1847

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Year 1847 (MDCCCXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

• January 4 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the U.S government.
• January 13 – The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the fighting in the Mexican–American War in California.
• January 16 – John C. Frémont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
• January 17 – St. Anthony Hall is founded at Columbia University, New York City, New York.
• January 30 – Yerba Buena, California is renamed San Francisco.
• February 5 – A rescue effort, called the First Relief, leaves Johnson's Ranch to save the ill-fated Donner Party. These California bound emigrants became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846–47, and some had resorted to cannibalism to survive.
• February 22 – Mexican–American War – The Battle of Buena Vista: 5,000 American troops under General Zachary Taylor use their superiority in artillery to drive off 15,000 Mexican troops under Antonio López de Santa Anna, defeating the Mexicans the next day.
• March 1
  • The state of Michigan formally abolishes the death penalty.
  • Faustin Soulouque is elected the President of Haiti.
• March 4 – The 30th United States Congress is sworn into office.
• March 9 – Mexican–American War: United States forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico near Veracruz.
• March 14 – Verdi's opera Macbeth premieres at Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Italy.
• March 29 – Mexican–American War: United States forces led by General Winfield Scott take Veracruz after a siege.

April–June

• April 5 – The world's first municipally-funded civic public park, Birkenhead Park in Birkenhead on Merseyside in England, is opened.^[1]
• April 15 – The Lawrence School, Sanawar is established.
• April 16 – New Zealand Wars: A minor Māori chief is accidentally shot by a junior British Army officer in Whanganui on New Zealand's North Island, triggering the Wanganui Campaign which continues until July 23.
• April 25 – The brig Exmouth carrying Irish emigrants from Derry bound for Quebec is wrecked off Islay with only three survivors from more than 250 on board.^[2][3]
• May – The Architectural Association School of Architecture is founded in London.
• May 7 – In Philadelphia, the American Medical Association (AMA) is founded.
• May 31 – Second Treaty of Erzurum: the Ottoman Empire cedes Abadan Island to the Persian Empire.
• June – E.H. Booth & Co. Ltd, which becomes the northern England supermarket chain Booths, is founded when 19-year-old tea dealer Edwin Henry Booth opens a shop called "The China House" in Blackpool.
• June 1
  • The first congress of the Communist League is held in London.
• June 26 – Opening of the first passenger railway wholly within modern-day Denmark, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.^[4]

The first U.S. postage stamps have portraits of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Though highly collectable, they are far from being the most valuable.

July–September

• July 1 – The United States issues its first postage stamps (pictured).
• July 24 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley, resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.
• July 26 – Liberia gains independence.
• July 29 – The Cumberland School of Law is founded at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. At the end of this year only 15 law schools exist in the United States.
• August 12 – U.S. troops of General Winfield Scott begin to advance along the aqueduct around Chalco and Xochimilco lakes in Mexico
• August 20 – U.S. troops defeat Mexican troops in the Battle of Churubusco
• August – Yale Corporation establishes the first graduate school in USA as "Department of Philosophy and the Arts" renamed as "Graduate School of Arts and Sciences" in 1892.
• September 14 – U.S. general Winfield Scott enters Mexico City, marking the end of organized Mexican resistance in the Mexican–American War.
• September 30 – The Vegetarian Society was formed in the United Kingdom. It remains the oldest in the world.

October–December

• October 16 – Charlotte Brontë publishes Jane Eyre under the pen name of Currer Bell.
• October 12 – German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske.
• October 31 – Theta Delta Chi is founded at Union College.
• November 3–29 – Sonderbund War, a civil war in Switzerland in which General Guillaume-Henri Dufour's federal army defeats the Sonderbund (an alliance of seven Catholic cantons) with a total of only 86 deaths.
• November 4–8 – James Young Simpson discovers the anesthetic properties of chloroform and first uses it, successfully, on a patient, in an obstetric case in Edinburgh.^[5][6]
• November 10 – The first brew of Carlsberg Beer was finished.
• December 14 – Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë publish Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey, respectively, in a 3-volume set under the pen names of Ellis Bell and Acton Bell.
• December 21 – Abdelkader surrenders and is imprisoned by the French.

Date unknown

• Great Famine continues in Ireland.
• The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the railroad town of Goldsborough, and the Wayne county seat is moved to the new town.
• Radley College, an English public school, is founded near Oxford.

Births

January–June

• January 5 – Oku Yasukata, Japanese field marshal and a leading figure in the early Imperial Japanese Army (d. 1930)
• January 7 – Caspar F. Goodrich, American admiral (d. 1925)
• January 24 – Radomir Putnik, Serbian general (d. 1917)
• January 28 – Dorus Rijkers, Dutch naval hero (d. 1928)
• February 8 – Hugh Price Hughes, Methodist social reformer, first Superintendent of the West London Mission (d. 1902)
• February 11 – Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor (d. 1931)
• February 15 – Robert Fuchs, Austrian composer (d. 1927)
• February 16 – Philipp Scharwenka, Polish-German composer (d. 1917)
• March 3 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born inventor (d. 1922)
• March 4 – Carl Josef Bayer, Austrian chemist (d. 1904)
• March 8 – John Lister, English politician (d. 1933)
• March 14 – Castro Alves, Brazilian poet (d. 1871)
• March 23 – Edmund Gurney, British psychologist (d. 1888)
• March 27 – Otto Wallach, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931)
• April 2 – Flora Annie Steel, English writer (d. 1929)
• April 10 – Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-born journalist and newspaper publisher (d. 1911)
• May 7 – Archibald Primrose, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1929)
• June 8 – Ida Saxton McKinley, U.S. First Lady (d. 1907)
• June 11 – Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist and feminist (d. 1929)

July–December

• July 9 – Wong Fei-hung, Chinese healer and revolutionary (d. 1924)
• July 25 – Paul Langerhans, German pathologist and biologist (d. 1888)
• August 14 – Robert Comtesse, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1922)
• August 21 – Hale Johnson, American temperance movement leader (d. 1902)
• September 3 – Charles Stillman Sperry, American admiral (d. 1911)
• September 5 – Jesse James, American outlaw (d. 1882)
• October 1 – Annie Besant, English women's rights activist, writer and orator (d. 1933)
• October 2 – Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany (d. 1934)
• October 14 – Wilgelm Vitgeft, Russian admiral (d. 1904)
• October 17 – Chiquinha Gonzaga, Brazilian composer (d. 1935)
• November 2 – Georges Sorel, French socialist (d. 1922)
• November 7 – Lotta Crabtree, American stage actress (d. 1924)
• November 8 – Bram Stoker, creator of the Gothic novel Dracula (d. 1912)
• November 26 – Dagmar of Denmark, empress of Tsar Alexander III of Russia (d. 1928)
• November 30 – Afonso Pena, Brazilian president (d. 1909)
• December 7 – George Grossmith, English actor and comic writer (d. 1912)
• December 18 – Augusta Holmès, French composer (d. 1903)
• December 17
  • Émile Faguet, French writer and critic (d. 1916)
  • Michel-Joseph Maunoury, French general during World War I (d. 1923)
• December 28 – Giuseppe Maria Giulietti, Italian explorer (d. 1881)

Date unknown

• Bandō Kakitsu I, Japanese kabuki actor (d. 1893)

Deaths

January–June

• January 19 – Charles Bent, first Governor of New Mexico Territory (assassinated)
• March 9 – Mary Anning, British paleontologist (b. 1799)
• April 21 – Barbara Spooner Wilberforce, wife of British Abolitionist William Wilberforce (b. 1777)
• April 30 – Archduke Charles of Austria, Austrian general (b. 1771)
• May 14 – Fanny Mendelssohn, German composer and pianist (b. 1805)
• May 15 – Daniel O'Connell, Irish politician, who promoted the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 (b. 1775)
• May 29 – Emmanuel de Grouchy, Marquis de Grouchy, French marshal (b. 1766)
• May 31 – Abbasgulu Bakikhanov, Azerbaijani writer (b. 1794)

July–December

• July 16 – Karl Friedrich Burdach, German physiologist (b. 1776)
• September 4 – František Vladislav Hek, Czech patriot (b. 1769)
• September 13 – Nicolas Oudinot, French marshal (b. 1767)
• October 3 – Charles Hatchett, English chemist (b. 1765)
• October 22 – Negus Sahle Selassie of Shewa
• November 4 – Felix Mendelssohn, German composer (b. 1809)
• December 14 – Manuel José Arce, Central American politician (b. 1787)

References

• Historic Letters of 1847