1842

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Year 1842 (MDCCCXLII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

• January – Michael Alexander takes office as first appointee to the Anglican-German Bishopric in Jerusalem.
• January 6–13 – First Anglo-Afghan War: Massacre of Elphinstone's army (Battle of Gandamak): British East India Company troops destroyed by Afghan forces on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, by Akbar Khan, son of Dost Mohammad Khan.
• January 8 – Delft University of Technology established by William II of the Netherlands as a 'Royal Academy for the education of civilian engineers'.^[1]
• January 23 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross, charting the eastern side of James Ross Island, reaches a Farthest South of 78°09'30"S.^[2]
• February 7 – Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia, defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of Semien.
• March – Commonwealth v. Hunt: the Massachusetts Supreme Court makes strikes and unions legal in the United States.
• March 2 – Gaylad, ridden by Tom Olliver, wins the Grand National at Aintree Racecourse.
• March 5 – Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas, briefly occupy San Antonio, and then head back to the Rio Grande. This is the first such invasion since the Texas Revolution.
• March 9 – Giuseppe Verdi's third opera Nabucco premieres at La Scala in Milan; its success establishes Verdi as one of Italy's foremost operatic composers.
• March 17 – The Relief Society, a philanthropic and educational women's organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is founded.
• March 30 – Anesthesia is used for the first time in an operation; Dr. Crawford Long performs the operation using ether.
• March 31 – Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway line opened up to Werneth in North West England.

April–June

• April 13 – First Anglo-Afghan War: British victory at the Battle of Jellalabad.
• May 8 – Versailles rail accident: A train traveling between Versailles and Paris in France derails due to a broken locomotive axle and catches fire, killing at least 55 passengers in the locked carriages.
• May 11 – Income Tax Act establishes the first peacetime income tax in the United Kingdom; 7 pence in the pound, for incomes over 150 pounds.^[3]
• May 19 – Dorr Rebellion: Militiamen supporting Thomas Wilson Dorr attack the arsenal in Providence, Rhode Island, but are repulsed.
• June 4 – In South Africa, hunter Dick King rides into a British military base in Grahamstown to warn that the Boers have besieged Durban (he had left 11 days earlier). The British army dispatches a relief force.
• June 13 – Queen Victoria becomes the first reigning British monarch to travel by train, on the Great Western Railway between Slough and London Paddington station.^[4]
• June 20 – Anselmo de Andrade, Portuguese economist and politician, is born in Vila Real de Santo António.
• June – James Nasmyth patents the steam hammer in the United Kingdom.^[5]

July–September

• July 8 – A Total Solar eclipse occurred on Asia.
• July 13 – The Tri-Kap fraternity is founded at Dartmouth College. It is the oldest local fraternity in the nation.
• August 4 – The Armed Occupation Act is signed, providing for the armed occupation and settlement of the unsettled part of the Peninsula of East Florida.
• August 9 – The Webster–Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States–Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.
• August 10 – The Mines Act 1842 becomes law, prohibiting underground work for all women and boys under 10 years old in England.
• August 14 – American Indian Wars: United States general William J. Worth declares the Second Seminole War to be over.
• August 29 – The Treaty of Nanking ends the First Opium War and establishes Hong Kong as a British colony until 1997.
• September – The Treaty of Chushul ends the Sino-Sikh War.

October–December

• October 5 – Josef Groll brews the first pilsner beer in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic).
• October 29 – The Iberian Peninsula is struck by a category 2 hurricane.
• November 26 – The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana (United States) is established by Father Edward Sorin of the Roman Catholic Congregation of Holy Cross.
• December 20 – The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, is established.

Date unknown

• Dzogchen Monastery is almost completely destroyed by an earthquake.
• English palaeontologist Richard Owen coins the name Dinosauria, hence the Anglicized dinosaur.^[6]
• Julius von Mayer proposes that work and heat are equivalent.^[7]
• Pentonville Prison is built in London.
• The New Zealand seat of government moves from Russell to Auckland.
• The Sons of Temperance is founded in New York City.
• Founding of:
  • Cumberland University
  • Wesleyan University
  • Hollins University (in Roanoke, Virginia by Charles Cocke)
  • Villanova University (in Villanova, Pennsylvania by the Augustinian order)
  • Indiana University Bloomington
  • Indiana University Maurer School of Law
  • Willamette University in Salem, Oregon

Births

January–June

• January 11 – William James, American psychologist and philosopher (d. 1910)
• January 15 – Mary MacKillop, first Australian saint (d. 1909)
• February 3 – Sidney Lanier, American writer (d. 1881)
• February 4 – Arrigo Boito, Italian poet and composer (d. 1918)
• February 23 – Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann, German philosopher (d. 1906)
• February 25 – Karl May, German writer (d. 1912)
• March 2 – Carl Jacobsen, Danish brewer and patron of the arts after whom the Carlsberg brewery was named (d. 1914)
• March 10 – Mykola Lysenko, Ukrainian composer (d. 1912)
• March 18 – Stéphane Mallarmé, French poet (d. 1898)
• March 26 – Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, French occultist (d. 1909)
• March 30 – John Fiske, American philosopher (d. 1901)
• April 2 – Dominic Savio, Italian adolescent student of John Bosco (d. 1857)
• May 8 – Emil Christian Hansen, Danish fermentation physiologist (d. 1909)
• May 13 – Arthur Sullivan, English composer (d. 1900)
• June 12 – Rikard Nordraak, Norwegian composer (d. 1866)
• June 24 – Ambrose Bierce, American writer and satirist (d. ca. 1914)
• June 25 – Eloy Alfaro Delgado Gabriel, former President of Ecuador (d. 1912)

July–December

• July 4 – Hermann Cohen, German-Jewish philosopher (d. 1918)
• July 30 – Thomas J. O'Brien, American politician and diplomat (d. 1933)
• August 23 – Osborne Reynolds, Irish engineer and physicist (d. 1912)
• September 13 – John H. Bankhead, U.S. Senator (d. 1920)
• September 22 – Abdul Hamid II, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1918)
• October 3 – Frederick Rodgers, American admiral (d. 1917)
• October 14 – Joe Start, baseball player (d. 1927)
• October 28 – Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, American orator (d. 1932)
• November 12
  • Ōyama Iwao, Japanese field marshal and a founder of the Imperial Japanese Army (d. 1916)
  • John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919)
• December 2 – C. W. Alcock, English footballer and football official (d. 1907)
• December 9 – Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist (d. 1921)
• December 12
  • Adolf Bötticher, German art historian (d. 1901)
  • Alfred Parland, Russian architect (d. 1919)

Deaths

January–June

• February 15 – Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, politician and diplomat (b. 1764)
• March 4 – James Forten, abolitionist.
• March 6 – Constanze Mozart, wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (b.1762)
• March 13
  • Samuel Eells, Founder of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity (b. 1810)
  • Henry Shrapnel, English soldier and inventor (b. 1761)
• March 15 – Luigi Cherubini, Italian composer (b. 1760)
• March 23 – Stendhal, French writer (b. 1783)
• May 8 – Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer (b. 1790)
• May 12 – Walenty Wańkowicz, Polish painter (b. 1799)

July–December

• July 13 – Prince Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, French prince (b. 1810)
• July 25 – Dominique Jean Larrey, French surgeon (b. 1766)
• July 28 – Clemens Brentano, German poet (b. 1778)
• September 10 – William Hobson 1st governor general of nz/ treaty of waitangi writer (b.26 September 1792)
• September 15 – Francisco Morazán, President of Central America (b. 1792)
• October 2 – William Ellery Channing, Influential Unitarian theologian and minister (b. 1780)
• October 20 – Grace Darling, heroine (b. 1815)
• October 24 – Bernardo O'Higgins, first Chilean head of state after independence (b.1778)
• December 1 – Philip Spencer, Founder of Chi Psi Fraternity and midshipman aboard the USS Somers
• December 12 – Robert Haldane, theologian (b. 1764)
• December 24 – Adam Gillies, Lord Gillies, Scottish judge (b. 1760)

References