[Edit]

top

January 1

France issues Ceres, France's first postage stamp.

In Milan, anti-Austrian activists organize a smoking boycott in protest of the Austrian monopoly on tobacco. Protests erupts into brief riots.

January 12 - Uprising against Austrian troops in Palermo, Sicily

January 21 - General elections in the Papal States.

January 23 - Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her MD by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman doctor.

January 31 - Corn Laws abolished in the United Kingdom.

February 8 - New Roman Republic established.

February 14 - In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.

February 28 - Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS ''California'' in San Francisco Bay. The California left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California after the 4 month 21 day journey.

March 3

Minnesota becomes a United States territory.

The United States Department of the Interior is established.

The U.S. Congress passes the Gold Coinage Act allowing the minting of gold coins.

March 4 - Zachary Taylor refuses to be sworn in office on a Sabbath (Sunday). Consequently the office of President of the United States of America is vacant for a single day. Urban legend instead holds that David Rice Atchison, President pro tempore of the United States Senate was President de jure for a single day.

March 5 - Zachary Taylor becomes the 12th President of the United States of America.

March 28 - 4 Christians are ordered burnt alive in Antananarivo Madagascar by Queen Ranavalona I and 14 others are executed.

March 29 - The United Kingdom annexes the Punjab

April 1 - After ten days, the insurrection in Brescia is ended by Austrian troops.

April 2 - The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states end and fail.

April 14 – Hungary declares independence from Austria

April 21 - Irish Potato Famine: 96 inmates of the overcrowded Ballinrobe Union Workhouse die over the course of the preceding week from illness and other famine-related conditions, a record high.

April 25 - The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots.

April 27 - Giuseppe Garibaldi enters in Rome to defend it from the French troops of General Oudinot.

May 3 - The May Uprising in Dresden begins - the last of the German revolutions of 1848.

May 3 - Break in the Mississippi River levee at Sauvé's Crevasse which will flood much of New Orleans, Louisiana

May 15 - Troops of the Two Sicilies take Palermo and crush the republican government of Sicily

May 17 - The St. Louis Fire started when a steamboat caught fire and nearly burned down the entire city.

June 5 - Denmark becomes constitutional monarchy

June 6 - The city of Fort Worth, Texas is founded, at that time known as "Camp Worth". Starting off humbly, the city would one day be a major cattle-herding center, and a major center of commerce in the South.

July 3 - French troops occupy Rome. Roman Republic surrenders.

August 8 – Austria crushes the Hungarian rebellion with Russian aid.

August 24 - Venice surrenders to Austrian troops after a 4-month siege

September 1 - The first segment of the Pennsylvania Railroad, from Lewiston, Pennsylvania to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, opens for service.

October 6 - The execution of the 13 Martyrs of Arad after the Hungarian War of Independence.

November - Austin College received charter in Huntsville

November 16 - A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group, but his execution is canceled at the last minute

top

Irish Potato Famine (1845-1849)

First war of Schleswig (1848-1850)

top

January 18 - Edmund Barton, first Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1920)

January 18 - Aleksander Świętochowski - Polish writer of Positivist period (d. 1938)

January 22 - August Strindberg, Swedish author, playwright, and painter (d. 1912)

February 18 - Alexander Kielland, Norwegian author (d. 1906)

February 22 - Nikolay Yakovlevich Sonin, Russian mathematician (d. 1915)

March 2 - Robert Means Thompson, American naval officer (d. 1930)

March 7 - Luther Burbank, American biologist and botanist (d. 1926)

March 19 - Alfred von Tirpitz, German soldier (d. 1930)

April 6 - John William Waterhouse, Italian-born artist (d. 1917)

May 3 - Bernhard von Bülow, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1929)

June 9 - Michael Peter Ancher, Danish painter (d. 1927)

July 22 - Emma Lazarus, American Poet. (d. 1887)

July 29 - Max Nordau, Austrian author, philosopher, and Zionist leader (d. 1923)

August 28 - Benjamin Godard, French composer (d. 1895)

September 3 - Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (d. 1909)

September 14 - Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Russian researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1936)

November 29 - John Ambrose Fleming, English electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1945)

December 4 - Crazy Horse, Chief of the Oglala Sioux (d. 1877)

December 6 - August von Mackensen, German field marshal (d. 1945)

December 12 - William Kissam Vanderbilt, American railway magnate (d. 1920)

top

February 8 - France Prešeren, Slovenian poet (b. 1800)

March 14 - King Willem II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)

May 22 - Maria Edgeworth, Irish novelist (b. 1767)

May 25 - Benjamin d'Urban, British general and colonial administrator (b. 1777)

May 28 - Anne Brontë, English author (b. 1820)

June 15 - James Knox Polk, 11th President of the United States (b. 1795)

June 17 - Marta Riccardo, Spanish novelist (b. 1795)

July 12 - Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (b. 1768)

July 28 - King Charles Albert of Sardinia (b. 1798)

September 25 - Johann Strauss, Senior, Austrian composer (b. 1804)

October 7 - Edgar Allan Poe, American writer (b. 1809)

October 17 - Frédéric Chopin, Polish-French musician and composer (b. 1810)

October 22 - William Miller, American Baptist preacher (b. 1782)

December 2 - Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen of William IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1792)