1807

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Year 1807 (MDCCCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

• February – Napoleon attacks Russia.
• February 3 – Napoleonic Wars and Anglo-Spanish War – Battle of Montevideo: The British Army captures Montevideo from the Spanish Empire as part of the British invasions of the Río de la Plata.
• February 7 – Battle of Eylau: Napoléon's French Empire begins fighting against Russian and Prussian forces of the Fourth Coalition.
• February 8 – Battle of Eylau: Napoleon fights a hard, but inconclusive battle against the Russians under Bennigsen.
• February 10 – The United States Coast Survey is established; work begins on August 3, 1816.
• February 17 – Henry Christopher is elected first President of the State of Haiti, ruling the northern part of the country.
• February 19 – In Alabama, former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr is tried for conspiracy but acquitted.
• March 2 – The U.S. Congress passes an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States ... from any foreign kingdom, place, or country" (to take effect 1 January 1808).
• March 25
  • The Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire. (Slavery is abolished in 1833).
  • The Swansea and Mumbles Railway in South Wales, at this time known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger carrying railway in the world.
• March 29 – H. W. Olbers discovers the asteroid Vesta.

April–June

• April 27 – French forces capture Danzig after a 6-week siege.
• May 22 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr for treason.
• May 29 – Ottoman Emperor Selim III (1789–1807) is deposed in favour of his nephew Mustafa IV,
• June 6 – An earthquake strikes Lisbon, Portugal.
• June 9 – The Duke of Portland wins the United Kingdom general election.
• June 14 – Battle of Friedland: Napoleon decisively defeats Bennigsen's Russian army.
• June 22 – Chesapeake-Leopard Affair: British Royal Navy warship HMS Leopard attacks and boards the United States Navy frigate USS Chesapeake off Norfolk, Virginia, seeking deserters.

July–September

• July 5 – A disastrous British attack is mounted against Buenos Aires during the second failed invasion of the Río de la Plata.
• July 7–July 9 – The Peace of Tilsit is signed between France, Prussia and Russia. Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander I ally together against the British. The Prussians are forced to cede more than half their territory, which is formed into the Duchy of Warsaw in their former Polish lands and the Kingdom of Westphalia in western Germany.
• July 13 – With the death of Henry Benedict Stuart, the last Stuart claimant to the throne of the United Kingdom, the movement of Jacobitism comes to an effective end.
• July 20 – Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Napoleon Bonaparte for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powers a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.
• August 17 – The North River Steamboat, Robert Fulton's first American steamboat, leaves New York City for Albany on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
• September 1 – Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr is acquitted of treason. He had been accused of plotting to annex parts of Louisiana and Mexico to become part of an independent republic.
• September 2–7 – Battle of Copenhagen: The British Royal Navy bombards Copenhagen with fire bombs and phosphorus rockets to prevent the Dano-Norwegian navy from surrendering to Napoleon; 30% of the city is destroyed and 2,000 citizens are killed.
• September 4 – Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, arrives in Guangzhou.

October–December

• October 9 – Serfdom is abolished in Prussia by law.
• October 13 – Geological Society of London founded.
• November 24 – Battle of Abrantes: The French under Jean-Andoche Junot take the town.
• November 29 – The Portuguese Queen Maria I and the Court embark at Lisbon bound for Brazil. Rio de Janeiro becomes the Portuguese capital.
• December 22 – The U.S. Congress passes the Embargo Act.

Imperial Russian Navy after the Battle of Athos.

Date unknown

• The municipality of Mogpog in Marinduque, Philippines, is founded.
• Napoleon purchases the Borghese art collection, including the Antinous Mondragone, and brings it to Paris.
• The world's oldest international football stadium, the Racecourse Ground, opens in Wrexham, Wales, although it will not host football games until 1872.

Births

January–June

• January 13 – Napoleon Bonaparte Buford, American general and railroad executive (d. 1883)
• January 19 – Robert E. Lee, American Confederate general (d. 1870)
• February 27 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet (d. 1882)
• March 1 – Wilford Woodruff, American religious leader (d. 1898)
• March 14 – Josephine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of Sweden and Norway (d. 1876)
• April 8 – Ann Pouder, supercentenarian (d. 1917)
• April 20 – John Milton, Governor of Florida (d. 1865)
• May 28 – Louis Agassiz, French zoologist and geologist (d. 1873)
• June 6 – Adrien François Servais, Belgian musician (d. 1866)

July–December

• July 4 – Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian patriot (d. 1882)
• August 11 – David Rice Atchison, American politician (d. 1886)
• September 16 – John Lenthall, American naval architect and shipbuilder (d. 1882)
• October 8 – Harriet Taylor, English philosophical writer (d. 1858)
• December 17 – John Greenleaf Whittier, Quaker poet and abolitionist (d. 1892)

Deaths

January–June

• February 5 – Pasquale Paoli, Corsican patriot and military leader (b. 1725)
• April 10 – Anna Amalia, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, regent of Weimar and Eisenach (b. 1739)
• May 10 – Comte de Rochambeau, French soldier (b. 1725)
• May 13 – Eliphalet Dyer, American statesman and judge (b. 1721)
• May 17 – John Gunby, Maryland soldier in the American Revolutionary War (b. 1745)
• May 18 – John Douglas, Scottish Anglican bishop and man of letters (b. 1721)
• June 9 – Andrew Sterett, American naval officer (b. 1778)

July–December

• October 22 – Jean-François Houbigant, French perfumer (b. 1752)
• November 2 – Baron de Breteuil, prime minister of King Louis XVI of France (b. 1730)
• November 5 – Angelica Kauffman, Swiss painter (b. 1741)
• November 23 – Jean-François Rewbell, French politician (b. 1747)
• December 19 – Friedrich Melchior, baron von Grimm, German writer (b. 1723)
• December 21 – John Newton, English cleric and hymnist (b. 1725)

References