1837

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1837 (MDCCCXXXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (dominical letter A) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday (dominical letter C) of the Julian calendar, the 1837th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 837th year of the 2nd millennium, the 37th year of the 19th century, and the 8th year of the 1830s decade. As of the start of 1837, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

January–March

• January 1 – Galilee earthquake.
• January 26 – Michigan becomes the 26th state admitted to the United States.
• February – Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist begins publication in serial form in London.
• February 4 – Seminoles attack Fort Foster in Florida.
• February 25 – In Philadelphia, the Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded as the first institution for the higher education of black people in the United States.
• March 4
  • Martin Van Buren is sworn in as President of the United States.
  • The city of Chicago is incorporated.

April–June

June 20: Queen Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1837–1901).

• April 12- The conglomerate of Procter & Gamble has its origins when British-born businessmen William Procter and James Gamble begin selling their first manufactured goods (soap and candles) in Cincinnati, Ohio.^[1]
• May – W. F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented a system of electrical telegraph.
• May 10 – The Panic of 1837 begins in New York City.
• June 5 – The city of Houston, is incorporated by the Republic of Texas.
• June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
• June 20 – 18-year-old Queen Victoria accedes to the throne of the United Kingdom on the death of her uncle William IV without legitimate heirs. She will reign for more than 63 years.^[2] Under Salic law, the Kingdom of Hanover passes to William's brother, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, ending the personal union of Britain and Hanover which has persisted since 1714.

July–September

• July – 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.
• July 13 – Queen Victoria moves from Kensington Palace into Buckingham Palace, the first reigning British monarch to make this, rather than St James's Palace, her London home.^[3]
• August 16 – The Dutch sack the fortress of Bonjol, ending the Padri War.
• September – Battle of Aranzueque: Liberal victory for the forces loyal to Queen Isabel II of Spain, end of the Carlist campaign known as the Expedición Real – The First Carlist War.
• September 28 – Samuel Morse files a caveat for a patent for the telegraph.^[4]

October–December

• October 10 – October 13 – The French army besieges and captures Constantine in French Algeria.
• October 22 – Henry David Thoreau makes his first journal entry at the suggestion of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
• November 7 – American abolitionist and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy is killed by a pro-slavery mob, at his warehouse in Alton, Illinois.
• November 8 – Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, later Mount Holyoke College, is founded in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
• November–December – In the Canadas, William Lyon Mackenzie leads the Upper Canada Rebellion and Louis-Joseph Papineau leads the Lower Canada Rebellion.
• December 17 – Fire in the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg.
• December 29 – The Caroline affair on the Niagara River, the basis for the Caroline test for anticipatory self-defence in international relations.

Date unknown

L’Atelier de l'artiste. An 1837 daguerreotype by Louis Daguerre, the first to complete the full process.

• At Le Mans, France, Father Basil Moreau, CSC, founds the Congregation of Holy Cross by joining the Brothers of St. Joseph and the Auxiliary Priests of Le Mans.
• Louis Daguerre develops the daguerreotype.
• The 5th century BC Berlin Foundry Cup is acquired for the Antikensammlung Berlin in Germany.
• Sylvain Charles Valée and French troops capture Skikda, Algeria.^[5]
• Olney Friends School founded.

Births

January–June

J. P. Morgan

• January 2 – Mily Balakirev, Russian composer (d. 1910)
• January 7 – Thomas Henry Ismay, English shipowner (White Star Line) (d. 1899)
• February 5 – Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (d. 1899)
• February 13 – Valentin Zubiaurre, Spanish composer (d. 1914)
• March 1 – William Dean Howells, American writer, historian, editor and politician (d. 1920)
• March 3 – Jacques Duchesne, French general (d. 1918)
• March 7 – Henry Draper, American physician and astronomer (d. 1882)
• March 18 – Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States (d. 1908)
• March 22 – Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (d. 1899)
• March 23 – Charles Wyndham, English actor and theatrical manager (d. 1919)
• March 27 – Kate Fox, American medium (d. 1892)
• April 5 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (d. 1909)
• April 17 – John Pierpont Morgan, American financier and banker (d. 1913)
• April 21 – Fredrik Bajer, Danish politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1922)
• April 29 – Georges Ernest Boulanger, French general and politician (d. 1891)
• May 5 – Anna Maria Mozzoni, Italian feminist and founder of the Italian women's movement (d. 1920)
• May 7 – Karl Mauch, German explorer (d. 1875)
• May 9 – Adam Opel, German engineer and industrialist (d. 1895)
• May 27 – Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (k. 1876)
• May 28
  • George Ashlin, Irish architect (d. 1921)
  • Tony Pastor, American impresario and theater owner (d. 1908)
• June 20 – David Josiah Brewer, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1910)
• June 22
  • Paul Bachmann, German mathematician (d. 1920)
  • Paul Morphy, American chess player (d. 1884)
  • Touch the Clouds, Native American Miniconjou chief 7 feet tall (d. 1905)

July–December

• July 4 – Carolus-Duran, French painter (d. 1917)
• July 18 – Vasil Levski, Bulgarian revolutionary (d. 1873)
• July 18 – Signe Hebbe, Swedish opera soprano (d. 1925)
• July 21 – Johanna Hedén, Swedish midwife and surgeon (d. 1912)
• August 1 (bapt.) – Mary Harris Jones ("Mother Jones"), Irish-American labor leader (d. 1930)
• August 5 – Anna Filosofova, Russian women's rights activist (d. 1912)
• August 24 – Théodore Dubois, French composer (d. 1924)
• September 2 – James H. Wilson, Union Army major general in the American Civil War (d. 1925)
• September 14 – Nikolai Bugaev, Russian mathematician (d.1903)
• September 12 – Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse (d. 1892)
• September 16 – King Pedro V of Portugal (d. 1861)
• September 18 – Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, Portuguese Archbishop of Goa (d. 1880)
• October 3 – Nicolás Avellaneda, Argentine president (d. 1885)
• October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army general in the American Civil War and reformer (k. 1863)
• October 26 – Carl Koldewey, German explorer famous for the German North Polar Expedition (d. 1908)
• October 28 – Tokugawa Yoshinobu, Japanese shogun, 15th and last of the Tokugawa shogunate (d. 1913)
• October 29 – Harriet Powers, African-American folk artist (d. 1910)
• November 2 – Émile Bayard, French artist and illustrator (d. 1891)
• November 5 – Arnold Janssen, German-born Catholic priest and saint (d. 1909)
• November 14 – Lucas Barrett, English naturalist (d. 1862)
• November 20 – Lewis Waterman, American inventor and businessman (d.1901)
• November 23 – Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1923)
• November 24 – Empress Elisabeth of Austria, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I (d. 1898)
• December 9 – Kabayama Sukenori, Japanese samurai, general and statesman (d. 1922)
• December 15 – George B. Post, American architect (d. 1913)
• December 26
  • William Boyd Dawkins, British geologist (d. 1929)
  • George Dewey, U.S. admiral (d. 1917)

Deaths

January–June

Alexander Pushkin

• January 20 – John Soane, British architect (b. 1753)
• January 23 – John Field, Irish composer (b. 1782)
• February 7 – Gustav IV Adolf, ex-King of Sweden (b. 1778)
• February 10 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian author (b. 1799)
• February 19 – Georg Büchner, German playwright (b. 1813)
• March 31 – John Constable, English painter (b. 1776)
• April 28 – Joseph Souham, French general (b. 1760)
• May 20 – Prince Frederick of Hesse-Kassel (b. 1747)
• June 14 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian writer (b. 1798)
• June 20 – King William IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1765)

July–December

• July 18 – Vincenzo Borg, Maltese merchant and rebel leader (b. 1777)
• September 7 – Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken, Russian military leader (b. 1752)
• September 21 – Pieter Vreede, Dutch politician (b. 1750)
• September 28 – Akbar II, last Mughal emperor of India (b. 1760)
• October 1 – Robert Clark, American politician (b. 1777)
• October 10 – Charles Fourier, philosopher (b. 1772)
• October 12 – Charles-Marie Denys de Damrémont, French governor-general of French Algeria, killed during the siege of Constantine (b. 1783)
• November 7 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, American abolitionist (b. 1809)
• undated - Mary Dixon Kies, the first recipient of a U.S. patent (b. 1752)

References

Further reading

• "Chronicle of Events from August 1836 to September 1837". American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge. Boston: Charles Bowen. 1838.