1806

Year 1806 (MDCCCVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1806

January - March

* January 1 - Kingdom of Bavaria established by Napoleon
* January 8 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony.
* January 10 - The Dutch in Cape Town surrender to the British.
* January 19 - The British occupy the Cape of Good Hope.
* January 23 - Grenville succeeds William Pitt the Younger as wartime prime minister of England, upon Pitt's death this day amidst worsening health caused by the stresses of the Napoleonic Wars
* February 6 - The Royal Navy gains a victory off Santo Domingo (see Action of 6 February 1806).
* March 23 - After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their journey home.
* March 29 - Construction is authorized of the "National Road" (the first United States federal highway).

April - June

* April 8 - Stephanie de Beauharnais, adopted daughter of Napoleon Bonaparte, marries Prince Karl Ludwig Friedrich of Baden.
* May 30 - Andrew Jackson kills a man in a duel after the man had accused Jackson's wife of bigamy.
* June 5 - Louis Bonaparte is appointed as King of Holland by his brother, Emperor Napoleon I.

July - September

* July 4 - Battle of Maida: Britain defeats France in Calabria.
* July 10 - Vellore Mutiny (the first mutiny by Indian sepoys against the British East India Company).
* July 15 - Pike expedition: Near St. Louis, Missouri, United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike leads an expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine to explore the west.
* August 6 - Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, abdicates, thus ending the Holy Roman Empire.
* September - Prussia declares war on France, and is joined by Saxony and other minor German states.
* September 23 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition reaches St. Louis, Missouri, ending a successful exploration of the Louisiana Territory and the Pacific Northwest.

October - December

* October 14 - Battle of Jena-Auerstädt: Napoleon defeats the Prussian army of Prince Hohenlohe at Jena while Marshal Davout defeats the main Prussian army under the Duke of Brunswick, who is killed.
* October 19 - Emperor Jacques I of Haiti (Jean-Jacques Dessalines) is assassinated at the Pont-Rouge Haiti.
* October 24 - French forces enter Berlin.
* November - Napoleon declares a Continental Blockade against the British.
* November 15 - Pike expedition: During his second exploratory expedition, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike sees a distant mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains (later named Pikes Peak in his honor).
* November 24 - The last major Prussian field force, under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, surrenders to the French near Lübeck. Frederick William III has by this time fled to Russia.
* November 30 - Napoleon captures Warsaw.
* December 26 - 1806 Battles of Pultusk and Golymin. Battle of Pultusk: Russian forces under General Bennigsen narrowly escape from a direct confrontation with Napoleon, who goes into winter quarters. Battle of Golymin: Russian forces under General Golitsyn fight a successful rearguard action against French forces under Marshall Murat.
* Noah Webster publishes his first American English dictionary.
* Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, removes the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens.
* Annual British iron production reaches 260,000 tons.

Ongoing events

* Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) - Fourth Coalition
* Russo-Turkish War, 1806-1812

Births

* January 27 - Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, Spanish composer (d. 1826)
* February 22 - Józef Kremer, Polish messianic philosopher (d. 1875)
* March 6 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (d. 1861)
* March 12 - Jane Pierce, First Lady of the United States (d. 1863)
* March 21 - Benito Juárez, Mexican statesman and folk hero (d. 1872)
* April 3 - Ivan Kireevsky, Russian literary critic and philosopher (d. 1856)
* April 6 - Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, German scholar (d. 1876)
* April 9 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer (d. 1859)
* May 20 - John Stuart Mill, British philosopher (d. 1873)
* June 12 - John Augustus Roebling, German-born engineer (d. 1869)
* June 28 - Napoleon Coste, French guitarist and composer (d. 1883)
* July 5 - James Dawson, Aboriginal Guardian (d. 1900)
* October 3 - Oliver Cowdery, American religious leader (d. 1850)
* December 11 - Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German geologist (d. 1886)

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Deaths

* January 23 - William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)
* February 2 - Rétif de la Bretonne, French writer (b. 1734)
* February 16 - Franz von Weyrother, Austrian general (b. 1755)
* February 19 - Elizabeth Carter, English writer (b. 1717)
* February 20 - Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-born American military and political leader (b. 1725)
* March 23 - George Pinto English composer (b. 1785)
* April 9 - William V of Orange (b. 1748)
* April 22 - Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, French admiral (stabbed) (b. 1763)
* May 24 - John Campbell, 5th Duke of Argyll, British field marshal (b. 1723)
* June 23 - Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French naturalist (b. 1723)
* July 10 - George Stubbs, English painter (b. 1724)
* July 11 - James Smith, American signer of the United States Declaration of Independence
* August 10 - Michael Haydn, Austrian composer (b. 1737)
* August 22 - Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French painter (b. 1742)
* August 23 - Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist (b. 1736)
* September 9 - William Paterson, signer of the United States Constitution, Governor of New Jersey (b. 1745)
* October 9 - Benjamin Banneker, American astronomer and surveyor (b. 1731)
* October 10 - Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, German prince (killed in battle) (b. 1772)
* October 25 - Henry Knox, Secretary of State under George Washington
* November 23 - Roger Newdigate, British politician (b. 1719)
* December 22 - William Vernon, American merchant (b. 1719)
*"date unknown" - Mungo Park, Scottish explorer (b. 1771)

: "See also ."