1840

Year 1840 (MDCCCXL) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1840

January - June

• January 3 - One of the predecessor papers of the Herald Sun of Melbourne, Australia, The Port Phillip Herald, is founded.
• January 10 - Uniform penny postage introduced in the UK.
• January 13 - The steamship Lexington burns and sinks in icy waters, four miles off the coast of Long Island: 139 died, only 4 survived.
• January 19 - Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
• January 20 - Dumont D'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica. The first public school is established in Rockingham County
• January 22 - British colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington.
• February - Rhodes blood libel against the Jews of Rhodes.
• February 5 - The murder of a Capuchin friar and his Greek servant leads to the Damascus affair, a highly publicized case of blood libel against the Jews of Damascus.
• February 6 - Treaty of Waitangi, document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed.
• February 10 - Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.
• February 11 - Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.
• March 1 - William Hobson, first Governor of New Zealand, suffers a stroke.
• March 1 - Adolphe Thiers becomes prime minister of France.
• April 15 - King's College Hospital opens in Portugal Street, London.
• May 1 - Britain issues the Penny Black, world's first postage stamp.
• May 6 - The Penny Black, world's first postage stamp becomes valid for the pre-payment of postage.
• May 7 - The Great Natchez Tornado: A massive tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi during the early afternoon hours. Before it was over, 317 people had lost their lives and 109 were injured. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.

July - December

• July 4 - The Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddlewheel steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax , Nova Scotia on the first transatlantic passenger cruise.
• July 15 - Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia sign a London Treaty with the Sublime Porte, ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
• July 23 - The Province of Canada is created by the Act of Union.
• August 10 - Fortsas hoax - number of book collectors gather to Binche, Belgium to attend a non-existent book auction of the late "Count of Fortsas"
• September 10 - Ottoman and British troops bombard Beirut and land troops on the coast to pressure Egyptian Muhammad Ali to retreat from the country.
• September 16 - Joseph Strutt handed over the deeds and papers concerning the Arboretum, which was to become England's first public park.
• September 30 - The frigate Belle-Poule arrives in Cherbourg, bringing back the remains of Napoléon from Saint Helena to France. He is buried in the Invalides.
• October 7 - Willem II becomes King of the Netherlands.
• November 7 - William Henry Harrison defeats Martin Van Buren in the U.S. presidential election.
• December 7 - David Livingstone leaves Britain for Africa.
• December 7 - Stockport viaduct (located in Greater Manchester, England) was completed in this year. It is one of the largest brick structures in Europe.

Undated

• Louis Agassiz publishes his work in two volumes entitled Etudes sur les glaciers ("Study on Glaciers"), the first major work to scientifically propose that the Earth has been subject to a past ice age.
• Pedro II is declared "of age" prematurely and begins to reassert central control in Brazil.
• Mount Allison University is founded in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.
• Washingtonian Temperance Society is founded.
• First English translation of Goethe's Theory of Colours by Charles Eastlake published.

Ongoing events

• First Opium War (1839-1842)

Births

January - June

• January 3 - Father Damien, Belgian missionary priest (d. 1888)
• January 22 - Ernest Roland Wilberforce, English bishop (d. 1907)
• January 23 - Ernst Abbe, German physicist (d. 1905)
• January 26 - John Clayton Adams, British landscape artist (d. 1906)
• February 4 - Hiram Stevens Maxim, American firearms inventor (d. 1916)
• February 5 - John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish inventor (d. 1921)
• February 21 - Murad V, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1904)
• February 22 - August Bebel, German politician (d. 1913)
• February 23 - Carl Menger, Austrian economist (d. 1921)
• February 29 - John Philip Holland, Irish inventor (d. 1914)
• March 28 - Emin Pasha, German doctor and African administrator (d. 1892)
• April 2 - Emile Zola, French writer (d. 1902)
• April 22 - Odilon Redon, French painter (d. 1916)
• April 27 - Edward Whymper, English mountaineer (d. 1911)
• May 7 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (d. 1893)
• May 13 - Alphonse Daudet, French writer (d. 1897)
• June 2 - Thomas Hardy, English writer (d. 1928)

July - December

• August 4 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, German sexologist (d. 1902)
• October 9 - Simeon Solomon, British artist (d. 1905)
• October 16 - Kuroda Kiyotaka, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1900)
• November 12 - Auguste Rodin, French sculptor (d. 1917)
• November 14 - Claude Monet, French painter (d. 1926)
• November 21 - Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom and Empress of Germany (d. 1901)
• November 29 - Rhoda Broughton, Welsh writer (d. 1920)

Deaths

January - June

• January 6 - Fanny Burney, English novelist (b. 1752)
• January 22 - Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German anthropologist (b. 1752)
• February 13 - Nicolas Joseph Maison, French marshal and Minister of War (b. 1770)
• April 25 - Siméon-Denis Poisson, French mathematician, geometer, and physicist (b. 1781)
• May 1 - Joseph Williamson, philanthropist and builder of Williamson's tunnels (b. 1769)
• May 6 - Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, Russian aristocrat and priest (b. 1770)
• May 7 - Caspar David Friedrich, German artist (b. 1774)
• May 11 - Thomas Cooper, American political philosopher (b. 1759)
• May 26 - Sidney Smith, British admiral (b. 1764)
• May 27 - Nicolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (b. 1782)
• June 7 - King Frederick William III of Prussia (b. 1770)

July - December

• July 7 - Nikolai Stankevich, philosopher and poet (b. 1813)
• August 25 - Karl Leberecht Immermann, novelist and dramatist (b. 1796)
• September 11 - Jean-Gabriel Perboyre, Catholic missionary and martyr in China
• September 18 - Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, polymath (b. 1783)
• September 20 - José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, first leader of independent Paraguay (b. 1766)
• November 2 - Józef Kossakowski (colonel), Polish-Lithuanian statesman (b. 1771)af:1840

am:1840 እ.ኤ.አ. ar:1840 an:1840 ast:1840 az:1840 bn:১৮৪০ map-bms:1840 be:1840 be-x-old:1840 bh:१८४० bs:1840 br:1840 bg:1840 ca:1840 cv:1840 cs:1840 co:1840 cy:1840 da:1840 de:1840 et:1840 el:1840 es:1840 eo:1840 eu:1840 fr:1840 fy:1840 ga:1840 gd:1840 gl:1840 ko:1840년 hy:1840 hi:1840 hr:1840. io:1840 ilo:1840 bpy:মারি ১৮৪০ id:1840 ia:1840 os:1840 is:1840 it:1840 he:1840 jv:1840 ka:1840 csb:1840 sw:1840 ht:1840 (almanak gregoryen) la:1840 lb:1840 lt:1840 lmo:1840 hu:1840 mk:1840 mi:1840 mr:इ.स. १८४० ms:1840 nah:1840 nds:1840 nl:1840 new:ई सं १८४० ja:1840年 nap:1840 no:1840 nn:1840 nrm:1840 nov:1840 oc:1840 uz:1840 pi:१८४० pl:1840 pt:1840 ksh:Joohr 1840 ro:1840 ru:1840 год se:1840 sa:१८४० sq:1840 scn:1840 simple:1840 sk:1840 sl:1840 sr:1840 su:1840 fi:1840 sv:1840 tl:1840 tt:1840 te:1840 th:พ.ศ. 2383 tr:1840 uk:1840 vec:1840 wa:1840 vls:1840 zh-yue:1840年