- Jan 1 Michigan is 1st state to abolish capital punishment
"Wuthering Heights"
Jan 4 Manuscripts of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" and Anne Brontë's "Agnes Grey" sent to publisher T.C. Newby (published December 1847)
Colt Revolver
Jan 4 Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government
- Jan 9 1st San Francisco newspaper published (California Star)
- Jan 15 1st Swedish magazine in US, Skandinavia, published in NYC
- Jan 16 John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory
- Jan 19 Mexican and indigenous Pueblo warriors kill territorial governor Charles Bent (47), and 5 others in a revolt against new American rulers in Taos, New Mexico Territory
- Jan 24 1,500 New Mexican Indians & Mexicans defeated by US Colonel Price
- Jan 30 Yerba Buena renamed San Francisco
- Feb 4 1st US telegraph company established in Maryland
- Feb 22 Battle of Buena Vista begins between US and Mexican troops
Battle of Buena Vista
Feb 23 Battle of Buena Vista, Mexico; Zachary Taylor leads mostly volunteer troops against larger Mexican Army force; Mexico retreats, both sides claim victory
- Feb 25 State University of Iowa is approved
- Feb 28 US forces numbering less than 1,000 defeat a larger Mexico force in the Battle of the Sacramento River
- Mar 1 Michigan becomes 1st English-speaking jurisdiction to abolish the death penalty (except for treason against the state)
- Mar 3 9th Grand National: Denny Wynne wins aboard 10/1 Mathew; regarded as the first Irish-trained horse to win the race
- Mar 3 US Post Office Department is authorized to issue postage stamps
- Mar 7 US General Scott occupies Vera Cruz, Mexico
- Mar 10 1st money minted in Hawaii
Macbeth
Mar 14 Premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Macbeth" at the Teatro della Pergola, Florence
- Mar 18 1st Dutch public telegram
- Mar 25 Pope Pius issues IX encyclical "On aid for Ireland"
- Mar 29 12,000 US troops capture Vera Cruz, Mexico
- Apr 5 Birkenhead Park, the first civic public park, opens in Birkenhead, England, designed by Joseph Paxton
- Apr 14 Persia & Ottoman Turkey sign 2nd Treaty of Erzurum
- Apr 28 George B. Vashon becomes 1st African American to enter New York State Bar
- May 4 NY State creates a Board of Commissioners of Emigration
- May 7 American Medical Association founded in Philadelphia
- May 8 Scot Robert Thompson patents rubber tyre
Patron's Medal for Ludwig Leichhardt
May 24 German explorer Ludwig Leichhardt is awarded the Patron's Medal by the Royal Geographical Society, London in recognition of 'the increased knowledge of the great continent of Australia' gained by his Moreton Bay-Port Essington journey
Bunsen Burner
Jun 14 Robert Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner
First Photo of Lightning?
Jun 18 American photographer Thomas Martin Easterly takes the earliest known photograph of lightning using the daguerreotype process in St. Louis, Missouri [1]
Event of Interest
Jul 10 Urbain Le Leverrier and John Couch Adams, co-discoverers of Neptune, meet for 1st time at home of John Herschel
- Jul 20 German astronomer Theodor discovers Comet Brorsen-Metcalf
Mormons Arrive at Salt Lake City
Jul 24 Brigham Young and his Mormon followers arrive at Salt Lake City, Utah
- Jul 24 Rotary-type printing press patents received by Richard March Hoe, NYC
- Jul 26 Moses Gerrish Farmer builds 1st miniature train for children to ride
- Jul 26 The Liberian Declaration of Independence is signed making Liberia a sovereign nation, independent from the American Colonization Society
- Jul 28 Denmark phases out slavery, beginning with all new-born children of enslaved women, the parent-generation is freed the following year [1]
- Jul 29 Cumberland School of Law founded in Lebanon, Tennessee, USA. At the end of 1847 only 15 law schools exist in the United States
Jane Eyre
Aug 24 Charlotte Brontë finishes manuscript of "Jane Eyre"
Oh! Susanna
Sep 11 1st singing of Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna" (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
- Sep 12 Mexican–American War: the Battle of Chapultepec begins
- Sep 13 Battle of Chapultepec: American forces capture Chapultepec Castle during the Mexican–American War allowing US General Winfield Scott to go on to take Mexico City
- Sep 14 US Marines under General Scott enter Mexico City (halls of Montezuma)
Shakespeare's Birthplace
Sep 16 Shakespeare Birthplace Trust buys bard's birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon
Siemens & Halske
Oct 1 German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske
- Oct 1 Maria Mitchell discovers a non-naked-eye comet
- Oct 16 Charlotte Brontë's book "Jane Eyre" published
- Oct 20 12-year-old English boy William Nelman poisons his grandpa with arsenic, would become famous court case
- Nov 10 The passenger ship Stephen Whitney is wrecked in thick fog off the southern coast of Ireland, killing 92 of the 110 on board. The disaster results in the construction the Fastnet Rock lighthouse.
- Nov 12 Sir James Young Simpson, a British physician, is the first to use chloroform as an anaesthetic
- Nov 21 Steamer "Phoenix" is lost on Lake Michigan, kills 200
- Nov 25 Friedrich von Flotow's comic romance opera "Martha" premiers at the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna
- Nov 26 Alfred de Mussets "Un Caprice" premieres in Paris
- Nov 28 Church of San Francisco dei Minori Conventuali in Bologna, Italy initiated with premier of Rossini's Tantum ergo
- Nov 29 Cayuse Indians kill missionaries Marcus & Narcissa Whitman, and 12 others at Waiilatpu Mission in Oregon Country (near present day Walla Walla, Washington)
North Star
Dec 3 Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of his newspaper "North Star"
Jefferson Davis to Senate
Dec 5 Jefferson Davis is appointed to fill vacant US Senate seat for Mississippi
Authors
Dictators
Explorers
Outlaws
Queens
Spies