1824

Events

January–March

• January 8 – After much controversy, Michael Faraday is finally elected as a member of the Royal Society in London, with only one vote against him.
• January 21 – First Anglo-Ashanti War: Battle of Nsamankow – forces of the Ashanti Empire crush British forces in the Gold Coast, killing the British governor Sir Charles MacCarthy.
• February 10 – Simón Bolívar is proclaimed dictator of Peru.
• February 20 — William Buckland formally announces the name Megalosaurus, the first scientifically validly named non-avian dinosaur species.
• February 21 – The Chumash Revolt of 1824 begins against the Spanish presence in Alta California as an uprising by the Chumash people at Mission Santa Inés, predecessor of the Dutch bank ABN AMRO, is founded.
• March 11 – The United States War Department creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• March 17 – The Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 is signed to resolve territorial disputes between the British Empire and the Netherlands over control of the Malay Peninsula and the Dutch East Indies
• March 19 – American explorer Benjamin Morrell departs Antarctica after a voyage later plagued by claims of fraud.

  April–June

• April 7 – The Mechanics' Institution is established in Manchester, England at the Bridgewater Arms hotel, as part of a national movement for the education of working men. The institute is the precursor to two Universities in the city: the University of Manchester and the Metropolitan University of Manchester.
• April 9 – The first permanent settlers arrive to construct the new city of Tallahassee, Florida, selected to be the capital of the Florida Territory newly acquired from the Kingdom of Spain; the area has been selected because it is roughly equidistant from the territory's main cities, Pensacola and St. Augustine.
• April 19 – Lord Byron, the British poet, dies at the age of 36 in the Greek city of Missolonghi, where he had taken ill while making plans to liberate the Greeks from Ottoman rule, "not in combat, but of a fever caught in the unhealthy conditions at Missolonghi... exacerbated, it is generally agreed, by the over-zealous actions of his doctors, who bled him excessively."
• April 30 – The April Revolt in Portugal begins when Prince Miguel acts against his Liberal opponents in defiance of his father John VI.
• May 7 – Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony premieres at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna. The deaf composer has to be turned around on the stage to witness the enthusiastic audience reaction.
• May 24 – First Anglo-Burmese War: The British take Rangoon, capital of the Kingdom of Burma, in a surprise attack.
• June 16 – The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is established in Great Britain.

  July–September

• July 2 – The Confederation of the Equator begins in Pernambuco, Brazil: Wealthy landowners against the government of Emperor Pedro I initiate a secessionist movement for the independence of Pernambuco.
• July 8 – Queen Kamāmalu of Hawaii dies of measles, while accompanying her husband during a visit to the United Kingdom.
• July 10 – Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette and a beloved hero of the American Revolution, departs from the port of Le Havre in France on the ship Cadmus for a triumphant return to the United States; he arrives in New York on August 15.
• July 13 – King Kamehameha II of Hawaii dies of measles, during a visit to the United Kingdom, before he can meet with King George IV. Because of the slow communications of the era, news of the King's death does not reach Hawaii until the following March; his funeral would then take place on May 11, 1825, and subsequently he is succeeded by his brother Kamehameha III.
• July 19 – Don Agustín de Iturbide, who had formerly been President of Mexico and then proclaimed himself Emperor Agustin the First, until being overthrown on March 19, 1823, is executed by a firing squad in the city of Padilla, five days after returning from exile in England.
• July 25 – The Montparnasse Cemetery opens in Paris, France.
• August 6 – Peruvian War of Independence: Battle of Junín – Pro-independence forces defeat the Spanish in the highlands of the Junín region.
• August 7 – The First Anglo-Ashanti War ends when forces of the Ashanti Empire flee the field.
• August 15 – The visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States begins at Staten Island. He will remain for more than a year before departing on September 7, 1825.
• September 13 – With his crew and 29 convicts aboard the Amity, John Oxley arrives at and founds the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement at what becomes Brisbane, Queensland, in Australia, after leaving Sydney.
• September 16 – Charles X succeeds his brother Louis XVIII as King of France.
• September 26 – The earliest reference by the British government to an official renaming of its South Pacific Ocean territory as "Australia" comes in a dispatch titled "Taking Possession of Melville and Bathurst Islands", as the Admiral Sir Gordon Bremer refers to "the North Coast of New Holland or Australia".

  October–December

• October 4 – The First Constitution of Mexico is ratified, declaring the country to be a federal republic called the United Mexican States.
• October 10 – The Edinburgh Town Council founds the Edinburgh Municipal Fire Brigade, the first fire brigade in Britain, under the leadership of James Braidwood.
• October 21 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement, receiving BP 5,022 for An Improvement in the Mode of Producing an Artificial Stone.
• November 5 – Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first technological university in the English-speaking world, is founded in Troy, New York.
• – In the 1824 St. Petersburg flood, the worst up to that time in the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, water rises above normal, and at least 200 people are killed.
• November 30 – The first sod is turned in Ontario for the first of four Welland Canals. The canal opens for a trial run five years later to the day, on November 30, 1829.
• December 3 – 1824 United States presidential election: None of the four candidates for U.S. president— Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay or William H. Crawford— gain a majority of the electoral votes, although Jackson has a plurality of 40.5% of the popular vote. John C. Calhoun wins a majority of the electoral votes for Vice President. The election for President is carried out by the U.S. House of Representatives on February 9, 1825, pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with each of the 24 states having a vote, of which Adams receives 13 votes for the minimum majority necessary.
• December 9 – Peruvian War of Independence: Battle of Ayacucho – Colombian and Peruvian forces led by Antonio José de Sucre defeat the Spanish. The commander, Viceroy de la Serna, surrenders, ending Spain's domination of South America.
• December 24 – The first American social fraternity, Chi Phi, is founded at Princeton University.
• December 28 – In Australia, in what is now New South Wales, the Bathurst War comes to an end, with the defeat of the Wiradjuri indigenous nation and the peaceful surrender of their leader, Chief Windradyne, at a feast at Parramatta.

  Date unknown

• Egyptian and Albanian troops of the Ottoman Empire overturn the Greek revolt on Crete.
• The Dutch sign the Masang Agreement, temporarily ending hostilities in the Padri War.
• The name Australia, recommended by Matthew Flinders in 1804, is adopted by the British Admiralty as the official name of the country once known as New Holland.
• The Panoramagram is invented as the first stereoscopic viewer.
• The Colorado potato beetle is first described, by Thomas Say.

  Births

January–June

• January 7 – Julia Kavanagh, Irish novelist
• January 8 – Wilkie Collins, English novelist
• January 15 – Marie Duplessis, French courtesan
• January 21 – Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, American Confederate general
• January 26 – Emil Czyrniański, Polish chemist
• February 7 – Sir William Huggins, British astronomer
• February 8 – Barnard Elliott Bee, Jr., American Confederate general
• February 12 – Dayananda Saraswati, Hindu religious leader, Vedic scholar who founded the reform movement Arya Samaj
• February 14 – Winfield Scott Hancock, American Civil War Union general, Democratic presidential candidate
• February 27 – Prince Kuni Asahiko of Japan
• March 2 – Bedřich Smetana, Czech composer
• March 9 – Amasa Leland Stanford, American tycoon, industrialist and politician, 8th Governor of California
• March 12 – Gustav Kirchhoff, German physicist
• March 19 – William Allingham, Irish author
• March 22 – Charles Pfizer, German-American chemist, co-founder of Pfizer
• March 25 – Clinton L. Merriam, American politician
• March 26 – Julie-Victoire Daubié, French journalist
• March 27 – Johann Wilhelm Hittorf, German physicist
• April 6 – George Waterhouse, 7th Prime Minister of New Zealand
• April 7 – Edward Jones, trespasser who continually broke into Buckingham Palace
• April 13 – William Alexander, Anglican bishop, Primate of All Ireland
• May 3 – Pio Siotto, Italian artist, cameo engraver
• May 6 – Tokugawa Iesada, 13th shōgun of Tokugawa shogunate of Japan
• May 9 – Jacob ben Moses Bachrach, noted Polish-born apologist of Rabbinic Judaism
• May 23 – Ambrose Burnside, American Civil War general, inventor, politician from Rhode Island
• June 7 – Bernhard von Gudden, German neuroanatomist, psychiatrist
• June 8 – Arthur von Mohrenheim, Russian diplomat
• June 20 – George Edmund Street, British architect
• June 26 – William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Irish-born physicist, engineer
• June 27 – Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, American writer, reformer, philanthropist
• June 28 – Paul Broca, French physician, anthropologist