This page is about the year 1844. For the board game, see 1844.

1844 (MDCCCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 15 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana.
• February 27 - The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.
• February 28 - A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others.
• March 8 - King Oscar I ascends to the throne of Sweden-Norway.
• March 12 - The Columbus and Xenia Railroad, the first railroad that is planned to be built in Ohio, is chartered.
• April - The Fleet Prison for debtors in London is abolished.
• May 23 - Persian Prophet The Báb announces His revelation, founding Bábism. He announced to the world of the coming of "He whom God shall make manifest." He is considered the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith.
• May 24 - First electrical telegram sent by Samuel Morse from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., saying "What hath God wrought?".
• June 6 - George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association in London.
• June 15 - Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.
• June 22 - Influential North American fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon is founded at Yale University.
• June 27 - Joseph Smith, Jr. is murdered with his brother Hyrum in Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois.
• July 3 - The United States signs The Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia with Chinese Government, the first diplomatic agreement between China and the United States in history.
• July 3 - The last pair of Great Auks are killed on the island of Eldey.
• August 8 - During a meeting held in Nauvoo, the Quorum of the Twelve, headed by Brigham Young, is chosen as the leading body of the Mormon Church.
• October 22 - Date predicted by the Millerites for the Second Coming of Jesus; leads to the Great Disappointment.
• November 3 - Debut of Giuseppe Verdi's I due Foscari, at Teatro Argentina, Rome.
• November 6 - The Dominican Republic drafts its first Constitution.
• December 4 - James K. Polk defeats Henry Clay in the U.S. presidential election.

• First ever international cricket match is played in New York City between Canada and the United States.
• Swedish chemistry professor Gustaf Erik Pasch invents the safety match.
• Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx meet in Paris.
• Alexander Dumas Jr meets Marie Duplessis.
• Locksmith Alexander Fichet invents the first safe.
• Carlos Antonio Lopez becomes dictator of Paraguay.
• Abd al-Kader is defeated at Isly in Morocco. The sultan of Morocco soon repudiates his ally.
• The anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is published and paves the way for the acceptance of Darwin's book The Origin of Species.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne writes "The Artist of the Beautiful," one of his "Twice Told Tales."

Births

• February 17 - Aaron Montgomery Ward, American department store founder (d. 1913)
• February 20 - Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist (d. 1906)
• February 20 - Joshua Slocum, Canadian seaman and adventurer (d. 1909)
• February 21 - Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer (d. 1937)
• March 10 - Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish violinist (d. 1908)
• March 18 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (d. 1908)
• March 25 - Adolf Engler, German botanist (d. 1930)
• March 30 - Paul Verlaine, French poet (d. 1896)
• April 16 - Anatole France, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1924)
• May 17 - Julius Wellhausen, German biblical scholar (d. 1918)
• May 21 - Henri Rousseau, French artist (d. 1910)
• May 22 - Mary Cassatt, American artist (d. 1926)
• May 23 - `Abdu'l-Bahá, Persian religious leader (d. 1921)
• June 3 - Garret A. Hobart, 24th Vice President of the United States (d. 1899)
• July 11 - King Peter I of Serbia (d. 1921)
• July 22 - William Archibald Spooner, British scholar and Anglican priest (d. 1930)
• July 28 - Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (d. 1889)
• August 6 - Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. 1900)
• August 17 - Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1913)
• August 22 - George Washington DeLong, American naval officer and explorer (d. 1881)
• August 23 - Hamilton Disston, American land developer (d. 1896)
• August 29 - Edward Carpenter, English Socialist poet (d. 1929)
• August 30 - Emily Ruete, princess of Zanzibar (d. 1924)
• October 15 - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (d. 1900)
• October 22 - Louis Riel, Canadian leader (d. 1885)
• October 22 - Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (d. 1923)
• October 23 - Robert Bridges, English poet (d. 1930)
• October 27 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1916)
• November 2 - Mehmed V, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1918)
• November 23 - Karl Benz, German automotive pioneer (d. 1929)
• December 1 - Alexandra of Denmark, queen of Edward VII of England (d. 1925)
• December 8 - Émile Reynaud, French science teacher and animation pioneer (d. 1918)
• Abd ar-Rahman Khan, Emir of Afghanistan (d. 1901)

Deaths

• January 25 - Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Count d'Erlon, French marshal (b. 1765)
• January 27 - Charles Nodier, French writer (b. 1780)
• February 27 - Nicholas Biddle, president of the Second Bank of the United States (b. 1786)
• March 8 - King Charles XIV John of Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, French Napoleonic general (b. 1763)
• June 27 - Hyrum Smith, American religious leader (b. 1800)
• June 27 - Joseph Smith, Jr., American religious leader (b. 1805)
• July 11 - Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet and philosopher (b. 1800)
• July 27 - John Dalton, English chemist and physicist (b. 1766)
• July 28 - Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I and King of Naples and Spain (b. 1768)
• July 29 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer (b. 1791)

1844

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