1838

Year 1838 (MDCCCXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1838

January - June

* January 10 - A fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London.
* April 8 - Regular Atlantic steamship service begins with the "SS Great Western".
* April 30 - Nicaragua declares independence from the Central American Federation (See Nicaragua's early history).
* May - The People's Charter is drawn up in the United Kingdom, demanding universal suffrage.
* May - Lord Durham and his entourage arrive in Upper Canada to investigate the cause of the 1837 rebellion in that province. This leads to Durham submitting the Durham Report to Britain.
* May 26 - USA: The Cherokee Tribe is forcibly relocated in the Trail of Tears.
* September 7 - Grace Darling and her father rescue 13 survivors from the SS Forfarshire.
* November 3 - "The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce" is founded (later renamed The Times of India in 1861).
* November 5 - The Central American Civil War begins with Honduras' separation from the Central American Federation.
* December - Pastry War: Mexico is invaded by French forces.

Undated

* Yucatan declares independence from Mexico.
* Proteins are discovered by Jöns Jakob Berzelius.
* Friedrich Bessel makes the first accurate measurement of distance to a star.
* Biblical criticism: Christian Hermann Weisse proposes the two-source hypothesis.
* Duke University is established in North Carolina.
* 40,000 chests of opium are sold in China.

Ongoing

*War of the Confederation (1836-39)
*War of Tatters (1835-45)

Births

January - June

* January 4 - General Tom Thumb, American circus performer and entertainer (d. 1883)
* January 6 - Max Bruch, German composer (d. 1920)
* January 16 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (d. 1917)
* February 6 - Henry Irving, English actor (d. 1905)
* February 10 - Gustav Oelwein, founder of Oelwein, Iowa (d. 1913)
* February 16 - Henry Brooks Adams, American historian (d. 1918)
* February 18 - Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (d. 1916)
* March 3 - George William Hill, American astronomer (d. 1914)
* March 11 - Ōkuma Shigenobu, Japanese politician (d. 1922)
* April 3 - John Willis Menard, African-American politician (d. 1893)
* April 8 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)
* April 12 - John Shaw Billings, M.D., American military and medical leader (d. 1913)
* April 16 - Martha McClellan Brown, American temperance movement leader (d. 1916)
*April 28 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser, Dutch jurist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1913)
* April 21 - John Muir, American ecologist (d. 1914)
* May 10 - John Wilkes Booth, American actor and assassin (d. 1865)
* May 20 - Jules Méline, French statesman (d. 1925)
* June 14 - Yamagata Aritomo, Japanese Prime Minister (d. 1922).

July - December

* September 2 - Liliuokalani of Hawai'i, last Queen of Hawaii (d. 1917)
* October 6 - Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Italian patriot and writer (d. 1910)
* October 25 - Georges Bizet, French composer (d. 1875)
* October 31 - King Luis I of Portugal (d. 1889)
* November 7 - Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, French writer (d. 1889)
* November 13 - Joseph Fielding Smith, 10th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1918)
* December 3 - Cleveland Abbe, American meteorologist (d. 1916)
* December 19 - Khedrup Gyatso, 11th Dalai Lama (d. 1856)
* December 20 - Edwin Abbott Abbott, theologian and author (d. 1926)
* December 30 - Émile Loubet, 7th President of France (d. 1929)
* Jamal-al-Din Afghani, teacher and writer (d. 1897)

Deaths

January - June

* January 3 - Prince Maximilian of Saxony (b. 1759)
* January 5 - Anthony Van Egmond, rebel leader in Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 {died in jail}
* February 21 - Silvestre de Sacy, linguist (b. 1758)
* March 13 - Poul Martin Møller, philosopher (b. 1794)
* April 6 - José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, Brazilian statesman and naturalist (b. 1763)
* April 9 - Piet Uys, Voortrekker leader (in battle) (b. 1797)
* May - Francisco Gómez, president of El Salvador (b. 1796)
* May 17 - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French diplomat (b. 1754)
* May 19 - Richard Colt Hoare, English archaeologist (b. 1758)
* June 14 - Maximilian von Montgelas, Bavarian statesman (b. 1759)

July - December

* July 19 - Christmas Evans, preacher (b. 1766)
* August 17 - Lorenzo Da Ponte, librettist for Mozart (b. 1749)
* August 21 - Adelbert von Chamisso, German writer (b. 1781)
* September 1 - William Clark, American explorer (b. 1770)
* October 1 - Charles Tennant, Scottish chemist and industrialist (b. 1768)
* November 21 - Georges Mouton, count of Lobau, Marshal of France (b. 1770)