1845

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

Years: 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 - 1845 - 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850

Events

• Beginning of the Irish potato famine.
• James Knox Polk succeeds John Tyler as President of the United States of America
• January 29 - The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time (New York Evening Mirror).
• March 1 - President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
• March 3 - Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.
• March 3 - For the first time the United States Congress passes legislation overriding a presidential veto.
• March 11 - First Maori War: Chiefs Kawiti and Hone-Heke leads 700 Maoris in the burning of the white settlement of Kororareka, now known as Russel.
• May 20 - The HMS Erebus and Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sail from the River Thames beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
• July 4 - Near Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau embarks on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond (see Walden).
• August 28 - Scientific American begins publication
• October 10 - In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors.
• October 13 - A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution, that if accepted by the United States Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.
• December 2 - Manifest Destiny: US President James Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
• December 27 - Anesthesia is used for childbirth for the first time (Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia).
• December 29 - Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.

• Second separation of Republic of Yucatan from Mexico

Year in topic

• 1845 in literature:
  • The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas, père
• 1845 in music
• 1845 in sports
• 1845 in science

Births

• March 3 - Georg Cantor, German mathematician (+ 1918)
• March 10 - Emperor Alexander III of Russia
• March 27 - Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in physics 1901 (+ 1923)
• May 12 - Gabriel Fauré, composer (+ 1924)
• May 17 - Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet
• May 30 - King Amadeus I of Spain
• July 19 - Horatio Nelson Young, American naval hero (+ 1913)
• August 25 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria (+ 1886)
• November 10 - John Sparrow David Thompson, Canadian prime minister.

Deaths

• May 12 - Janos Bacsanyi, Hungarian poet
• June 8 - Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the United States of America

Heads of state in 1845

Referenced By