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1839

{{Year dab|1839}}

{{Year nav|1839}}

File:Destruction of opium in 1839.jpg: China's Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu begins month-long program of destroying opium seized from British traders, triggering the First Opium War]]

{{C19 year in topic}}

{{Year article header|1839}}

Events

= January–March =

= April–June =

  • April 9 – The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation, alongside the Great Western Railway line in England, from London Paddington station to West Drayton.
  • April 19 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom, with its independence and neutrality guaranteed by the great powers of Europe. Half of the Limburg province of Belgium is added to the Netherlands, giving rise to a Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg (the latter being joined (from September 5) to the German Confederation).
  • April 24 – Boston University is established as the Newbury Biblical Institute in Vermont.
  • May 7–11 – The Bedchamber Crisis in the United Kingdom: Following the announcement by Prime Minister Lord Melbourne that he intends to resign, Mark Hovell, The Chartist Movement (Manchester University Press, 1966) p143. Robert Peel asks (for political reasons) that Queen Victoria dismiss some of her personal attendants, Ladies of the Bedchamber, as a condition for his forming a government. Victoria refuses to accept the condition and Melbourne is persuaded to stay on as Prime Minister.{{cite hansard |title = Ministerial Explanations |house = House of Commons |date = 13 May 1839 |url = https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1839/may/13/ministerial-explanations#column_984 |column_start = 984 |column_end = 985 |speaker = Robert Peel }}
  • 13 May – First Rebecca Riots targeted against turnpikes in Wales, at Efailwen in Carmarthenshire.{{cite book |last=Davies |first=John |author2=Jenkins, Nigel |title=The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales |year=2008 |publisher=University of Wales Press |location=Cardiff|page=730 |isbn=978-0-7083-1953-6}}
  • May 12 – Socialist activist Louis Auguste Blanqui and the Société des Saisons begin an uprising against the government of France. The insurrection is suppressed, but not before 50 people are killed and 190 wounded. Blanqui is imprisoned until 1848. Jill Harsin, Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) p124.
  • May 22 – Former British statesman Lord Durham, as President of the New Zealand Company, formally asks the British government for permission to colonize New Zealand, and to establish a colonial government under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.T. Lindsay Buick, The French at Akaroa: An Adventure in Colonization (Cambridge University Press, 1928)(reprinted 2011) p294
  • May 23 – Turkish troops cross the Euphrates River and invade Syria, but are defeated in battle in June.Charles Alan Fyffe, A History of Modern Europe, Volume 2 (Cassell & Company, 1886) p453
  • June 3 – Destruction of opium at Humen begins, casus belli for Britain to open the 3-year First Opium War against Qing dynasty China. A rapid rise in the sale of opium in China to over 40,000 chests (~{{convert|56,000|kg}} per annum){{cite book|last=Greenberg|first=Michael|author-link=Michael Greenberg (economist)|title=British Trade and the Opening of China 1800-1841|year=1969|format=preview|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QNo8AAAAIAAJ|page=113|quote=expansion in imports from 16,550 chests in the season 1831-2 to over 30,000 in 1835-6, and 40,000 in 1838-9}}{{cite book|title=The Cambridge Illustrated History of China|editor1-last=Ebrey|editor1-first=Patricia Buckley|editor1-link=Patricia Buckley Ebrey|year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-19620-8|page=236|edition=2nd|chapter=Chapter 9: Manchus and Imperialism: The Qing Dynasty 1644–1900}} has caused the Chinese government to dispatch scholar-official Lin Zexu to Guangzhou to deal with the growing problem of opium addiction.
  • June 22 – Louis Daguerre receives a patent for his camera (commercially available by September at the price of 400 francs).
  • June 27 – The emperor of the Sikh Empire, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, dies at 58.

= July–September =

File:Storming Column entering Fortress at Ghuznee.jpg storming of the fortress during the Battle of Ghazni.]]

= October–December =

= Date unknown =

Births

= January–June =

File:Paul cezanne 1861.jpg {{dubious|date=July 2021}}]]

File:Marianne Hainisch.jpg]]

File:Josiah Willard Gibbs -from MMS-.jpg]]

File:FredericTilton2.jpg]]

= July–December =

File:Portrait of J. D. Rockefeller.jpg]]

File:Alfred_Sisley_photo_full.jpg]]

= Date unknown =

Deaths

= January–June =

File:JohnGraham-TheRajahofMadras-c1828.jpg]]

= July–December =

File:Friedrich Mohs.jpg]]

= Date unknown =

References

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