1836

Events

January–March

• January 1 — Hill Street Academy is named Colombo Academy and acquired by the Government, establishing the first public school in Sri Lanka.
• January 1 – Queen Maria II of Portugal marries Prince Ferdinand Augustus Francis Anthony of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
• January 5 – Former U.S. Representative Davy Crockett of Tennessee arrives in Texas to join the Texan fight for independence from Mexico.
• January 12
• *, with Charles Darwin on board, reaches Sydney.
• * Will County, Illinois, is formed.
• February 8 – London and Greenwich Railway opens its first section, the first railway in London, England.
• February 23 – Texas Revolution: The Battle of the Alamo begins, with an American settler army surrounded by the Mexican Army, under Santa Anna.
• February 25 – Samuel Colt receives a United States patent for the Colt revolver, the first revolving barrel multishot firearms.
• February 29 - Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera, Les Huguenots is performed for the first time in Paris, France.
• March 1 – Texas Revolution – Convention of 1836: Delegates from many Texas communities gather in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to deliberate independence from Mexico.
• March 2 – Texas Revolution – Convention of 1836: The Texas Declaration of Independence is signed by 60 delegates, and the Republic of Texas is declared.
• March 6 – Texas Revolution: The Battle of the Alamo ends. At least 182 Texan settler soldiers die in a struggle against more than 2,000 Mexican soldiers.
• March 11 – Sultan Mahmud II abolishes the posts of Reis ül-Küttab and Kahya Bey, and establishes the Ottoman ministries of Foreign Affairs and of the Interior in their place.
• March 17 – Texas Revolution – Convention of 1836: Delegates adopt the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, modeled after the United States Constitution. It allows slavery, requires free blacks to petition Congress to live in the country, but prohibits the slave trade.
• March 27
• * Texas Revolution – Goliad massacre: 342 Texan prisoners are shot and killed, along with Texan General James Walker Fannin, by Mexican troops in Goliad, near the Presidio La Bahía.
• * The United States Survey of the Coast is returned to the U.S. Treasury Department, and renamed the U.S. Coast Survey.
• * The Kirtland Temple, the first Mormon temple, is dedicated by Joseph Smith Jr. in Kirtland, Ohio.
• March 29 – Richard Wagner's opera Das Liebesverbot is performed for the first time, in Magdeburg.
• March 31 – The first monthly part of Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers is published in London.

  April–June

• April 20 – The Wisconsin Territory is created; the first capital is Belmont.
• April 21 – Texas Revolution – Battle of San Jacinto: Mexican forces under General Antonio López de Santa Anna are defeated at San Jacinto, Texas.
• April 22 – Texas Revolution: Forces under Texas General Sam Houston capture Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna.
• May 4 – The Ancient Order of Hibernians, an Irish Catholic fraternal organization, is founded in New York City.
• May 7 – The settlement of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico is elevated to the royal status of villa, by the government of Spain.
• May 14 – Texas Revolution: The Treaties of Velasco are signed, between Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna and the Republic of Texas. In exchange for his freedom and the guarantee of free passage back to Mexico, General Santa Anna gives his recognition to the independence of Texas. The Mexican government refuses to ratify the treaties.

• May 15 – During an eclipse of the Sun, English astronomer Francis Baily observes the phenomenon named after him as Baily's beads.
• May 19 – Fort Parker massacre: Among those captured by Native Americans is 9-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker. She later gives birth to a son named Quanah, who becomes the last chief of the Comanche.
• June 15 – Arkansas is admitted into as the 25th state of the United States of America.

  July–September

• July 13 – The first numbered is granted to John Ruggles, for improvements to railroad steam locomotive tires.
• July 21 – The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad opens between St. John and La Prairie, Quebec, the first steam-worked passenger railroad in British North America.
• July 27 – The settlement of Adelaide, South Australia, is founded.
• July 29 – The Arc de Triomphe, is dedicated in Paris, France.
• July 30 – The first English-language newspaper is published in Hawaii.
• August 17 – The Marriage Act in the United Kingdom establishes civil marriage and registration systems that permit marriages in nonconformist chapels, and a Registrar General of Births, Marriages, and Deaths.
• August 30 – The settlement of Houston, Texas is founded.
• September 1 – Rebuilding begins at the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem.
• September 5 – Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
• September 11 – The Riograndense Republic is proclaimed in South America.

  October–December

• October 2 – Charles Darwin returns to England aboard, with biological data he will later use to develop his theory of evolution, having left South America on August 17.File:Voyage of the Beagle.jpg|thumb|right|October 2: Darwin returns aboard HMS Beagle.
• October 13 – Theodor Fliedner, a Lutheran minister, and Friederike, his wife, open the Deaconess Home and Hospital at Kaiserswerth, Germany, as an institute to train women in nursing.
• October 22 – Sam Houston is inaugurated as first elected President of the Republic of Texas.
• October 24 – The earliest United States patent for a phosphorus friction match is granted to Alonzo Dwight Phillips, of Springfield, Massachusetts.
• October 25 – Construction begins on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad in North Carolina. Due to a lack of support in Raleigh, the route is revised to run from Wilmington to the Petersburg Railroad in Weldon.
• October 30 – Louis Napoleon launches the unsuccessful Strasbourg Coup to overthrow the July Monarchy in France
• November 28 – The University of London is established by Royal Charter, with University College London and King's College London named as the first affiliated colleges.
• December 4 – The Whig Party holds its first national convention, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
• December 7 – 1836 United States presidential election: Martin Van Buren defeats William Henry Harrison, and three other Whig candidates, marking the most recent time a Democrat is elected to succeed a two-term Democratic U.S. president.
• December 15 – The United States Patent Office burns in Washington, D.C.
• December 26 – The Crown colony of South Australia is officially proclaimed.
• December 27 – Lewes avalanche: An avalanche at Lewes in Sussex, England, kills eight of fifteen people buried, when a row of cottages is engulfed in snow.
• December 28
• * Spain recognizes the independence of Mexico.
• * The Colony of South Australia is founded by Captain John Hindmarsh.
• December 30 – In Saint Petersburg, the Lehman Theater catches fire, killing 800 people.

  Date unknown

• The first printed literature in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic is produced by Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary in Persia.
• The New Board brokerage group is founded in New York City.
• The Sylhet Government Pilot High School is established in Sylhet as Government Provisional School
• Eugène Schneider and his brother Adolphe Schneider purchase a bankrupt ironworks near the town of Le Creusot, in the Burgundy region of France, and found the steelworks and engineering company Schneider Frères & Cie.
• George Catlin ends his 6-year tour of 50 tribes in the Dakota Territory.
• John Murray III publishes A Hand-book for Travellers on the Continent; being a guide through Holland, Belgium, Prussia and northern Germany, and along the Rhine from Holland to Switzerland, the first of Murray's Handbooks for Travellers, in London.
• Chatsworth Head is found near Tamassos, Cyprus.
• In Munich, the art museum Alte Pinakothek opened.

  Births

January–June

• January 2 – Mendele Mocher Sforim, Russian Yiddish writer
• January 8 – Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Dutch-English painter
• January 10 – Charles Phillip Ingalls, American pioneer, father of author Laura Ingalls Wilder
• January 14
• * Henri Fantin-Latour, French painter
• * Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, American general, politician, and diplomat
• January 24 – Signe Rink, Greenland-born Danish writer, ethnologist
• January 27 – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Austrian writer for whom masochism is named
• February 5 – Tenshoin, wife of 13th Shōgun of Japan, Tokugawa Iesada
• February 16 – Robert Halpin, Irish mariner, cable layer
• February 18 – Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Indian religious leader
• February 21 – Léo Delibes, French composer
• February 24 – Winslow Homer, American painter
• March 2 – Henry Billings Brown, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
• March 4 – Stuart Robson, American stage comedian
• March 12 – Isabella Beeton, English writer on household management
• March 20 – Sir Edward Poynter, French-born British artist
• March 28 – Frederick Pabst, German-American brewer
• April 16 – Gootchaux Ettinger, French-Brazilian politician and industrialist
• April 27 – Charles Bendire, U.S. Army captain, ornithologist
• May 7 – Manuel de la Cámara y Libermoore, Spanish admiral
• May 23 – Touch the Clouds, Native American chieftain
• May 26 – Mélanie de Pourtalès, French salonnière, courtier
• May 27 – Jay Gould, American financier
• May 28 – Friedrich Baumfelder, German composer, conductor, and pianist
• May 31 – Jules Chéret, French printmaker
• June 9 – Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, English physician, suffragette
• June 16 – Wesley Merritt, American general
• June 28 – Lyman J. Gage, American financier