1844

Year 1844 (MDCCCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1844

January - March

* January 15 - The University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana.
[

February 28: USS "Princeton" deaths.]
* February 27 - The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.
* February 28 - A gun on the USS "Princeton" explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing 2 United States Cabinet members and several others.
* March 8 - King Oscar I ascends to the throne of Sweden-Norway.
* March 12 - The Columbus and Xenia Railroad, the first railroad that is planned to be built in Ohio, is chartered.

April - June

*April - The Fleet Prison for debtors in London is closed.
* May 23 - Persian Prophet The Báb announces his revelation to Mullá Husayn, just after sunset, founding the Bábí Faith in Shiraz, Persia. He announces to the world of the coming of "He whom God shall make manifest." He is considered the forerunner of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith.
* May 24 - The first electrical telegram is sent by Samuel F. B. Morse from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad "outer depot" in Baltimore, Maryland, saying "What hath God wrought".
* June 6 - George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London.
* June 15 - Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.
* June 22 - Influential North American fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon is founded at Yale University.
* June 27 - Joseph Smith, Jr., founder and first Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and his brother Hyrum, are killed in Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois.

July - September

* July 3
** The United States signs The Sino-American Treaty of Wanghia with the Chinese Government (the first diplomatic agreement between China and the United States in history).
** The last pair of Great Auks are killed on the island of Eldey.
* August 8 - During a meeting held in Nauvoo, the Quorum of the Twelve, headed by Brigham Young, is chosen as the leading body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
* August 28 - Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx meet in Paris.

October - December

* October 22 - This second date, predicted by the Millerites for the Second Coming of Jesus, leads to the Great Disappointment.
* November 3 - Giuseppe Verdi's "I due Foscari" debuts at Teatro Argentina, Rome.
* November 6 - The Dominican Republic drafts its first Constitution.
* December 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1844: James K. Polk defeats Henry Clay .
* December 21 - The Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England.

Undated

* The first ever international cricket match is played in New York City between Canada and the United States.
* Swedish chemistry professor Gustaf Erik Pasch invents the safety match.
* Carlos Antonio Lopez becomes dictator of Paraguay.
* Abd al-Qadir is defeated at Isly in Morocco; the sultan of Morocco soon repudiates his ally.
* The anonymously written "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" is published and paves the way for the acceptance of Darwin's book "The Origin of Species".
* The Free Church Institution is established by Reverend Alexander Duff in Calcutta, India. This is later merged with the General Assembly's Institution to form the Scottish Church College, one of the pioneering institutions that ushers in the Bengal Renaissance.
* Annual British iron production reaches 3 million tons.

Births

January - June

* January 9 - Julián Gayarre, Spanish opera singer (d. 1890)
* February 17 - Aaron Montgomery Ward, American department store founder (d. 1913)
* February 20
**Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist (d. 1906)
**Joshua Slocum, Canadian seaman and adventurer (d. 1909)
* February 21 - Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer (d. 1937)
* March 10 - Pablo de Sarasate, Spanish violinist (d. 1908)
* March 18 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Russian composer (d. 1908)
* March 25 - Adolf Engler, German botanist (d. 1930)
* March 30 - Paul Verlaine, French poet (d. 1896)
* April 16 - Anatole France, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1924)
* May 17 - Julius Wellhausen, German biblical scholar (d. 1918)
* May 21 - Henri Rousseau, French artist (d. 1910)
* May 22 - Mary Cassatt, American artist (d. 1926)
* May 23 - `Abdu'l-Bahá, Persian Bahá'í religious leader (d. 1921)
* June 3 - Garret A. Hobart, 24th Vice President of the United States (d. 1899)

July - December

* July 11 - King Peter I of Serbia (d. 1921)
* July 22 - William Archibald Spooner, British scholar and Anglican priest (d. 1930)
* July 28 - Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet (d. 1889)
* August 6 - Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. 1900)
* August 17 - Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1913)
* August 22 - George Washington DeLong, American naval officer and explorer (d. 1881)
* August 23 - Hamilton Disston, American land developer (d. 1896)
* August 29 - Edward Carpenter, English Socialist poet (d. 1929)
* August 30 - Emily Ruete, princess of Zanzibar (d. 1924)
* September 20 - William H. Illingworth, American photographer (d. 1893)
* October 5 - Francis William Reitz, 5th State President of the Orange Free State (d. 1934)
* October 15 - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher (d. 1900)
* October 22
**Louis Riel, Canadian leader (d. 1885)
**Sarah Bernhardt, French actress (d. 1923)
* October 23 - Robert Bridges, English poet (d. 1930)
* October 27 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1916)
* November 2 - Mehmed V, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1918)
* November 10 - Henry Eyster Jacobs, American Lutheran theologian (d. 1932)
* November 13 - Andrew Harper, Scottish-Australian biblical scholar and teacher (d. 1936)
* November 23 - Karl Benz, German automotive pioneer (d. 1929)
* December 1 - Alexandra of Denmark, queen of Edward VII of England (d. 1925)
* December 8 - Émile Reynaud, French science teacher and animation pioneer (d. 1918)
*"probable" - Abdor Rahman Khan, Emir of Kabul, Emir of Kandahar, Emir of Afghanistan (d. 1901)

Deaths

January - June

*January 25 - Jean-Baptiste Drouet, Count d'Erlon, French marshal (b. 1765)
*January 27 - Charles Nodier, French writer (b. 1780)
*January 29 - Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (b. 1784)
*February 15 - Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1757)
* February 27 - Nicholas Biddle, president of the Second Bank of the United States (b. 1786)
* March 8 - King Charles XIV John of Sweden, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, French Napoleonic general (b. 1763)
*March 20 - Claude Pierre, comte Pajol, French military leader (b. 1772)
*April 13 - Mamiya Rinzō, Japanese explorer of Sakhalin (b. 1775)
* May 18 - Richard McCarty, American politician (b. 1780)
* June 13 - Thomas Charles Hope, Scottish chemist and discoverer of Strontium (b. 1766)
*June 27
**Hyrum Smith, American religious leader (b. 1800)
**Joseph Smith, Jr., American religious leader (b. 1805)

July - December

* July 11 - Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet and philosopher (b. 1800)
* July 27 - John Dalton, English chemist and physicist (b. 1766)
* July 28 - Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I and King of Naples and Spain (b. 1768)
* July 29 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, Austrian composer (b. 1791)
*November 29 - Princess Sophia of Gloucester (b. 1773)
*December 2 - Eustachy Erazm Sanguszko, Polish military leader (b. 1768)