1844

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

Years: 1839 1840 1841 1842 1843 - 1844 - 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849

Events

• First ever international Cricket match played in New York City between Canada and the United States.
• January 15 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana.
• February 27 - The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.
• May 23 - Persian Prophet The Báb announces His revelation, founding Bábism
• May 24 - First electrical telegram sent by Samuel Morse from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., saying "What hath God wrought?".
• June 6 - George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association in London, England.
• July 3 - The last pair of Great Auks is killed.
• August 8 - During a meeting held in Nauvoo, the Quorum of Twelve, headed by Brigham Young, is created as the leading body of the Mormon Church.
• October 22 - Date predicted by the Millerites for the Second Coming of Christ; leads to the Great Disappointment.
• November - James K. Polk defeats Henry Clay in the U.S. presidential election
• November 6 - The Dominican Republic gains its independence from Spain.
• Swedish chemistry professor Gustaf Erik Pasch invents the safety match

Year in topic

• 1844 in literature:
  • Barry Lyndon - William Makepeace Thackeray
• 1844 in science

Births

• February 17 - Montgomery Ward, department store founder
• February 20 - Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist
• February 20 - Joshua Slocum, seaman and adventurer (d. 1909)
• February 21 - Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer
• March 10 - Pablo de Sarasate, violinist (d. 1908)
• March 18 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer (d. 1908)
• March 30 - Paul Verlaine, lyric poet (d. 1896)
• May 17 - Julius Wellhausen, German biblical scholar (d. 1918)
• May 19 - Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1818)
• May 21 - Henri Rousseau, artist (d. 1910)
• May 22 - Mary Cassatt, artist
• May 23 - `Abdu'l-Bahá, Persian religious leader
• July 11 - King Peter I of Serbia
• July 22 - William Archibald Spooner, British scholar and Anglican priest .
• August 6 - Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom, later Duke of Edinburgh and Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria
• August 22 - George Washington DeLong, American naval officer/ill-fated explorer (d. 1881)
• October 15 - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
• October 22 - Louis Riel, Metis leader
• October 22 - Sarah Bernhardt, French actress
• November 2 - Mehmed V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (d. 1918)
• November 23 - Karl Benz,German automotive pioneer
• December 1 - Alexandra of Denmark, later Queen Consort of Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Deaths

• Charles Nodier, French writer
• February 27 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States
• July 27 - John Dalton, English chemist and physicist
• June 27 - Joseph Smith, American religious leader

Referenced By