1840

Decades: 1790s 1800s 1810s 1820s 1830s - 1840s - 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s

Years: 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839 - 1840 - 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845

Events

• January 3 - One of the Herald-Sun of Melbourne, Australia's predecessor papers The Port Phillip Herald is founded by George Cavanaugh.
• January 10 - Uniform penny postage introduced in the UK.
• January 19 - Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
• January 20 - Dumont D'Urville discovers Adélie Land, Antarctica.
• January 22 - British colonists reach New Zealand. Official founding date of Wellington, New Zealand.
• February 6 - Treaty of Waitangi, document granting British sovereignty in New Zealand, is signed.
• February 10 - Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.
• February 11 - Gaetano Donizetti's opera La Fille du Regiment premieres in Paris.
• May 1 - Great Britain issues the Penny Black, world's first postage stamp.
• May 6 - The Penny Black, world's first postage stamp becomes valid for the pre-payment of postage.
• October 7 - Willem II becomes King of the Netherlands.
• November - William Henry Harrison defeats Martin Van Buren in the U.S. presidential election.
• Mount Allison University is founded in Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada.

Year in topic

• 1840 in literature:
  • Two Years Before the Mast - Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
• 1840 in music
• 1840 in science

Births

• February 5 - John Boyd Dunlop, inventor (+ 1921)
• February 11 - Samuel Dana Greene, Lieutenant Commander (Union Navy)
• February 21 - Murat V, future Ottoman sultan
• February 22 - August Bebel, politician (+ 1913)
• February 23 - Carl Menger, economist
• February 29 - John Philip Holland, developer of the first submarine
• March 28 - Emin Pasha, German doctor, naturalist to Africa (+ 1892)
• April 2 - Emile Zola, writer (+ 1902)
• April 22 - Odilon Redon, painter
• April 27 - Edward Whymper, explorer - first ascent of the Matterhorn (1865)
• May 7 - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, composer (+ 1893)
• June 2 - Thomas Hardy, novelist (+ 1928)
• August 4 - Richard von Krafft-Ebing, sexologist
• November 12 - Auguste Rodin, sculptor
• November 14 - Claude Monet, painter
• November 21 - Victoria, Princess Royal, "Vicky," eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
• November 29 - Rhoda Broughton (+ 1920)

Deaths

• January 6 - Fanny Burney, novelist
• January 10 - Princess Elizabeth of the United Kingdom, Dowager Landgravine of Hesse-Homburg, aunt of Queen Victoria
• January 22 - Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, German anthropologist
• May 27 - Niccolo Paganini, violinist and composer
• June 7 - King Frederick William III of Prussia
• Emperor Kokaku of Japan

Heads of states

• Prussia
  • Frederick William III King of Prussia (1797-1840)
  • Frederick William IV King of Prussia (1840-1861)

Referenced By