1827

Events

January–March

January 5 – The first regatta in Australia is held, taking place in Tasmania, on the River Derwent at Hobart.
January 15 – Furman University, founded in 1826, begins its first classes with 10 students, as the Furman Academy and Theological Institution, located in Edgefield, South Carolina. By the end of 2016, it will have 2,800 students at its main campus in Greenville, South Carolina.
January 27 – Author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe first elaborates on his vision of Weltliteratur, in a letter to Johann Peter Eckermann, declaring his belief that "poetry is the universal possession of mankind", and that "the epoch of world literature is at hand, and each must work to hasten its coming."
January 30 – The first public theatre in Norway, the Christiania Offentlige Theater, is inaugurated in Christiania.
January – In Laos, King Anouvong of Vientiane leads the Laotian Rebellion against Siam and successfully attacks Nakhon Ratchasima.
February 20 – Battle of Ituzaingó : A Brazilian Imperial Army force is tactically defeated on the border of Brazil and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata by Argentine and Uruguayan troops.
February 28 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in the United States offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
March 7 – Brazilian marines sail up the Rio Negro and attack the temporary naval base of Carmen de Patagones, Argentina; they are defeated by the local citizens.
March 11
* The new state constitution for the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas is ratified, including a phasing-out of slavery in its Article 13, which declares that "From and after the promulgation of the constitution in the capital of each district, no one shall be born a slave in the state, and after six months the introduction of slaves under any pretext shall not be permitted." The prohibition of importing slaves from the United States is lifted when Texas declares independence in 1836, and the Republic of Texas Constitution will provide specifically that Africans and "the descendants of Africans" will not be considered "citizens of the republic".
* The predecessor of Qasr El Eyni Hospital and Cairo University School of Medicine is established in Egypt under the direction of Antoine Clot as the first medical school in the region.
March 15 – The University of Toronto is established by royal charter as King's College at York. It is the first institution of higher education in Upper Canada.
March 16 – Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and published newspaper in the United States, is founded in New York City by John Russwurm.
March 29 — Thousands crowd the streets of Vienna to attend the funeral of Beethoven after his March 26 death. His contemporaries Franz Schubert, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Carl Czerny serve as torchbearers and Chancellor Metternich speaks.

April–June

April 7 – John Walker begins selling his invention, the "Lucifer" friction match, in England.
April 8 – Battle of Monte Santiago: A squadron of the Brazilian Imperial Navy defeats Argentine vessels after a two-day naval battle.
April 10 – George Canning succeeds Lord Liverpool as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
April 23 – Scottish-born novelist John Galt founds the town of Guelph in Upper Canada.
April 24 – Greek War of Independence: Battle of Phaleron – Ottoman troops defeat the Greek rebels.
April 26 – The Royal Netherlands Navy's British-built paddle steamer Curaçao sets off on the first transatlantic crossing by steam, departing from Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands to Paramaribo in the Netherlands South American colony of Dutch Guiana. The ship arrives after a voyage of four weeks.
April 29 – The Fly Whisk Incident in Ottoman Algeria: Hussein Dey slaps French consul Pierre Deval on the face, eventually leading to the Invasion of Algiers in 1830.
May 1 – Georg Ohm publishes Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet in which Ohm's law appears for the first time.
May 20 – Zarafa, the first giraffe to be seen in Europe for over three centuries, arrives in Marseille as a gift from the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt, Mehmet Ali Pasha, to King Charles X of France. The giraffe then begins a 50-day journey to Paris, walking with its handlers toward Paris where it will arrive on July 9.
May 21 – The Maryland Democratic Party is founded by supporters of Andrew Jackson in Baltimore, and hosts its first meeting at the Baltimore Atheneum.
May 24 – The Royal Netherlands Navy's British-built paddle steamer Curaçao completes the first transatlantic crossing by steam, arriving in Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana four weeks after its April 26 departure from the Netherlands.
May 25 – Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru receives a French patent for the invention of the first fountain pen.
June 4 – French inventor Joseph Niépce sends a package to Louis Daguerre revealing the existence of his invention, "heliography", where an image can be reproduced onto a pewter plate and then reprinted. In 1829, the two will begin a partnership, and Daguerre will perfect Niépce's photographic process to reproduce images more quickly.
June 7 – Greek defenders in Athens surrender to Egyptian forces under the command of General Rashid Pasha.

July–September

July 6 – Greek War of Independence: The Treaty of London between France, Britain and Russia, demands that the Turks agree to an armistice in Greece.
July 9 – Zarafa, the giraffe given by the Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt to King Charles X of France, arrives at the royal palace in Paris.
July 14 – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu is founded in the Kingdom of Hawaii.
August 31 – F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the death of George Canning.
September 4 – The Great Fire of Turku destroys three-quarters of the city, with 27 human casualties.
September 20 – A petition for a land grant for 215 acres on the north bank of Rio Grande, just across from Paso del Norte, is approved; the first residence is built on what is modern-day El Paso, Texas.
September 22 – Joseph Smith will claim in 1838 that on this day he took the golden plates from the place where they had been stored, and that he began writing down the Book of Mormon from them the following December.

October–December

September 30 – Greek War of Independence: Battle of Itea, a naval battle fought in the Gulf of Corinth.
October 1 – Russo-Persian War, 1826–1828: The Russians under Ivan Paskevich storm Yerevan, ending a millennium of Muslim domination in Armenia.
October 20 – Greek War of Independence: Battle of Navarino – United [Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|British], French and Russian naval forces destroy the Turko-Egyptian fleet in Greece. This is the last naval action to be fought under sail alone.
November 24 – Voting is completed in elections for France's 430 member Chamber of Deputies. The Ultraroyalistes, supporters of King Charles X, lose their 233-seat majority and finish with 180 seats, the same number as the opposition Doctrinaires.
November – The term "socialist" is coined by Robert Owen in his London periodical, The Co-operative Magazine and Monthly Herald.
December 20 – Mexico passes its first "expulsion law", providing for citizens of Spain to be expelled within the next six months, and to remain barred from re-entry until the Kingdom of Spain recognizes Mexico's 1810 declaration of independence. Ultimately, because of all the exemptions within the expulsion act, only 1,779 of the 6,610 Spaniards are required to leave.

Date unknown

The missionary ship Messenger of Peace is built on Rarotonga by English Congregationalist John Williams to spread Christianity to Samoa and the Society Islands on behalf of the London Missionary Society.
John James Audubon begins publication of the 10-volume The Birds of America, in the United Kingdom.

Births

January–June

January 7 – Sir Sandford Fleming, Scottish-Canadian engineer, inventor
January 10 – Amanda Cajander, Finnish medical reformer
January 28 – Jean Antoine Villemin, French physician
February 17 – Elisabeth Blomqvist, Swedish-Finnish educator, feminist
March 7 – John Hall Gladstone, English chemist
March 8 – Wilhelm Bleek, German linguist
March 25 – Stephen Luce, American admiral
April 2 – William Holman Hunt, British Pre-Raphaelite painter
April 5 – Joseph Lister, English surgeon, medical pioneer
April 8 – Ramón Emeterio Betances, Puerto Rican politician, medical doctor and diplomat
May 11 – Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, French sculptor, painter
May 19 – Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour, French statesman
May 21 – William P. Sprague, American politician from Ohio
May 27 – Samuel F. Miller, American politician
May 31 – Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, British general
June 11 – Natalie Zahle, Danish educator, women's rights activist
June 12 – Johanna Spyri, Swiss author
June 13 – Alberto Henschel, German-Brazilian photographer, businessman
June 24 – Louis Brière de l'Isle, French general
June 26 – Amédée Courbet, French admiral

July–December

July 17 – Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, British chemist
July 18 – Mangal Pandey, Indian soldier
July 24 – Francisco Solano López, President of Paraguay
August 5 – Deodoro da Fonseca, 1st President of Brazil
August 23 – Lord John Hay, British admiral and politician
August 28 – Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia, granddaughter of Tsar Paul I
September 3 – John Drew Sr., Irish-American stage actor, manager
September 27 – Georgiana Archer, German women's rights activist and educator
September 30 – Ellis H. Roberts, American politician
October 12 – Josiah Parsons Cooke, American chemist
October 16 – Arnold Böcklin, Swiss painter
October 25 – Marcellin Berthelot, French chemist
October 29 – Antonio Borrero, 10th President of Ecuador
November 1 – Friedrich Haase, German actor
November 7 – Antti Ahlström, Finnish industrialist
November 18 – Mehmed Ali Pasha, Prussian-born Ottoman military leader
November 26 – Ellen G. White, American religious leader, cofounder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
November 29 – William Crichton, Scottish engineer and shipbuilder
December 3
* Jain Acharya Rajendrasuri, Indian religious reformer
* Lombe Atthill, Northern Irish obstetrician and gynaecologist
December 17 – Baron Alexander Wassilko von Serecki, Governor of the Duchy of Bucovina, member of the Herrenhaus
December 23 – Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, Austrian admiral
December 27 – Stanisław Mieroszewski, Polish-born politician, writer, historian and member of the Imperial Council of Austria

Undated

Wazir Beg, Indian Semitic scholar and Presbyterian minister

Deaths

January–June

January 5 – Prince [Frederick, Duke of York and Albany], heir-presumptive to the British throne
January 19 – Ludwig von Brauchitsch, Prussian general
February 13 – Caleb Brewster, Patriot spy during the American Revolutionary War
February 19 – Armand Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt, French general, diplomat
February 23 – Felipe Enrique Neri, Texas legislator, colonizer
February 17 – Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Swiss pedagogue
February 28 – Thomas Holloway, English portrait painter, engraver
March 5
* Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician
* Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist
March 26 – Ludwig van Beethoven, German composer
March 31 – Marie Barch, Danish ballerina
April 12 – Michele Troja, Italian physician
April 29
* Deborah Sampson, first American female soldier
* Rufus King, American lawyer, politician and diplomat
May 5 – Frederick Augustus I of Saxony
May 27 – Melesina Trench, Irish-born writer, socialite
June 26 – Samuel Crompton, English inventor

July–December

July 14 – Augustin-Jean Fresnel, French physicist
July 27 – Fredrique Eleonore Baptiste, Finnish actress and playwright
August 8 – George Canning, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
August 12 – William Blake, English poet and artist
September 10 – Ugo Foscolo, Greek-born Italian writer, revolutionary and poet
October 12 – John Eager Howard, American politician
November 7 – Maria Theresia of Tuscany, Queen of Saxony
November 10 – St. George Tucker, United States federal judge
December 3 – Servando Teresa de Mier, Mexican preacher
December 21 – Anton II, Catholicos Patriarch of Georgia