireland in 18 days, though not using steam continuously.source
• 1838September 7 – Grace Darling and her father rescue 13 survivors from the Forfarshire, off the Farne Islands.source
• 1838Sylvain Charles Valée founds Skikda, Algeria.source
• 1839January 19 – The British Aden Expedition captures Aden.source
• 1839May 22 – Former British statesman Lord Durham, as President of the New Zealand Company, formally asks the British government for permission to colonize New Zealand, and to establish a colonial government under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.source
• 1839Archaeological excavation at the Mayan site of Copán begins.source
• 1839A quarrel breaks out between the Chief of Abu Dhabi of the Beniyas tribe, Shaikh Khalifa bin Shakboot, and the fugitives who settled there after their departure from Bahrain, the Al Binali tribe. Under the command of their leader, Isa bin Tureef Al Binali, they relocate to Kenn Island where they exercise depredations over the Bahraini and other Gulf vessels. Their motive is to restore their belongings which they abandoned upon leaving Bahrain.source
• 1840January 19 – Captain Charles Wilkes' United States Exploring Expedition sights what becomes known as Wilkes Land in the southeast quadrant of Antarctica, claiming it for the United States, and providing evidence that Antarctica is a complete continent.source
• 1840January 21 – Jules Dumont d'Urville discovers Adélie Land in Antarctica, claiming it for France.source
• 1840January 22 – British colonists reach New Zealand, officially founding the settlement of Wellington.source
• 1841January 28 – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf. On the same voyage, he discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror.source
• 1841July 20 – The Mercantile Agency (ancestor of Dun & Bradstreet) is founded in New York City by Lewis Tappan.source
• 1841July 31 – Scottish missionary David Livingstone arrives at Kuruman in the Northern Cape, his first posting in Africa.source
• 1841August 20–October 16 – The Niger expedition of 1841 begins sailing up the Niger River by paddle steamers, under the auspices of the British Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade and the Civilisation of Africa; it is largely abortive, due to the high incidence of disease among the crews.source
• 1841November – The settlement of Dallas, Texas, is founded by John Neely Bryan.source
• 1842January 23 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross, charting the eastern side of James Ross Island, reaches a Farthest South of 78°09'30"S.source
• 1842The Sons of Temperance is founded in New York City.source
• 1843January 6 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island.source
• 1843April 16 or 17 – A group of 24 West Indian Moravians from Jamaica and Antigua, recruited by the Danish minister and Basel missionary, Andreas Riis, arrive in Christiansborg (Osu), Gold Coast, now Ghana, to set up schools and Presbyterian churches in the country.source
• 1843July 25 – Père Antoine Désiré Mégret, a Capuchin missionary, purchases the land that will become Abbeville, Louisiana for $900, a town founded by descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia.source
• 1843August 15 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world still intact, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.source
• 1843September 21 – The crew of schooner Ancud, including John Williams Wilson, takes possession of the Strait of Magellan on behalf of the Chilean government.source
• 1843October 30 – Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean settlement in the strait of Magellan, is founded.source
• 1843November 17 – The city of Shanghai opens for trade with foreigners for the first time, welcoming a party of traders from the United Kingdom.source
• 1843Kurdish leader Bedir Khan Beg launched an expedition against the Assyrians in the Hakkari region.Thousands of Assyrians were massacred during the campaign.source
• 1844December 21 – The Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England.source
• 1844December 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
• 1845January 1 – The Philippines began reckoning Asian dates by hopping the International Date Line through skipping Tuesday, December 31, 1844. That time zone shift was a reform made by Governor–General Narciso Claveria on August 16, 1844, in order to align the local calendars in the country with the rest of Asia as trade interests with Imperial China, Dutch East Indies and neighboring countries increased, after Mexico became independent in 1821. The reform also applied to Caroline Islands, Guam, Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands, and Palau as part of the Captaincy General of the Philippines.source
• 1845May 19 – HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with 134 men, comprising Sir John Franklin's expedition to find the Northwest Passage, sail from Greenhithe on the Thames. They will last be seen in the summer, entering Baffin Bay.source
• 1845May 30 – Fatel Razack (Fath Al Razack, 'Victory of Allah the Provider', ) is the first ship to bring indentured labourers from India to Trinidad and Tobago, landing in the Gulf of Paria with 227 immigrants.source
• 1845July 28 – HMS Terror and HMS Erebus of the Franklin Expedition go missing in the Davis Strait west of Greenland, while searching for the Northwest Passage.source
• 1846February 4 – Led by Brigham Young, many Mormons in the U.S. begin their migration west from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake in what becomes Utah.source
• 1846June 15 – The Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.source
• 1846August – Canadian physician and geologist Abraham Pineo Gesner demonstrates a process to refine a liquid fuel, which he calls kerosene, from coal, bitumen or oil shale.source
• 1848March 23 – The settlement of Dunedin, New Zealand is founded, with the arrival of settlers from Scotland on board the John Wickliffe.source
• 1848April 25 – Captain Francis Crozier and Commander James Fitzjames of the Royal Navy deposit the final formal record ever recovered from the Franklin Expedition in a cairn on King William Island, after deserting their ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with their surviving 105 crew members on April 22 to attempt to march to the mainland of North America.source
• 1848August 6 – HMS Daedalus reports a sighting of a sea serpent.source
• 1848December 16 – The main Austrian imperial forces, led by Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz, cross the Hungarian border.source
• 1848December 18 – Punta Arenas, the first major settlement in the Strait of Magellan, is founded.source
• 1848The city of Joensuu is founded in North Karelia, Finland by Czar Nicholas I of Russia.source
• 1848Admiral Nevelskoy demonstrates that the Strait of Tartary is a strait.source
• 1849February 28 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins, with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay. The California leaves New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, rounds Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrives at San Francisco after the 4-month, 21-day journey.source
• 1849November – English-born merchant Joshua Norton, the future "Emperor Norton", arrives in San Francisco.source
• 1849December 3 – German missionaries Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann become the first Europeans to see Mount Kenya.source
• 1850March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.source
• 1850May 23 – The puts to sea from New York to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.source
• 1850June 1 – The transportation of British convicts to Western Australia begins, as the transportation of British convicts to other parts of Australia is phased out, when the ship Scindian arrives in Fremantle, with 75 male prisoners.source
• 1850September 4 – The Eusébio de Queirós Law is passed in the Brazilian Empire to abolish the international slave trade.source
• 1850December 16 – Members of the Canterbury Association, the first settlers bound for Christchurch, arrive from England at the port of Lyttelton, New Zealand, aboard the Charlotte Jane and Randolph.source
• 1850Mayer Lehman arrives from Germany to join his siblings in Lehman Brothers dry-goods business (predecessor of the bank) in Montgomery, Alabama.source
• 1850From this year until 1880, 144,000 East Indian laborers go to Trinidad and 39,000 to Jamaica.source
• 1850The temperance organisation, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.source
• 1850One of the original segments of the historic Pacific Highway (United States) in Washington (state) in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.source
• 1851March 27 – The first European men reportedly see Yosemite Valley.source
• 1851April 9 – San Luis, the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Colorado, is founded by settlers from Taos, New Mexico.source
• 1851August 3 – The filibustering Lopez Expedition sails from New Orleans, Louisiana heading to seize Spanish-ruled Cuba.source
• 1851August 22 – The yacht America wins the first America's Cup race, off the coast of England.source
• 1851September 1 – Narciso López is executed in Havana following the failure of his expedition in Cuba.source
• 1851September 30 – HSwMS Eugenie leaves from Karlskrona, Sweden to begin its voyage as the first Swedish Royal Navy vessel to circumnavigate the world.source
• 1851November 13 – The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle.source
• 1852Germans are encouraged to immigrate to Chile.source
• 1852The French Catholic De La Salle Brothers arrive from Europe in Singapore, aboard La Julie, and sail up to Penang in the Straits Settlements, to found the first Lasallian educational institutions in Asia.source
• 1853July 8 – U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives in Edo Bay, Japan, with a request for a trade treaty.source
• 1854January 4 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.source
• 1854March 11 – A Royal Navy fleet sails from Britain, under Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier.source
• 1854August 27 – English lawyer Alfred Wills and party set out for the first ascent of the Wetterhorn in Switzerland, regarded as the start of the "golden age of alpinism".source
• 1854The Icelandic trade is opened to merchants other than Danes.source
• 1854Ignacy Łukasiewicz drills the world's first oil well in Poland, in Bóbrka near Krosno County.source
• 1855May 3 – American adventurer William Walker and a group of armed mercenaries (filibusters) sail from San Francisco in California south to Central America to attempt to conquer Nicaragua.source
• 1855July 4 – Thomas Cook escorts his first party of excursionists from England to tour the European continent, travelling via Belgium and enabling the tourists to visit the Paris Exposition.source
• 1855September 29 – The Port of Iloilo in the Philippines is opened to international trade, by Queen Isabella II of Spain. This year also the ports of Sual (modern-day Pangasinan) and Zamboanga City are opened to international trade.source
• 1855November 17 – Scottish missionary explorer David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, in modern-day Zambia–Zimbabwe.source
• 1855Palm oil sales from West Africa to the United Kingdom reach 40,000 tons.source
• 1856January 23 – The American sidewheel steamer SS Pacific leaves Liverpool (England) for a transatlantic voyage on which she will be lost with all 186 on board.source
• 1856April 29 – The iron-hulled paddle steamer concludes a 9-day 16 hour westbound transatlantic crossing, at an average 13.11 knots (24.28 km/h), regaining the Blue Riband for the Cunard Line.source
• 1856May 20 – David Livingstone arrives at Quelimane on the Indian Ocean, having completed a 2-year transcontinental journey across Africa from Luanda.source
• 1856June 9 – 500 Mormon handcart pioneers leave Iowa City and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.source
• 1856August – Pre-human remains are found in the Neanderthal Valley in Prussia.source
• 1857July 18 – The Utah Expedition leaves Fort Leavenworth, effectively beginning the Utah War.source
• 1857The Mormons abandon Las Vegas.source
• 1857The first commercial tea plantation in the British Raj is opened in the Mulnicherra Estate in Sylhet.source
• 1857Suzumoto Vaudeville Theater officially opens in Ueno region, Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in Japan.source
• 1858February 13 – Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika.source
• 1858May 13 – John Ruskin begins a tour of Europe; he considers it a significant turning point in his life.source
• 1858May 14 – David Livingstone's 6-year Second Zambesi expedition arrives at the African coast.source
• 1858May (unknown date) – Japanese trading company Itochu founded in Toyosato, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.source
• 1858August 11 – The Eiger is first ascended.source
• 1858October 28 – Macy's department store, founded by R. H. Macy, opens for business in New York City.source
• 1858December 30 – Paraguay expedition: Seventeen U.S. Navy warships, under the command of William Shubrick, depart from Uruguay on a mission to demand concessions from Paraguay, and to go to war if necessary.source
• 1859May 26, June 2 – Geologist Joseph Prestwich and amateur archaeologist John Evans report (to the Royal Society and Society of Antiquaries of London, respectively) the results of their investigations of gravel-pits in the Somme valley and elsewhere, extending human history back to what will become known as the Paleolithic Era.source
• 1859June 8 – The discovery of the Comstock Lode in the western Utah Territory sets off the Rush to Washoe.source
• 1859June 30 – Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope for the first time.source
• 1859September – British merchant Thomas Blake Glover begins business in Nagasaki, Japan.source
• 1859The island of Timor is divided between Portugal and the Netherlands.source
• 1859Pike's Peak Gold Rush begins in the Colorado Territory.source
• 1860April 3 – In the U.S., the Pony Express begins its first run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, with riders carrying a small Bible.source
• 1860May 6 – Expedition of the Thousand: Giuseppe Garibaldi and his troops depart from Quarto.source
• 1860August 22 – Assisted by the British Navy, the troops of Giuseppe Garibaldi cross from Sicily to the Italian mainland.source
• 1860October – John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant leave Zanzibar, to search for the source of the Nile River.source
• 1862July 4 – Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) extemporises the story that becomes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, for ten-year-old Alice Liddell and her sisters, on a rowboat trip on The Isis from Oxford to Godstow.source
• 1862December 12 – Yazoo Pass Expedition – Union ironclad gunboat is sunk by a remotely-detonated "torpedo" (naval mine) while clearing mines from the Yazoo River, the first armored ship sunk by mine.source
• 1862Donald McIntyre builds a settlement in northwest Queensland (Australia) which becomes the town of Julia Creek (named after his niece).source
• 1863March 19 – The is destroyed on her maiden voyage while attempting to run the blockade into Charleston, South Carolina. The wreck is discovered exactly 102 years later, by E. Lee Spence.source
• 1863The American clipper ship Anglo Saxon (westbound) is captured and burned by Confederate privateer Florida off the south coast of Ireland.source
• 1864June 18 – The Decree of Extended Freedom of Trade introduces complete freedom of trade in Sweden.source
• 1864August 13 – The first fish and chips shop perhaps opens in London.source
• 1864October 30 – Helena, Montana, is founded, after four prospectors (the so-called Four Georgians) discover gold at Last Chance Gulch; it is their last and agreed final attempt for weeks, of trying to find gold in the northern Rockies.source
• 1864Asa Mercer travels from Seattle to the U.S. East Coast, and recruits 11 Mercer Girls, potential wives for men on the West Coast.source
• 1864The Dutch conquer southern Sumatra.source
• 1864The first Quanjude Peking Roast Duck restaurant opens on Qianmen Street in Peking, China.source
• 1865May 17 – French missionary Father Armand David first observes Père David's deer in Peking, China.source
• 1865May 28 – The Mimosa sets sail with emigrants from Wales for Patagonia.source
• 1865June 25 – James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton, England.source
• 1865July 14 – First ascent of the Matterhorn: The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time, by a party of 7 led by the Englishman Edward Whymper; 4 die in a fall during the descent.source
• 1865July 27 – Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.source
• 1866February 26 – The Calaveras Skull is discovered in California. Purported to be evidence of humans in North America during the Pliocene epoch, it turns out to be a hoax.source
• 1866October 14 – French troops under the command of Rear Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze land at Ganghwa Island, Korea, as part of a punitive expedition against that kingdom for the execution of French Jesuit priests. It is the first military contact between Korea and a Western force.source
• 1866Erasmus Jacobs discovers the 21.25 carat g Eureka Diamond near Hopetown on the banks of the Orange River in the Cape of Good Hope.source
• 1867April 1–November 3 – Exposition Universelle, an international exhibition in Paris. Among the visitors is Abdülaziz, making the first visit of a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to Western Europe.source
• 1867December 4 – Beginning of British expedition to Abyssinia.source
• 1868January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries.source
• 1868January 9 – Penal transportation from Britain to Australia ends, with arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia, after an 89-day voyage from England. There are 62 Fenians among the transportees.source
• 1868French geologist Louis Lartet discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnon, the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens), at Abri de Crô-Magnon, a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France.source
• 1868Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover develops Japan's first coal mine on Hashima Island.source
• 1869February 5 – Prospectors in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, discover the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, known as the "Welcome Stranger".source
• 1869May 24 – John Wesley Powell departs Green River, Wyoming, with a company of nine other men, on a trip down the Green and Colorado Rivers.source
• 1869French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David receives the skin of a giant panda from a hunter, the first time this species becomes known to a Westerner; he also first describes a specimen of the "pocket handkerchief tree", which will be named in his honor as Davidia involucrata.source
• 1870February 27 – The Nisshoki 'circle of the sun' flag of Japan is adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships, by proclamation of the Daijō-kan.source
• 1870March 24 – A Chilean prospecting party led by José Díaz Gana discovers the silver ores of Caracoles in the Bolivian portion of Atacama Desert, leading to the last of Chilean silver rushes and a diplomatic dispute over its taxation between Chile and Bolivia.source
• 1870September 18 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn, during the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition to Yellowstone in Wyoming.source
• 1871June 10 – United States expedition to Korea: Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 members of the United States Marine Corps in a punitive naval attack on the Han River forts on Ganghwa Island in Korea, resulting in 250 Koreans dying and diplomatic failure to "open up" Korea.source
• 1871July 28 – The Annie becomes the first boat ever launched on Yellowstone Lake, in the Yellowstone National Park region.source
• 1871August 7 – Banco de Concepcion, predecessor of Itaú Unibanco, a major financial services provider in South America, is founded in Chile.source
• 1871October 11 – Heinrich Schliemann begins the excavation of Troy in the Ottoman Empire.source
• 1871November 10 – Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh-born correspondent for the New York Herald, locates missing Scottish explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, and greets him by saying, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" (according to his later account).source
• 1872March 1 – In the United States, Yellowstone National Park (once dubbed "Colter's Hell" after John Colter, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) is established as the world's first national park.source
• 1872July 19 – Explorer William Gosse reaches Uluru in central Australia and names it Ayers Rock.source
• 1872September 17 – Shiseido Pharmacy Shop, predecessor of Shiseido, a major worldwide cosmetics brand, is founded in Ginza, Tokyo, Japan.source
• 1872November 7 – The Mary Celeste sets sail from New York; bound for Genoa, Italy.source
• 1872December 4 – The now-crewless American ship Mary Celeste is found (still seaworthy) by the British brig Dei Gratia in the Atlantic.source
• 1872December 21 – Challenger expedition: sails from Portsmouth, England, on the 4-year scientific expedition that lays the foundation for the science of oceanography.source
• 1872The first Marist Brothers travel to Australia.source
• 1872S. T. Dupont begins the manufacture of luxury leather goods in France.source
• 1873February 20 – British naval officer John Moresby discovers the site of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, and claims the land for Britain.source
• 1873May 1 – The Vienna World's Fair opens in the capital of Austria-Hungary and runs for six months, closing on October 31.source
• 1873August 30 – The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition discovers Franz Josef Land.source
• 1873December 15 – Women of Fredonia, New York, march against the retail liquor dealers in town, to inaugurate the Woman's Crusade of 1873–74.source
• 1873Liebig's Extract of Meat Company begins producing tinned corned beef, sold under the label Fray Bentos, from the town in Uruguay where it is processed.source
• 1874May 27 – The first group of Dorsland Trekkers, a series of expeditions by Trekboere in search of political independence and better farming conditions, departs South Africa to settle in Angola, led by Gert Alberts.source
• 1874Gold is discovered in the Black Hills.source
• 1876Thousands of Plains Indians in the United States travel to an encampment of the Sioux chief Sitting Bull in the region of the Little Bighorn River, creating the last great gathering of native peoples on the Great Plains.source
• 1876September 12 – King Leopold II of Belgium hosts the Brussels Geographic Conference, on the subject of colonizing and exploring central Africa. By the event's conclusion, a new international body named the International African Association (indirect forerunner of the modern Congo state) is established.source
• 1876Heinrich Schliemann begins excavation at Mycenae.source
• 1877June 30 – The British Mediterranean fleet is sent to Besika Bay.source
• 1878January 23 – Benjamin Disraeli orders the British fleet to the Dardanelles.source
• 1878April 16 – The Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland issues a declaration establishing a city of Kotka on the southern part of the islands from the old Kymi parish.source
• 1878June 20 – The United States Coast Survey is renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.source
• 1878June 22 – Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld leaves Karlskrona on a voyage that will make him the first man to navigate the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, along the Siberian coast.source
• 1878August 26 – Uyedineniya Island is discovered in the Kara Sea, by Norwegian explorer Captain Edvard Holm Johannesen.source
• 1879May 14 – The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji, aboard the Leonidas.source
• 1879July 8 – Led by George W. De Long, the ill-fated United States Jeannette Expedition departs San Francisco, in an attempt to reach the North Pole, by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.source
• 1879July 16 – The city of Kotka is founded in Kymenlaakso, Finland, by separating its two islands from the old Kymi parish.source
• 1879Tetteh Quarshie first brings cocoa beans to Ghana from Equatorial Guinea.source
• 1880The Gokstad ship is found in Norway, the first Viking ship burial to be excavated.source
• 1880February 2 – The first successful shipment of frozen mutton from Australia arrives in London, aboard the SS Strathleven.source
• 1880August 24 – The SS Columbia completes her maiden voyage, arriving without incident in Portland, Oregon, after a stopover in San Francisco.source
• 1881October 5–December 31 – The International Cotton Exposition is held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.source
• 1881Hattori Watch Shop (服部時計店) is founded by Kanetarō Hattori in Ginza, Tokyo, Japan, predecessor of watch brand Seiko.source
• 1881Kinshasa (the capital of the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) is founded by Henry Morton Stanley as a trading outpost called Léopoldville.source
• 1882January 2 – Irish-born author Oscar Wilde arrives in New York at the beginning of a lecture tour of the United States and Canada.source
• 1883October 1 – In Amsterdam, the first International Colonial and Export Exhibition closes, having had over 1 million visitors.source
• 1883October 4 – The Orient Express train begins to run through from Paris Gare de l'Est to Giurgiu in Romania, with onward ferry and train connections to Istanbul (the train has been running since June 5 as far as Vienna).source
• 1884June – The first ascent is made of Castle Mountain in the Canadian Rockies, by geologist Arthur Philemon Coleman.source
• 1884July 1 – First International Forestry Exhibition opens in Edinburgh, Scotland.source
• 1884September 23–24 (night) – Steamship Arctique runs aground near Cape Virgenes, leading to the discovery of nearby placer gold and beginning the Tierra del Fuego gold rush.source
• 1884November 15 – The Berlin Conference, which regulates European colonisation and trade in Africa, begins (ends February 26, 1885).source
• 1884December 16 – The World Cotton Centennial world's fair opens in New Orleans.source
• 1884Scottish Plymouth Brethren missionary Frederick Stanley Arnot identifies the source of the Zambezi River, near Kalene Hill.source
• 1885February 9 – The first Japanese arrive in Hawaii.source
• 1885February 26 – The final act of the Berlin Conference regulates European colonization and trade, in the "scramble for Africa".source
• 1886December 17 – English adventurer Thomas Stevens concludes the first circumnavigation by bicycle in Yokohama, having set out on his penny-farthing from San Francisco in 1884.source
• 1886The village of Skorenovac is founded in Serbia, mostly by Székely Hungarians.source
• 1887February 4 – The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, passed by the 49th United States Congress, is signed into law by President Grover Cleveland.source
• 1888March 9 – 1888 British Lions tour to New Zealand and Australia: The "English Footballers" embark for the first British rugby union tour of Australasia.source
• 1888March 15 – The Sikkim Expedition, a British military expedition to expel the Tibetans from northern Sikkim, begins.source
• 1888April 13 – Kahisakan (可否茶館), the first coffee shop in Japan, opens in Tokyo.source
• 1888December 18 – Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law, Charlie Mason, discover the Indian ruins of Mesa Verde in southwestern Colorado.source
• 1888The dolphin Pelorus Jack is first sighted in Cook Strait, New Zealand.source
• 1888G. D. Searle by Gideon Daniel Searle in Omaha, Nebraska.source
• 1889October 6 – Mount Kilimanjaro's summit is first reached, by German geologist Hans Meyer with Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller.source
• 1889December 30 – Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, introduces the Kanunname of 1889 against the slave trade.source
• 1890English archaeologist Flinders Petrie excavates at Tell el-Hesi, Palestine (mistakenly identified as Tel Lachish), the first scientific excavation of an archaeological site in the Holy Land, during which he discovers how tells are formed.source
• 1891January 19 – A British Royal Navy squadron is ordered to Chile.source
• 1891January 27–May 2 – The Jamaica International Exhibition is held.source
• 1891October – Eugène Dubois finds the first fragmentary bones of Pithecanthropus erectus (later redesignated Homo erectus), or "Java Man", at Trinil on the Solo River.source
• 1892July 16 – Liberian freed slave Martha Ann Ricks meets Queen Victoria.source
• 1892October 30 – The Historical American Exposition opens in Madrid.source
• 1893September 16 – Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma.source
• 1893November 12 – The Durand Line is established as the boundary between British India and Afghanistan, by a memorandum of understanding signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, Foreign Secretary of British India, and Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan.source
• 1895April 7 – Nansen's Fram expedition to the Arctic reaches 86°13.6'N, almost 3° beyond the previous Farthest North attained.source
• 1896July 27 – A causeway is opened between the islands of Saaremaa and Muhu in Estonia.source
• 1896August 16 – Keish (often called Skookum Jim Mason), George Carmack, and Dawson Charlie discover gold in the Klondike, Yukon.source
• 1896December 1 – Archaeologist Alois Anton Führer, Nepalese General Khadga Samsher Rana and an expedition rediscover the great stone pillar of Ashoka at Lumbini, traditionally the spot of the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, after using Faxian's records.source
• 1897January 4 – A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosere, son-in-law of the ruler. This leads to a punitive expedition against Benin.source
• 1897February 18 – Benin is put to the torch by the British Army's Benin Expedition. Ovonramwen, Oba of Benin, is exiled from his kingdom and the Benin Bronzes are carried off to London.source
• 1897October 12 – (Cruiser # 3, later CM-1) is recommissioned, since 1890, for several months of duty in the Hawaiian Islands.source
• 1898June 1 – The Trans-Mississippi Exposition World's Fair opens, in Omaha, Nebraska.source
• 1898June 9 – The British government arranges a 99-year rent of extended territories of Hong Kong from China.source
• 1898July 3 – American adventurer Joshua Slocum completes a 3-year solo circumnavigation of the world.source
• 1898August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.source
• 1898October 10 – A military expedition departs from France toward the French Equatorial Africa colony of Chad. Commanded by Lieutenant de vaisseau Henri Bretonnet and Lt. Solomon Braun, the force is sent to liberate areas dominated by the Muslim warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, with the help of troops sent by the envoys of the Muslim rulers Mohammed al-Senoussi and Gaourang II, sultan of Bagirmisource
• 1898October 20 – The first residents of the "cooperative socialist colony", created by the Cooperative Brotherhood, arrive at what is now Burley, Washington in Kitsap County, settling on 260 acre km2 of land purchased by the Brotherhood.source
• 1899January 23 – The British Southern Cross Expedition crosses the Antarctic Circle.source
• 1899February 17 – The research vessel SS Southern Cross, on an Antarctic expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink, arrives at Cape Adare and begins unloading 90 sledge dogs – the first ever on the continent – and two Norwegian Sámi crewmen, who become the first humans to spend the night in Antarctica. Over the next 12 days, the rest of the 31-man crew builds a temporary settlement.source
• 1899February 21 – The British freighter SS Jumna is last seen passing Rathlin Island off Northern Ireland. Bound from Scotland to deliver a shipment of coal to Uruguay with minimal crew, it never arrives and is never seen again.source
• 1899February 27 – Japanese immigration to South America, primarily Peru, begins as the ship Sakura Maru departs from Yokohama with 790 men employed by the Morioka-shokai Sugar Company. The group arrives in Callao on April 3.source
• 1899March 24 – The U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, acting as arbitrator of a boundary dispute between Argentina and Chile, awards the disputed territory to Chile.source
• 1899April 4 – The British Antarctic Expedition reports discovery of new land in the Weddell Sea at a latitude of 71 36" S.source
• 1899April 5 – A team of prospectors sets out from Northern Rhodesia to explore the minerals of central Africa for the British company Tanganyika Concessions (TCL). Discovering that the most valuable copper deposits are in the Congo Free State, TCL makes an unsuccessful attempt to purchase full rights from King Leopold of Belgium.source
• 1899May 31 – The Harriman Alaska Expedition is launched.source
• 1899June 15 – The French expedition to liberate Chad, arrives at Kouno, where the commander, Henri Bretonnet, meets with the Gaourang II, the Muslim Sultan of Bagirmi.source
• 1899July 4 – The most famous skeleton of a dinosaur ever found intact, a diplodocus, is discovered at the Sheep Creek Quarry near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The expedition team, financed by Andrew Carnegie for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and led by William Harlow Reed, bestows the name "Dippy" on the Diplodocus carnegii. It becomes well known after Carnegie has plaster cast replicas made for donation to museums all over the world.source
• 1899July 10 – British colonial authorities in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan give control of the Red Sea port of Suakin to Sudan, after having agreed that Egypt would have the right to administer commerce there.source
• 1899July 30 – The Harriman Alaska Expedition ends.source
• 1899July 31 – Duke of York Island, off Antarctica, is discovered by the Southern Cross Expedition.source
• 1899September 13 – Halford Mackinder, Cesar Ollier and Josef Brocherel make the first ascent of Batian, the highest peak of Mount Kenya.source
• 1899October 15 – French Army officer Ferdinand de Béhagle is put to death by Sudanese warlord Rabih az-Zubayr, prompting a French expedition to be led against Rabih.source
• 1899November 5 – The Belgian Antarctic Expedition is concluded.source