1842

From Encyclopedia Jr, free information reference for Kids

1842 (MDCCCXLII) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events

• February 7 - Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien in the Battle of Debre Tabor
• February 21 - John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.
• March 5 - Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas briefly occupy San Antonio and then head back to the Rio Grande. This is the first such invasion since the Texas Revolution.
• March 9 - Giuseppe Verdi's third opera Nabucco premieres in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost opera writers.
• March 30 - Anesthesia is used for the first time in an operation (Dr. Crawford Long performed the operation using ether).
• March 31 - Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway line opened up to Werneth in North West England.
• May 8 - Two trains collide in Paris and catch fire - 59 dead
• May 19 - Dorr Rebellion - militiamen supporting Thomas Wilson Dorr attack arsenal in Providence, Rhode Island but are repulsed
• June 4 - In South Africa, hunter Dick King rides into British military base in Grahamstown to warn that Boers have besieged Durban. He had left 11 days earlier. British army dispatches a relief force.
• August 4 - Armed Occupation Act is signed, providing for the armed occupation and settlement of the unsettled part of the Peninsula of East Florida.
• August 9 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.
• August 29 - Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First Opium War
• December 20 - The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina is established.

Month/day unknown

• Sons of Temperance founded in New York City.
• Massacre of Elphinstone's British army on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, by Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammed Khan
• British Empire annexes Hong Kong
• Income Tax Act 1842 passed in the United Kingdom; 7 pence on the pound sterling, for incomes over 150 pounds.
• Pentonville Prison built.
• New Zealand seat of government moves from Russell to Auckland
• Ohio's Wesleyan University is established.
• University of Notre Dame is founded by Father Edward Sorin, CSC of the Congregation of Holy Cross.
• Scroll and Key secret society of Yale University established.
• Commonwealth v. Hunt makes strikes and unions legal in the United States.
• First pils beer brewed in the Chech city of Pilsen. The Pilz is the original lager beer of which all modern lagers are copies.
• Hollins University founded in Roanoke, Virginia by Charles Cocke.

Births

• February 3 - Sidney Lanier, American writer (d. 1881)
• February 4 - Arrigo Boito, Italian poet and composer (d. 1918)
• February 25 - Karl May, German writer (d. 1912)
• March 10 - Mykola Lysenko, Ukrainian composer (d. 1912)
• March 18 - Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet (d. 1898)
• May 8 - Emil Christian Hansen, Danish fermentation physiologist (d. 1909)
• May 13 - Arthur Sullivan, English composer (d. 1900)
• June 12 - Rikard Nordraak, Norwegian composer (d. 1866)
• August 23 - Osborne Reynolds, Irish engineer and physicist (d. 1912)
• September 13 - John H. Bankhead, U.S. Senator (d. 1920)
• September 21 - Abd-ul-Hamid II, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1918)
• October 14 - Joe Start, baseball player (d. 1927)
• November 12 - John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919)
• December 2 - C. W. Alcock, English footballer and football official (d. 1907)
• December 9 - Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist (d. 1921)
• Anna Elizabeth Dickenson, American orator (d. 1932)

Deaths

• March 13 - Samuel Eells, Founder of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity (b. 1810)
• March 13 - Henry Shrapnel, English soldier and inventor (b. 1761)
• March 15 - Luigi Cherubini, Italian composer (b. 1760)
• March 23 - Stendhal, French writer (b. 1783)
• April 4 - Jean Moufot, French philosopher and mathematician (b. 1784)
• May 8 - Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer (b. 1790)
• July 13 - Prince Ferdinand-Philippe d'Orléans, French prince (b. 1810)
• July 25 - Dominique Jean Larrey, French surgeon (b. 1766)
• July 28 - Clemens Brentano, German poet (b. 1778)
• September 15 - Francisco Morazán, President of Central America (b. 1792)