1839 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 9 - The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
• January 19 - British East India Company captures Aden
• January 20 - In the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeats a Peruvian and Bolivian alliance.
• February 11 - The University of Missouri is established, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River.
• February 24 - William Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel.
• March 5 - Longwood University founded, Farmville, Virginia.
• March 23 - First recorded use of "OK" oll korrect (Boston Morning Post).
• March 26 - The first Henley Royal Regatta is held
• 9 April - The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation alongside the Great Western Railway line from Paddington station to West Drayton.
• April 19 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.
• June 22 – Louis Daguerre receives patent for his camera (commercially available by September with the prize of 400 Francs)
• July 1 – Slave rebellion of Amistad
• August 8 – The Beta Theta Pi fraternity was founded in Oxford, Ohio
• August 19 – French government gives Louis Daguerre a pension and gives the daguerreotype "for the whole world"
• October 3 - In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies a railway between Napoli and Portici (7.4km length) has been inaugurated by H.M. the King Ferdinand II of Bourbon. It is the very first railway in the Italian peninsula.
• November 11 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
• November 17 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan.
• November 25 - Disastrous cyclone slams India with terrible winds and a giant 40 foot storm surge, wiping out the port city of Coringa. 300,000 people die.
• November 27 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded

Undated

• Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mahmud II (1808-1839) to Abd-ul-Mejid (1839-1861)
• In the United States, the first state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.
• The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson.
• Excavation on Copan begins
• Half of the Limburg province of Belgium was added to the Netherlands, since 1839 there is a Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg.
• Abd al-Kader declares a jihad against the French.
• Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virginia is founded.
• Baltimore City College in Baltimore, Maryland is the third public high school established.
• John Frost, Zephaniah Williams and William Jones are transported to Australia for their part in a Chartist rally in Newport, Monmouthshire.

Births

• January 19 - Paul Cézanne, French painter (d. 1906)
• February 11 - Josiah Willard Gibbs American physicist and chemist (d. 1903)
• February 22 - Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher (d. 1906)
• March 9 - Phoebe Knapp, American hymn writer (d. 1908)
• March 16 - John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist (d. 1922)
• March 21 - Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (d. 1881)
• April 12 - Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian explorer (d. 1888)
• June 17 - Arthur Tooth, Anglican clergyman prosecuted for Ritualist practices in the 1870s (d. 1931)
• July 8 - John Davison Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist (d. 1937)
• July 17 - Ephraim Shay, inventor of the Shay locomotive (d. 1916)
• November 20 - Christian Wilberg, German painter (d. 1882)
• December 5 - George Armstrong Custer, American cavalry officer (d. 1876)

Deaths

• February 7 - Karl August Nicander, Swedish poet (b. 1799)
• April 1 - Benjamin Pierce, U.S. politician (b. 1757)
• April 2 - Hezekiah Niles, American editor and publisher (b. 1777)
• April 11 - John Galt, Scottish novelist (b. 1779)
• April 22 - Denis Davydov, Russian general and poet (b. 1784)
• May 17 - Archibald Alison, Scottish author (b. 1757)
• August 10 - John St Aubyn, British fossil collector (b. 1758)
• August 22 - Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (b. 1789)
• August 28 - William Smith, English geologist and cartographer (b. 1769)
• October - William Light, British Army colonel and the first Surveyor-General of South Australia (b. 1786)
• November 15 - William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (b. 1754)
• December 3 - Frederick VI, King of Denmark, ex-King of Norway (b. 1768)
• December 15 - Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, court councillor and minister to Alexander I (b. 1756)

1839

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