Explore 216 historical events from 1840–1849.
Samuel Finley Breese Morse was an American inventor and painter. After establishing his reputation as a portrait painter, Morse, in his middle age, contributed to the invention of …
Samuel Morse receives the patent for the telegraph
Odilon Redon was a French Symbolist draftsman, printmaker, and painter.
Odilon Redon, French painter and illustrator (died 1916)
Edward Whymper FRSE was an English mountaineer, explorer, illustrator, and author best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Four members of his climbing party were…
Edward Whymper, English-French mountaineer, explorer, author, and illustrator (died 1911)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote s…
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer and educator (died 1893)
Alejandro Gorostiaga Orrego, was a Chilean military officer born in La Serena. He joined the Escuela Militar de Chile in 1857 until his retirement in 1878. Alejandro Gorostiaga was…
Alejandro Gorostiaga, Chilean colonel (died 1912)
Louis Marie Alphonse Daudet was a French novelist. He was the husband of Julia Daudet and father of Edmée, Léon and Lucien Daudet.
Alphonse Daudet, French author, poet, and playwright (died 1897)
George Throssell was the second Premier of Western Australia. He served for just three months, from 15 February to 27 May 1901, during a period of great instability in Western Aust…
George Throssell, Irish-Australian politician, 2nd Premier of Western Australia (died 1910)
Thomas Hardy was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, includin…
Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet (died 1928)
Émile Munier was a French academic artist and student of William-Adolphe Bouguereau.
Émile Munier, French artist (died 1895)
Charlotte of Belgium, known by the Spanish version of her name, Carlota, was by birth a princess of Belgium and member of the House of Wettin in the branch of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha…
Carlota of Mexico (died 1927)
Theodor Esbern Philipsen was a Danish painter of Jewish ancestry, known for landscapes and animal portraits. He also did small figures in wax and clay.
Theodor Philipsen, Danish painter (died 1920)
Augusta Lundin was a Swedish fashion designer. She is considered to be the first international Swedish haute couture fashion designer as well as the first well known fashion design…
Augusta Lundin, the first international Swedish fashion designer (died 1919)
William Frederick Nast (1840–1893) was an American diplomat and entrepreneur. He was the third president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.
William F
Ernst Otto Schlick was a German naval engineer. He tried to solve the problem of rolling of ships at sea by installing large gyroscopes. The gyroscopic "stabilizers" gave disappoin…
Ernst Otto Schlick, German engineer and author (died 1913)
Georg Karl Maria von Seidlitz was a German doctor and entomologist. He was a zoology teacher in Dorpat (1868–77), then in Königsberg, (1877–88), where he became a fishery expert. H…
Georg Karl Maria Seidlitz, German entomologist and academic (died 1917)
Hannah Webster Foster was an American novelist.
Hannah Webster Foster, American journalist and author (born 1758)
Jean-Jacques Lartigue, S.S., was a Canadian Sulpician, who served as the first Catholic Bishop of Montreal.
Jean-Jacques Lartigue, Canadian bishop (born 1777)
Baron Siméon Denis Poisson was a French mathematician and physicist who worked on statistics, complex analysis, partial differential equations, the calculus of variations, analytic…
Siméon Denis Poisson, French mathematician and physicist (born 1781)
Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith was a British naval officer and politician. Serving in the American War of Independence and French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, he rose to th…
Sidney Smith, English admiral and politician (born 1764)
Niccolò Paganini was an Italian violinist and composer. He was the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time, and left his mark as one of the pillars of modern violin technique. …
Niccolò Paganini, Italian violinist and composer (born 1782)
Frederick William III was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, wh…
Frederick William III of Prussia (born 1770)
Pierre Claude François Daunou was a French statesman of the French Revolution and Empire. An author and historian, he served as the nation's archivist under both the Empire and the…
Pierre Claude François Daunou, French historian and politician (born 1761)
Francisco José de Paula Santander y Omaña was a Neogranadine military and political leader who served as Vice-President of Gran Colombia between 1819 and 1826, and was later electe…
Francisco de Paula Santander, Colombian general and politician, 4th President of the Republic of the New Granada (born 1
Caspar David Friedrich was a German Romantic landscape painter], generally considered the most important German artist of his generation, whose often symbolic, and anti-classical w…
Caspar David Friedrich, German painter and educator (born 1774)