1804
Events
January–March
- January 1 – Haiti gains independence from France, becoming the first independent Black state in the New World.
- February 4 – The Sokoto Caliphate is founded in West Africa.
- February 14 – The First Serbian uprising begins the Serbian Revolution. By 1817, the Principality of Serbia will have proclaimed self-rule from the Ottoman Empire, the first nation-state in Europe to do so.
- February 15 – New Jersey becomes the last of the northern United States to abolish slavery.
- February 16 – First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate at Tripoli to deny her further use by the captors.
- February 18 – Ohio University is chartered by the Ohio General Assembly.
- February 20 – Hobart is established in its permanent location in Van Diemen's Land as a British penal colony.
- February 21 – Cornishman Richard Trevithick's newly built Penydarren steam locomotive operates on the Merthyr Tramroad, between Penydarren in Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon in South Wales, following several trials since February 13, the world's first locomotive to work on rails.
- February 22–April 22 – 1804 [Haiti massacre], an ethnic cleansing with the goal of eradicating the white population on Haiti.
- March 4–March 5 – The Castle Hill convict rebellion breaks out in New South Wales, led by Irish convicts in Australia.
- March 7 – In Britain:
- * John Wedgwood founds the Royal Horticultural Society.
- * Thomas Charles is instrumental in founding the British and Foreign Bible Society.
- March 10 – Louisiana Purchase, Three Flags Day: In St. Louis, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.
- March 17 – Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell is first performed at Weimar, under the direction of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
- March 21 – The Napoleonic Code is adopted as French civil law.
April–June
July–September
October–December
- October 5 – Action of 5 October 1804: War between Spain and the United Kingdom is triggered by the battle between four British warships and four Spanish frigates, all carrying treasure and merchandise. Captain Graham Moore of Indefatigable informs Spanish Admiral Jose Bustamante of his orders to detain the treasure-laden ships and, "not receiving a satisfactory answer, an Action commenced"; La Mercedes is sunk and the other three ships surrender.
- October 8 – Jean-Jacques Dessalines holds his coronation as Jean-Jacques I, Emperor of Haiti.
- November 3 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed by Quashquame and William Henry Harrison; controversy surrounding the treaty eventually causes the Sauk people to ally with the British during the War of 1812, and is the main cause of the Black Hawk War of 1832.
- November 20 – Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman, starts to rule.
- November 30 – The Democratic-Republican-controlled United States Senate begins an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase, on charges of political bias.
- December 2 – Coronation of Napoleon I: At the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, Napoleon crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years. Witnessing this, Simón Bolívar dedicates himself to liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule.
- December 3 – Thomas Jefferson defeats Charles C. Pinckney in the United States presidential election.
- December 12 – Spain declares war on the United Kingdom.
Date unknown
Births
January–June
- January 1 – James Fannin, Texas revolutionary
- January 9
- * Louis d'Aurelle de Paladines, French general
- * Sydney Dacres, British admiral
- January 10 – Élie Frédéric Forey, French general, Marshal of France
- January 20 – Eugène Sue, French novelist
- January 21 – Eliza Roxcy Snow, American poet
- February 5 – J. L. Runeberg, Finnish national poet
- February 7 – John Deere, American industrialist
- February 13 – Claude-Étienne Minié, French army officer and weapon inventor
- February 29 – Carl von Rokitansky, Czech physician and pathologist
- March 8 – Alvan Clark, American telescope manufacturer
- March 14 – Johann Strauss Senior, Austrian composer
- March 17 – Jim Bridger, American trapper and explorer
- March 20 – Neal Dow, mayor of Portland, Maine and Father of Prohibition
- April 3 – Lucien Baudens, French military surgeon
- April 4 – Andrew Nicholl, Northern Irish painter
- April 18 – Robert Davidson, Scottish locomotive pioneer
- April 24 - Chō Kōran, Japanese poet, painter
- April 26 – Charles Goodyear, American politician
- May 4 – Margaretta Riley, British botanic
- May 13 – Per Gustaf Svinhufvud af Qvalstad, Swedo-Finnish treasurer of Tavastia province, manor host, and paternal grandfather of President P. E. Svinhufvud
- May 16 – Elizabeth Peabody, Transcendental activist, educator
- June 1
- * Mikhail Glinka, Russian composer
- * George Sand, French writer
- June 24 – Willard Richards, American religious leader
July–December
- July 1 – George Sand, French novelist
- July 4 – Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer
- July 6 – Jerónimo Carrión, 8th President of Ecuador
- July 14 – Ludwig von Benedek, Austrian general
- July 20 – Richard Owen, English anatomist, paleontologist, and zoologist
- July 23 – Jane Irwin Harrison, de facto First Lady of the United States
- July 28 – Ludwig Feuerbach, German philosopher
- September 5 – William Alexander Graham, United States Senator from North Carolina, Confederate States Senator
- September 8 – Eduard Mörike, German poet
- September 11 – Mercedes Marín del Solar, international Chilean poet and reform educator
- September 14
- * Louis Désiré Maigret, Roman Catholic bishop of Honolulu
- * John Gould, English ornithologist
- September 28 – Alpheus Felch, American governor and senator from Michigan
- October 18 – Mongkut, Rama IV, King of Siam
- October 24 – Wilhelm Eduard Weber, German physicist
- November 18 – Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, Italian general and statesman
- November 23 – Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States
- December 7 – Noah Haynes Swayne, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
- December 10 – Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, German mathematician
- December 13 – Joseph Howe, Canadian politician
- December 16 – Viktor Bunyakovsky, Ukrainian-Russian mathematician
- December 21 – Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
- December 23 – Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic
Date unknown
Deaths
January–June
- January 4 – Charlotte Ramsey Lennox, British author and poet
- January 15 – Dru Drury, English entomologist
- February 3 – Sir Edward Blackett, 4th Baronet, English politician
- February 6 – Joseph Priestley, British chemist
- February 7 – William Bingham, American Continental congressman, senator for Pennsylvania
- February 12 – Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
- March 3 – Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, painter
- March 13 – Damodar Pande, Prime Minister of Nepal
- March 16 – Henrik Gabriel Porthan Finnish writer and historian
- March 21 – Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien
- March 30 – Victor-François, 2nd duc de Broglie, Marshal of France
- April 9 – Jacques Necker, French statesman
- April 11 – Miklós Küzmics, Hungarian Slovenes writer, Catholic priest
- April 15 – Jean-Charles Pichegru, French general
- May 25 – Johann Joachim Spalding, German theologian
July–December
- July 12 – Alexander Hamilton, American statesman and Founding Father
- September 4 – Richard Somers, American naval officer
- September 20 – Pierre Méchain, French astronomer
- October 2 – Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, French steam vehicle pioneer
- October 8 – Thomas Cochran (judge), Canadian judge
- October 29 – Sarah Crosby, the first female Methodist preacher
- November 1 – Johann Friedrich Gmelin, German naturalist
- November 5 – Maria Anna Adamberger, Austrian actress
- November 18 – Philip Schuyler, general in the American Revolution, a United States senator from New York, father of Angelica Schuyler Church and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton
- November 23 – Richard Graves, English writer
- December 18 – Jacob ben Wolf Kranz, Lithuanian maggid
- December 25 – Contarina Barbarigo, famous Venetian noble.