1843

Events

January–March

January 3 – The Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms compiled by Wei Yuan and others, the first significant Chinese work on the West, is published in China.
January 6 – Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross discovers Snow Hill Island.
January 20 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná is appointed by the Emperor, Dom Pedro, as the leader of the Brazilian Council of Ministers, although the office of Prime Minister of Brazil will not be officially created until 1847.
January
* Serial publication of Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit begins in London; in the July chapters, he lands his hero in the United States.
* Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" is published in The Pioneer, a Boston magazine.
* The Quaker magazine The Friend is first published in London.
February 3 – Uruguayan Civil War: Argentina supports Oribe of Uruguay, and begins a siege of Montevideo.
February 6 – The Virginia Minstrels perform the first minstrel show, at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City.
February 8 – The 1843 [Guadeloupe Earthquake] hits the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, killing 1,500–5,000 people.
February 11 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata premieres at La Scala in Milan.
February 14 – The event that will inspire The Beatles' 1967 song "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is held in England.
February 25 – Paulet Affair: Lord George Paulet occupies the Kingdom of Hawaii in the name of Great Britain.
February – Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa captures the fort and town of Riffa after the rival branch of the family fails to gain control of the Riffa Fort and flees to Manama. Shaikh Mohamed bin Ahmed is killed at the battle, called the Battle of Hunayniya.
March 8 – The Danish government re-establishes the Althing in Iceland as an advisory body, by royal decree.
March 11–14 – Eta Carinae flares, to become the second-brightest star.
March 13 – Catawba County, North Carolina is created, and its first court is held in Mathias Barringer Jr.'s house.
March 15 – Victoria, British Columbia, is founded by the Hudson's Bay Company as a trading post and fort.
March 16 – The city of Petrópolis is founded by the government of Brazil.
March 21 – The world does not end, contrary to the first prediction by American preacher William Miller.
March 24 – Battle of Hyderabad: The Bombay Army, led by Major General Sir Charles Napier, defeats the Talpur Mirs, securing Sindh as a province of British India.
March 25 – Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under the River Thames and the world's first bored underwater tunnel, is opened in London for pedestrians.

April–June

April 7 – The Indian Slavery Act, 1843 removes legal support for slavery within the territories of the East India Company
April 16 or 17 – A group of 24 West Indian Moravians from Jamaica and Antigua, recruited by the Danish minister and Basel missionary, Andreas Riis, arrive in Christiansborg, Gold Coast, now Ghana, to set up schools and Presbyterian churches in the country.
May 4 – Natal is proclaimed a British colony.
May 18 – In Edinburgh, the Free [Church of Scotland (1843–1900)|Free Church of Scotland] is disrupted from the Church of Scotland.
May 22 – The first major wagon train headed for the American Northwest sets out with 1,000 pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.
May 23 – Chile takes possession of the Strait of Magellan.
June 6 – In Barbados, Samuel Jackman Prescod is the first non-white person elected to the House of Assembly.
June 17 – In New Zealand, a posse of British settlers sent to arrest Māori chief Te Rauparaha clash with members of his Ngāti Toa tribe, resulting in 26 deaths.
June 21 – Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Gold-Bug" begins serialization in American newspapers.

July–September

July – Margaret Fuller's "The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women" appears in The Dial magazine in the United States.
July 19 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's is launched from Bristol; it will be the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
July 25 – Père Antoine Désiré Mégret, a Capuchin missionary, purchases the land that will become Abbeville, Louisiana for $900, a town founded by descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia.
August 1 – Brazil becomes the second country, after Great Britain, to issue nationally valid postage stamps, with the release of its Bull's Eye series.
August 19 – Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat" is first published in The Saturday Evening Post.

File:Kopenhaga tivoli jan2004 ubt.jpeg|thumb|220px| August 15: The Tivoli Gardens open in Denmark.

August 15 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world still intact, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark.
September – Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea's notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.
September 2 – The Economist newspaper is first published in London.
September 4 – Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil marries Dona Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, in a state ceremony in Rio de Janeiro Cathedral.
September 15 – A 3 [September 1843 Revolution|Popular uprising] in Athens, Greece, including citizens and military captains, demands from King Otto a liberal Constitution from the state, which has been governed since independence by various domestic and foreign business interests.
September 21 – The crew of schooner Ancud, including John Williams Wilson, takes possession of the Strait of Magellan on behalf of the Chilean government.

October–December

October 3 – Elling Eielsen is ordained as the first Norwegian Lutheran minister in the United States.
October 16
* Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical book Fear and Trembling is first published, in Denmark.
* Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton discovers the calculus of quaternions and deduces that they are non-commutative.
October 30 – Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean settlement in the strait of Magellan, is founded.
November 17 – The city of Shanghai opens for trade with foreigners for the first time, welcoming a party of traders from the United Kingdom.
November 25 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, and kills 69 people in the village of Bronte.
November 28 – Hawaii is recognized as an independent nation by the United Kingdom and France. The holiday is celebrated annually as La Ku'oko'a.
December 9 – Bishop's University is founded as Bishop's College by Bishop George Jehoshaphat Mountain in Lennoxville, Quebec, for the education of members of the Church of England.
December 13 – Basutoland becomes a British protectorate.
December 19 – Charles Dickens's novella A Christmas Carol is first published in London, England. Released on December 19, it sells out by Christmas Eve.
December 21 – The first total solar eclipse of Saros 139 occurs over southern Asia.
December – The world's first Christmas cards, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London from the artist John Callcott Horsley, are sent.

Date unknown

In Asia, the House of Jamalullail is established in the state of Perlis Darul Sunnah after separation from the state of Kedah.
James Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat.
The steam powered rotary printing press is invented, by Richard March Hoe in the United States.
Saint Louis University School of Law becomes the first law school west of the Mississippi River.
Kurdish leader Bedir Khan Beg launched an expedition against the Assyrians in the Hakkari region.Thousands of Assyrians were massacred during the campaign.

Births

January

January 1 – Nikolai Lodyzhensky, Russian composer
January 3 – Elzéar Abeille de Perrin, French entomologist
January 5 – Victor Brooke, Anglo-Irish naturalist and baronet
January 8
* Frederick Abberline, Chief Inspector of the London Metropolitan Police, investigator in the Jack the Ripper murders
* John H. Moffitt, American politician
* Karl Eduard Heusner, Vice-Admiral of the German Imperial Navy
January 9 – Darius D. Hare, U.S. representative from Ohio
January 10
* Frank James, American outlaw
* Carroll S. Page, American lawyer, businessman and politician
January 11 – Adolf Eberle, German painter
January 13 – David Ferrier, Scottish neurologist
January 17 – Anton Thraen, German astronomer
January 18 – Fernand Pelez, French painter
January 20 – Paul Cambon, French diplomat
January 21 – Émile Levassor, French engineer
January 22 – Friedrich Blass, German scholar
January 25 – Hermann Schwarz, German mathematician
January 26 – Erdmann Encke, German sculptor
January 28 – Mihkel Veske, Estonian poet
January 29
* William McKinley, 25th President of the United States
* Henry Carrington Bolton, American chemist and bibliographer

February

February 1 – John Isaac Thornycroft, English shipbuilder
February 3 – William Cornelius Van Horne, American entrepreneur
February 9
* William Taylor Thornton, governor of New Mexico
* Nathan Goff Jr., U.S. representative from West Virginia
February 10 – Philippe Alexandre Jules Künckel d'Herculais, French entomologist and zoologist
February 13 – Georg von Rosen, Swedish painter
February 14 – Louis Diémer, French pianist
February 16 – Henry M. Leland, American machinist, inventor, engineer and automotive entrepreneur
February 17 – Aaron Montgomery Ward, American department store founder
February 19 – Adelina Patti, Spanish opera singer
February 20 – Theodor Höijer, Finnish architect
February 22 – Rudolf Montecuccoli, Austro-Hungarian admiral
February 24 – Teófilo Braga, Portuguese writer, playwright and politician
February 25 – Karl Gussow, German painter
February 28 – Đorđe Simić, Serbian politician

March

March 2 – Princess Maria Clotilde of Savoy daughter of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy,
March 3
* Aleksander Sochaczewski, Polish painter
* William Chandler Roberts-Austen, English metallurgist
March 4 – John Barr, Canadian physician and politician
March 7
* Joseph James Cheeseman, Liberian politician, 12th President of Liberia
* Tsuboi Kōzō, Japanese admiral
* Edwin H. Conger, American lawyer, banker and diplomat
March 8 – Arthur Brown, U.S. senator from Utah
March 9 – Abraham Abraham, American businessman
March 10 – James D. Richardson, American politician
March 11 – Harald Høffding, Danish philosopher and theologian
March 12 – Ludwig Dahn, German actor
March 14 – Léon Dehon, French Roman Catholic priest, founder of Priests of the Sacred Heart
March 15 – Arichi Shinanojō, Japanese admiral
March 16 – Louis Gregh, French composer
March 17 – Henry Ware Lawton, American general
March 18 – Jules Vandenpeereboom, Belgian politician
March 22 – Hiram Y. Smith, American politician
March 23 – Joseph F. Johnston, American politician
March 24 – James A. Mount, 24th governor of Indiana
March 26 – Johann Sioly, Austrian composer
March 27 – George Frederick Leycester Marshall, English naturalist
March 28 – Hippolyte Berteaux, French painter
March 31 – Bernhard Förster, German teacher

April

April 1
* Étienne Blanchard, Canadian politician
* Venancio Antonio Morin, Venezuelan military officer and politician.
April 2 – Karl Koester, German pathologist
April 3 – Knut Ekwall, Swedish painter
April 4 – William Henry Jackson, American explorer and photographer
April 7
* Ernest Munier-Chalmas, French geologist
* John Mount Batten, British soldier and landowner
April 8 – Asger Hamerik, Danish composer
April 9 – Samuel W. Pennypacker, American politician and 23rd governor of Pennsylvania
April 11 – Johannes Minckwitz, German chess player
April 13 – Thomas Pennington Lucas, Scottish-born Australian medical practitioner, naturalist, author, philosopher and utopianist
April 14 – Gustave Huberti, Flemish composer
April 15 – Henry James, American novelist
April 17 – Camillo Sitte, Austrian architect
April 18 – Josiah Wood, Canadian lawyer, entrepreneur, mayor, parliamentarian, and the 13th Lieutenant Governor of the province of New Brunswick
April 21 – Walther Flemming, German biologist
April 22 – George I. Alden, American mechanical engineer and academic innovator
April 25 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, third child of Queen Victoria
April 29 – Pedro Américo, Brazilian novelist, poet, scientist, art theorist, essayist, philosopher, politician and professor
April 30 – Edward Colborne Baber, English orientalist

May

May 2 – Karl Michael Ziehrer, Austrian composer
May 3 – William Lyne Wilson, American politician
May 4 – Eugène Revillout, French Egyptologist
May 5 – William George Beers, Canadian dentist
May 6 – Grove Karl Gilbert, American geologist
May 7 – Léon Melchissédec, French baritone
May 8 – Rudolf Mosse, German publisher
May 9 – Anton von Werner, German painter
May 10 – Benito Pérez Galdós, Spanish novelist
May 13 – Paul de Smet de Naeyer, Belgian politician
May 15 – Georges Hartmann, French music publisher and dramatist
May 16 – Charles Wynn-Carington, 1st Marquess of Lincolnshire, English politician
May 19 – Axel Gudbrand Blytt, Norwegian botanist and geologist
May 20 – Itō Sukeyuki, Japanese admiral
May 21
* Charles Albert Gobat, Swiss politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* Louis Renault, French jurist, educator, and Nobel Prize laureate
May 22 – Adolf Aron Baginsky, German professor of diseases
May 23 – Yevgeni Ivanovich Alekseyev, Russian admiral and politician
May 25 – Paul Scheffer-Boichorst, German historian
May 27 – Prince Paul of Thurn and Taxis, son of Maximilian Karl, 6th Prince of Thurn and Taxis
May 28 – Joyce Emmerson Preston Muddock, British journalist
May 29
* Émile Pessard, French composer
* Patrick Craigie, British agricultural statistician
May 30 – Louis Boehmer, German-American agronomist
May 31 – Fredrikke Marie Qvam, Norwegian humanitarian leader, feminist and liberal politician

June

June 1
* Henry Faulds, Scottish physician, missionary and fingerprinting pioneer
* Saigō Jūdō, Japanese general, admiral, and politician
June 3 – King Frederik VIII of Denmark
June 4 – Charles Conrad Abbott, German archaeologist
June 5 – Samuel Garman, American zoologist
June 7 – Susan Blow, American educator
June 8 – Kálmán Széll, 13th Prime Minister of Hungary
June 9
* Bertha von Suttner, Austrian writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
* Wilhelm Dames, German paleontologist
June 10 – Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Austrian composer
June 11 – Francisco Joaquim Ferreira do Amaral, Portuguese naval commander and politician
June 12 – David Gill, Scottish astronomer
June 13 – Adolf Neuendorff, German American composer
June 14 – Richard Otto Zöpffel, Baltic German church historian and theologian
June 15 – Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer
June 16 – David Popper, Bohemian cellist and composer
June 18 – René Pénicaud, French politician
June 19 – Charles-Édouard Lefebvre, French composer
June 23 – Otto Kuntze, German botanist
June 24 – Andreas Ascharin, Baltic-German chessmaster
June 25 – Prince Frederick of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Member of the Hohenzollern Sigmaringen family
June 28 – Julius Runge, German landscape artist
June 30 – Sir Ernest Satow, British diplomat, scholar

July

July 7 – Camillo Golgi, Italian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
July 17 – Sir Penn Symons, British general
July 19 – Francis J. Higginson, United States Navy admiral
July 26 – J. B. C. Drew, American lawyer and politician
July 29 – Johannes Schmidt, German linguist

August

August – Joseph Abbott, Australian wool-broker and politician
August 1 – Robert Todd Lincoln, American politician, businessman, first son of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln
August 4 – Florimond Van Duyse, Belgian lawyer, composer and musicologist
August 5 – James Scott Skinner, Scottish violinist and composer
August 7 – Charles Warren Stoddard, American author
August 8 – Alfred Duclos DeCelles, Canadian journalist
August 9 – Adolf Mayer, German agricultural chemist
August 10 – Joseph McKenna, American politician, Associate [Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States]
August 11 – Louis Gathmann, German American inventor
August 12 – Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz, Prussian field marshal
August 15 – Charles Immanuel Forsyth Major, Scottish-born Swiss physician
August 17 – Mariano Rampolla, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal
August 18 – Moritz Brasch, German philosopher
August 19 – C. I. Scofield, American theologian
August 20 – Christina Nilsson, Swedish operatic soprano
August 21 – Marion McCarrell Scott, American educator
August 22 – John M. Thome, American astronomer
August 23 – William Southam, Canadian newspaper publisher
August 24 – Ernst Wülcker, German archivist and lexicographer
August 26 – Victor Gardthausen, German ancient historian
August 27 – Wilhelm Wisser, German dialectologist
August 28 – August Sedláček, Czech historian
August 29 – Alfred Agache, French painter
August 30 – Carl Theodor Albrecht, German astronomer
August 31 – Georg von Hertling, Chancellor of Germany

September

September 1 – William Ziegler, American industrialist
September 2 – Richard Alsop Wise, American educator
September 4
* Charles Dilke, British statesman
* Jabez Balfour, English businessman and fraudster
September 5 – Friedrich Reusch, German sculptor
September 6 – Alexander Fok, Russian general
September 7 – Otto von Diederichs, German admiral
September 9 – Oscar Montelius, Swedish archaeologist
September 10 – William Gill, English explorer
September 11 – Adolf Wach, German jurist
September 12 – Daniel F. Davis, American politician and 37th governor of Maine
September 14 – Lola Rodríguez de Tió, Puerto Rican poet, abolitionist, and women's rights activist
September 16 – George Brettingham Sowerby III, British conchologist, publisher, illustrator
September 17 – William Elliot Griffis, American Congregationalist minister
September 18 – Charles Valentine Riley, British-born American entomologist and artist
September 19
* Homer D. Call, American politician
* François-Xavier-Ovide Méthot, Quebec political figure
September 20 – Julius Lessing, German art historian
September 21 – Gabriel Paul Othenin de Cléron, comte d'Haussonville, French politician
September 22 – Pietro Respighi, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal
September 23 – Emily Warren Roebling, American engineer
September 24 – Carl Constantin Platen, German physician
September 25
* Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin, American geologist
* Melville Reuben Bissell, American entrepreneur
September 26 – Joseph Furphy, Australian novelist
September 27 – Gaston Tarry, French mathematician
September 29 – Mikhail Skobelev, Russian general
September 30 – Hector Clare Cameron, Scottish surgeon

October

October 2 – James Whitney, Canadian politician
October 4 – Marie-Alphonsine Danil Ghattas, Palestinian Catholic nun, canonized
October 9 – Christian Christiansen, Danish physicist
October 10 – François C. Antoine Simon, 18th president of Haiti
October 12 – Émile Louis Ragonot, French entomologist
October 13 – René de Lespinasse, French historian
October 14 – Marcus Beck, early proponent of the germ theory of disease
October 15 – Herbert W. Ladd, American politician and governor of Rhode Island
October 16 – Johann Friedrich Ahlfeld, German obstetrician and gynecologist
October 17 – Lot Thomas, American state court judge
October 19 – Albert Viger, French politician
October 20 – Victor de Stuers, Dutch artist
October 22 – Anton Yegorovich von Saltza, Russian general
October 23 – René de Lespinasse, French historian
October 24 – Caroline Brown Buell, American activist
October 25 – Pierre Lallement, French inventor of the bicycle
October 26 – Henry Trimen, British botanist
October 28
* Dezső Bánffy, 12th Prime Minister of Hungary
* Herman Bendell, Physician and last Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Arizona Territory
October 29 – John Miller 1st governor of North Dakota
October 31 – Henri Regnault, French painter

November

November 3 – Isaac S. Struble, American politician
November 4 – Theodor Gartner, Austrian linguist
November 5 – Harry Rawson, English explorer and 21st governor of New South Wales
November 6 – Job Adams Cooper, American politician
November 7 – Heinrich Friedrich Weber, German physicist
November 8 – Moritz Pasch, German mathematician
November 11 – Cornelius Vanderbilt II, American railway magnate
November 13 – Friedrich Albin Hoffmann, German internist
November 14 – Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann, German botanist
November 15 – Joseph König (chemist), German chemist
November 16 – Louise Jopling, English painter
November 19 – C. X. Larrabee, American businessman
November 21 – Gaston Tissandier, French chemist, meteorologist, aviator and editor
November 22 – Albert Huntington Chester, American geologist
November 24 – Ekaterina Junge, Russian painter
November 25 – Henry Ware Eliot, American industrialist
November 27
* Edwin C. Burleigh, American politician, 42nd governor of Maine
* Thomas Perrett, Sgt in the Confederate States Army and North Carolina State Senator
November 28 – Émile Bernard (composer), French composer
November 29
* Gertrude Jekyll, English garden designer, writer and artist
* Peter Birch-Reichenwald, Norwegian politician
November 30 – Martha Ripley, American physician

December

December 3 – Sir William Gatacre, British general
December 11 – Robert Koch, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
December 24 – Lydia Koidula, Estonian poet
December 28 – Prentiss Ingraham, American author of dime fiction
December 29 – Elisabeth of Wied, Queen consort of Romania

Full date unknown

Adelaida Lukanina, Russian chemist
Rafael Monleón y Torres, Spanish painter, archaeologist and historian
Giangiacomo Moretti, Italian painter

Deaths

January–June

January 11
* Antoine Bournonville, French ballet dancer, choreographer
* Francis Scott Key, American songwriter of The Star-Spangled Banner
February 13 – Nathaniel Chipman, United States federal judge
February 26 – Sir John Thomas Jones, British army general
March 3 – David Porter, American naval officer
March 21
* Guadalupe Victoria, 1st President of Mexico
* Robert Southey, English poet
March 25 – Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Scottish clergyman
March 27 – Karl Salomo Zachariae von Lingenthal, German jurist
April 17 – Samuel Morey, American inventor
May 23 – Pierre Lorillard II, American businessman
May 28 – Noah Webster, American lexicographer
June 1 – William Abbot, English actor
June 7 – Friedrich Hölderlin, German writer

July–December

July 2 – Samuel Hahnemann, German physician
July 7 – John Holmes, American politician
July 14 – Miguel de Álava, Spanish soldier, statesman
August – Sequoyah, Native American silversmith, creator of the Cherokee syllabary
July 22 – Marie-Madeleine Lachenais, Haitian de facto politician
July 25 – Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor of a waterproof fabric
September 4 – Howqua, Chinese merchant, "richest man in the world"
September 11 – Joseph Nicollet, French geographer
September 16 – Ezekiel Hart, Canadian entrepreneur, politician
October 6 – Sir Archibald Campbell, 1st Baronet, British army general
October 18 – Ebenezer Elmer, American politician
November – Esther Leach, English-Indian actress and director
November 10 – John Trumbull, American painter
December 12 – King William I of the Netherlands
December 18 – Thomas Graham, 1st Baron Lynedoch, British Governor-General of India

Date unknown

Emma Jane Greenland, English painter