Drift stately canals of Mars.

Escort caravans through the desert domains of the steppe nomads. Fight the winged warriors and cloud ships of the Martian Sky Lords.

Undertake a secret mission for the crown on Venus.

Elude the agents of the Kaiser; avoid capture by the German war zeppelins; survive the steaming, Venusian swamps, with their savage amphibious natives and gigantic dinosaurs.
Explore the mysterious caverns and grottos of Luna. Venture deep into the dark interior on search of the Selenites.

Time Line

1638	Rene Descartes proposed the idea of one all-pervasive ether, believed by 19th-century physicists to be universal and to be the necessary medium for the propagation of electromagnetic radiation.
1667	Robert Hooke writes that color may be explained as differences in the rate of vibration of light in the ether.
1675	Observations of the eclipses of Jupiter's moons show that light transmission is not instantaneous.
1700s	Newton's particle interpretation of light is disproven. The theory that light is a wave moving through the ether gains ground.
1783	June 4, Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier launched an unmanned hot-air balloon, the first public demonstration of the discovery that hot air in a large lightweight bag rises.
1788	May 28, The Federalist papers—a series of 85 essays on the proposed new U.S. Constitution and on the nature of republican government, written in 1787–88 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—were published in book form.
1796	Struck by a milkmaid's observation that she would never develop smallpox as she had once had cowpox, Jenner inoculates a healthy 8-year-old boy with material from a cowpox sore on the hand of the milkmaid. When exposed to smallpox, the boy fails to develop the disease. Jenner begins a series of experiments in transferring cowpox (vaccinia virus) arm to arm. Each vaccinated individual is later proven resistant to smallpox.
1804	The first self-propelling steam engine or steam locomotive made its outing on 13 February 1804 at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks. The machine was designed by Richard Trevithick. The engine was able to pull a load of 15 tons at a speed of about 5 mph. However, adhesion was a problem (iron wheels on iron rails = slipping). This was partially solved by Blenkinsop who in 1811 designed an engine for the Middleton Colliery, using cogged wheels engaging in racks on the railway. Side and front views of Puffing Billy. Deutches Museum, Munich. Photo by G. P. Landow, June 2000. The problem of adhesion was finally solved by William Hedley with a design which applied power to the rails through two sets of Driving wheels. The locomotive was called Puffing Billy and operated at the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle. George Stephenson, who lived near this colliery designed his first locomotive -- Blucher in 1814 again, for a colliery. May, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark begin the first U.S. overland expedition to the Pacific coast. May 28, Napoleon proclaimed the establishment of the French Empire.
1806	March 23, Lewis and Clark's return trip begun. Having completed the first U.S. overland expedition to the Pacific coast, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark this day in 1806 began their return to St. Louis, Missouri, where their journey had begun in May 1804.
1807	The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807. The act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within the British Empire, but the trade continued and captains in danger of being caught by the Royal Navy would often throw slaves into the sea to reduce the fine. After the 1807 act, slaves were still held, though not sold, within the British Empire. In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement again became active, this time campaigning against the institution of slavery itself. This French poster (click on picture for larger version) depicting the horrific conditions on slave ships was influential in mobilizing public opinion against slavery. March 29, German astronomer Wilhelm Olbers discovered the minor planet Vesta, the brightest asteroid in the sky.
1810	May 25, having severed ties with Spain and the viceregal government, the municipal council of Buenos Aires, Argentina, established an autonomous government.
1811	The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 was a proposal by the New York State Legislature adopted in 1811 for the orderly development and sale of the land of Manhattan between 14th Street and Washington Heights.
1812	June 18, TheWar of 1812 beguns. U.S. President James Madison signed a declaration of war against Great Britain, initiating the War of 1812, which arose chiefly from U.S. grievances over oppressive maritime practices during the Napoleonic Wars. June 24, French Emperor Napoleon—who had massed his troops in Poland in the spring to intimidate Russian Tsar Alexander I—and 600,000 troops of his Grand Army launched an ill-fated invasion of Russia.
1814	March 27, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (Tohopeka, Alabama) in the Creek War, Andrew Jackson and his 3,000 troops defeated the Creek Indians, slaughtering more than 800 warriors and imprisoning 500 women and children. April 11, on this day, during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Napoleon was facing an invasion of France by forces bent on his overthrow and, pressed by his own officers, abdicated unconditionally at Fontainebleau. Louis XVIII Crowned King of France Louis XVIII was crowned king of France on the abdication of Napoleon I in 1814 and returned to France in 1814 after years of exile in Europe. When Napoleon seized power in 1815, Louis returned to exile in Belgium. He was restored to the throne following Napoleon’s exile to Elba, and reigned until 1824. May 30, the first of the Treaties of Paris was signed, ending the Napoleonic Wars. September 1814 - June 1815 The Congress of Vienna which convened at the Austrian capital from September 1814 to June 1815, was a major event in the history of international relations. It was a high-powered conference that took place after the downfall of Napoleon I. Its ambition was to reorganize Europe after the disruptions created by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Among the notable participants were Metternich (seventh from the left, standing) and Talleyrand (sitting, on his right, his arm resting on the table). It succeeded in re-establishing the balance of power in Europe, politically and territorially, for almost half a century. Its territorial decisions affected almost all European countries: France, the German and Italian states, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia, and Scandinavia.
1815	March 20, The Hundred Days—during which Napoleon, having ended his exile by escaping the island of Elba, would try to recapture his empire in France—began with Napoleon's arrival in Paris. April 11, The eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia, killed about 10,000 people. June 18, Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo, ending 23 years of recurrent warfare between France and the other powers of Europe. November 20, 1815 The Treaty of Paris was signed following the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and his exile to Elba. Its terms were more severe than those of the 1814 agreement: France was forced to accept the boundaries of 1790, pay a war indemnity, and finance an allied occupation force. Humphry Davy Invents the Miner's Safety Lamp. Sir Humphry Davy, a British chemist, is best known for his invention of the miner’s safety lamp in 1815. Davy also conducted fundamental research in the field of electrochemistry and constructed a large battery with which to pass electric current through solutions of compounds to investigate their composition. He used this method to isolate sodium, potassium, and calcium and went on to discover boron and demonstrate that diamonds are composed of carbon.
1817	Cholera broke out in Calcutta in 1817 with grand - scale results. India's traditional, great Kumbh festival at Hardwar in the Upper Ganges triggered the outbreak. The festival lasts three months, drawing pilgrims from all over the country. Those from the Lower Bengal brought the disease with them as they shared the polluted water of the Ganges and the open, crowded camps on its banks. Cholera was a rare disease, as far as we know, confined to the Ganges delta in India before the 1800s, when it became the world's first truly global disease in a series of epidemics. When the festival was over, they carried cholera back to their homes in other parts of India. There is no reliable evidence of how many Indians perished during that epidemic, but the British army counted 10,000 fatalities among its imperial troops. Based on those numbers, it's almost certain that at least hundreds of thousands of natives must have fallen victim across that vast land. When the festival ended, cholera raged along the trade routes to Iran, Baku and Astrakhan and up the Volga into Russia, where merchants gathered for the great autumn fair in Nijni-Novgorod. When the merchants went back to their homes in inner Russia and eastern Europe, the disease went along with them. Cholera sailed from port to port, the bacteria making headway in contaminated kegs of water or in the excrement of infected victims, and transmitted by travelers. The exceptioinally cold winter of 1823-24 is credited for preventing the spread of the disease to western Europe. For the moment, the western world had been spared, but by 1827 cholera had become the most feared disease of the century.
1819	29th January, British East India Company administrator Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles founded modern Singapore and first mooted the idea which led to the establishment of the Raffles Museum on the island. Thomas Stamford Raffles was born at sea on board a ship Ann on the 6th of July, 1781 off the coast of Jamaica. In 1795, the young man accepted his first job in the East India Company as a clerk. But he studied hard in his spare time and in 1804, was posted to Penang (then Prince of Wales Island) and promoted to Assistant Secretary to the Presidency of that Malaysian island. His mastery over the Malay language made him indispensable to the British Government, and he was later appointed Malay translator to the Government of India. In 1811, he returned as the Lieutenant Governor of Java, and was soon promoted to Governor of Bencoolen (now Sumatra). Stamford Raffles was deeply fascinated by the immense diversity of strange animals and plants of the East Indies during his tenure there. He soon employed zoologists and botanists to discover all they can about the animals and plants of the region and would pay his assistants out of his own pockets to collect specimens. He also revived and became the president of the Batavian Society which was actively engaged in the study of natural history of Java and adjacent areas. May 24 The future Queen Victoria born. Victoria was the daughter of Edward, the Duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. She was born in Kensington Palace in London on May 24th, 1819. Oersted Discovers Magnetic Effect of Electric Current. Hans Christian Oersted, a Danish physicist and chemist, is best known for his fundamental research in electromagnetism. In 1819 he observed the deflection of a magnetic needle at right angles to a wire carrying an electric current revealing the connection between magnetism and electricity. This discovery laid the foundations for the study of electromagnetism. In 1844 he summarized the results of his research work in the book, Manual of Mechanical Physics. Albert (Prince Consort) (1819-1861), second son of Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and husband of Victoria was born at Rosenau, near the town of Coburg. When Albert married Victoria, his first cousin, in 1839—they were both 20—he moved from Europe’s princely periphery, a small German duchy, to what was to become during the 19th century the heart of Europe’s royal network, the Court of London. It was not until 1857, however, that the Privy Council gave him the title of Prince Consort. Albert, who was educated privately and read law for a year at the University of Bonn before visiting Italy, remained intensely interested in German politics, particularly the politics of constitutionalism and of unification. After his marriage, which from the start was a marriage of love, however, his main commitments and obligations were in Britain. His role was an important, sometimes controversial one. One of his critics complained in 1854 that it was “too much that one man, and he not an Englishman by birth, should be at once Foreign Secretary, Commander-in-Chief, and Prime Minister under all administrations”. Of course, Albert held none of these titles, and the complaint was grossly exaggerated. He was a hard worker and was to die young in December 1861, from typhoid. The Queen, in an “agony of grief”, was “inconsolable”: she did not know what she would do without him. His life and work was commemorated in central London in the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall, both characteristic monuments of their age, an age of which he was not only an accomplished and distinguished representative; but a guide through what he called “a period of the most wonderful transition”. August 16th, "Peterloo Massacre". A mass meeting was arranged by the Manchester radicals to hear Richard Carlile and Henry 'Orator' Hunt, a speaker who advocated annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and the ballot. It was a glorious summer's day, and contingents from all those satellite towns poured into Manchester gathering in St. Peter's Fields, Trouble arose between the crowd and the Lancashire militia who were present on the plea of preserving order. The troops charged and killed several persons, to the intense indignation of radical sympathizers in every part of Great Britain. The incident quickly became known as the Peterloo Massacre - an allusion to the Battle of Waterloo four years earlier. Even some of the mill masters were horrified. Rochdale millowner Thomas Chadwick, who was at the scene, described the massacre as: "An inhuman outrage committed on an unarmed, peaceful assembly." To add insult to injury, Hunt, Sam Bamford (who had led the Middleton contingent but had taken no part in the speeches), and several others were arrested. Hunt, Bamford and two others were convicted of "being persons of a wicked and turbulent disposition" they had "conspired together to create a disturbance of the peace ...in a formidable and menacing manner, with sticks, clubs and other offensive weapons." Hunt got two and a half years' gaol, the others a year each. Manchester Yeomanry charge at Peterloo SABRES aloft, Manchester Yeomanry charge into the crowd at Peterloo William Parry explores the Northwest Passage South Shetland Islands discovered by British explorer William Smith
1820	Charles Babbage begins work on his Difference Engine British mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage is famed for his pioneering development of calculating machines. In the 1820s he began work on the Difference Engine, a mechanical device capable of carrying out simple mathematical operations. The Difference Engine was designed to produce logarithm tables that could be printed out with great clarity. In the 1830s he designed the Analytical Engine for more complicated calculations.
1821	June 24, South American patriots under Simón Bolívar defeated Spanish royalists on the plains near Caracas, Venezuela, in the Battle of Carabobo.
1822	May 24, part of the Latin American wars of independence from Spanish rule, the Battle of Pichincha took place on the lower slopes of Cerro Pichincha and ended in victory for South American rebels. Charles Babbage (1792-1871) designed his first mechanical computer, the first prototype for the difference engine. Babbage invented 2 machines the Analytical Engine (a general purpose mathematical device, see 1834) and the Difference Engine (a re-invention of Mueller's 1786 machine for solving polynomials), both machines were too complicated to be built (although attempt was made in 1832) - but the theories worked. The analytical engine (outlined in 1833) involved many processes similar to the early electronic computers - notably the use of punched cards for input. Georges Cuvier established new standards and methods in stratigraphy and palaeontology Phillips and Conybeare identify the Carboniferous Period d'Halloy identifies the Cretaceous Period (creta, chalk). He also proposed the Jurassic System Liberia established as a country for freed slaves. Friedrich Mohs introduces his system of classifying minerals and his scale of mineral hardness. Mary Ann Mantell discovers the first fossil to be recognised as a dinosaur, named iguanodon by her husband Gideon Algernon Mantell Rene-Just Hauy published Treaty of crystallography, and is regarded as the father of crystallography thanks to his law of rational truncations and with the rigorous writing of the rules of symmetry, which allow the distinction between the 7 crystal systems including some secondary outer shapes
1823	The first public railway was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which opened in 1823 with Stephenson designed locos, the first of which was called Locomotion. Mammoth and human bones unearthed together on the Gower Peninsula, Wales, indicating that the two species co-existed. The Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1823. Many of the campaigners were those who had previously campaigned against the slave trade. December 2, The Monroe Doctrine was expressed during President Monroe's seventh annual message to Congress. While the U.S.A. was not yet a world power, the European powers, according to Monroe, were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of interest. Transcript of Monroe Doctrine (1823) At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal has been made by His Imperial Majesty to the Government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The Government of the United States has been desirous by this friendly proceeding of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached to the friendship of the Emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his Government. In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. . . It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be remarked that the results have been so far very different from what was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe, with which we have so much intercourse and from which we derive our origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective Governments; and to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgement of the competent authorities of this Government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security. The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on any principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on the same principle, is a question in which all independent powers whose governments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote, and surely none of them more so than the United States. Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in regard to those continents circumstances are eminently and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in hope that other powers will pursue the same course. . . . Transcription courtesy of the Avalon Project at Yale Law School.
1825	Georges Cuvier announces his catastrophe theory. September 27, Stockton-Darlington Railway Opened. English engineer George Stephenson is best known as the pioneer of the steam locomotive. On September 27, 1825, the Locomotion, a steam locomotive designed by Stephenson, pulled the first train on the Stockton to Darlington Railway. In 1830, the Liverpool to Manchester Railway was opened, for which he had designed his famous Rocket steam locomotive. Stephenson had thus demonstrated the potential for railway transport. The railways became very popular with passengers. Stephenson was involved in the development of the London to Birmingham, Manchester to Leeds, and other railways. World population reached 1 billion. Completion of the Erie Canal, a 360 mile waterway linking Lake Erie to the Atlantic coast and dramatically reducing the cost of bringing goods to the New York area. Miramichi Fire in New Brunswick burned three million acres and left 160 people dead.
1826	Pierre Dupin produces a cartogram of France, the first chloropleth map (also dated to 1819). The Zoological Society of London (sometimes known by the abbreviation ZSL) is a learned society founded in April 1826 by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Lord Auckland, Sir Humphry Davy, Joseph Sabine, Nicholas Aylward Vigors and other eminent naturalists. Raffles was also the first President, but died shortly after assuming this office in July 1826. He was succeeded by the Marquess of Lansdowne, who obtained a parcel of land in Regent's Park from the Crown at a nominal rent, and who supervised the building of the first animal houses. It received a Royal Charter from George IV on 27 March 1829. July 5, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles passed away a day before his 45th birthday in 1826. A few years earlier, in 1821 and 1822, he contributed two papers in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, London, with descriptions of some 34 species of birds and 13 species of mammals, chiefly from Sumatra. Most of the new species he named are valid today, and these animals will continue to remind us of the contributions he has made. Animals named by Raffles himself include:
1827	March 26, Ludwig van Beethoven died of cirrhosis of the liver in Vienna. October 20 The Battle of Navarino which is a decisive naval engagement during the Greek War of Independence. The combined fleets of Britain, France, and Russia sailed into Navarino Bay in the south-west of modern-day Greece to stop the Ottoman fleet under Ibrahim Pasha. The Turko-Egyptian fleet was annihilated, which led to the Turkish evacuation of Greece. Jean-Baptiste Fourier proposed the existence of an atmospheric effect which keeps the Earth warmer than expected (ozone layer). Niepce takes first picture of nature from a window view of the French countryside using a camera obscura. In 1827, Britain declared that participation in the slave trade was piracy and punishable by death.
1828	Paul Erman measures the magnetic field of the Earth; his measurements become the basis for Gauss's theory of Earth's magnetic field.
1829	The Rocket's claim to fame was that it competed in and won a competition now known as the Rainhill Trials. This was 1829. The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway invited designers to submit their locomotives to a test for a 500 pounds prize. Besides the Rocket, two other machines competed - Sanspareil and Novelty. Rocket won for its all round competence. French tailor Barthélemy Thimonnier developed the first practical sewing machine. Thimonnier’s machine utilized a needle with a hooked-tip that moved up and down by means of a foot treadle and a return spring. The machine produced a chain stitch. Thimonnier did not benefit from his invention: when he tried to install 80 machines into a clothing factory in Paris, they were sabotaged by tailors worried that they would lose their livelihood.
1830	April 6, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formed by American prophet Joseph Smith at Fayette, New York. May 24, the first line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened with the maiden trip of Peter Cooper's locomotive Tom Thumb. May 28, the Indian Removal Act was passed, allowing U.S. President Andrew Jackson to grant American Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their settlements within the borders of extant U.S. states, thereby clearing the way for further white settlement. Foundation of the Royal Geographical Society. Charles Lyell published "The principles of geology". He suggests a subdivision of the Tertiary, (Pliocene, Miocene, Eocene) Period based on the relative number of fossils similar to living forms. His subdivision is still largely accepted. His studies show that the Earth must be several million years old. Colonel Sir George Everest becomes the Surveyor General of India
1831	Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction. British physicist and chemist Michael Faraday is renowned for his discovery of electromagnetic induction and for his formulation of the laws of electrolysis. In 1831 he discovered the phenomenon of magnetic induction, and went on to demonstrate the induction of one electric current by another. In his research into electrolysis, he coined the terms “anode”, “cathode”, “anion”, and “cation”, and formulated two fundamental laws. He demonstrated the existence of diamagnetism, and the effect of a magnetic field on polarized light. Charles Darwin begins his historic Beagle voyages. James Ross explores the Northwest Passage in both directions.
1832	Omani Busaidi Dynasty relocates its head of government to the island of Zanzibar. Charles Babbage and Joseph Clement produce a prototype segment of his difference engine, which operates on 6-digit numbers and 2nd-order differences (i.e. can tabulate quadratic polynomials). The complete engine, which would be room-sized, is planned to be able to operate both on 6th-order differences with numbers of about 20 digits, and on 3rd-order differences with numbers of 30 digits. Each addition would be done in two phases, the second one taking care of any carries generated in the first. The output digits would be punched into a soft metal plate, from which a plate for a printing press could be made. But there are various difficulties, and no more than this prototype piece is ever assembled.
1833	August 23, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act. This act gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom. The British government paid compensation to the slave owners. The amount that the plantation owners received depended on the number of slaves that they had. For example, the Bishop of Exeter's 665 slaves resulted in him receiving £12,700.
1834	August 1, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was finally abolished in 1838. George Scheutz, of Stockholm, produces a small difference engine in wood, after reading a brief description of Babbage's project. Babbage conceives, and begins to design, his "Analytical Engine". The program was stored on read-only memory, specifically in the form of punch cards. Babbage continues to work on the design for years, though after about 1840 the changes are minor. The machine would operate on 40-digit numbers; the "mill" (CPU) would have 2 main accumulators and some auxiliary ones for specific purposes, while the "store" (memory) would hold perhaps 100 more numbers. There would be several punch card readers, for both programs and data; the cards would be chained and the motion of each chain could be reversed. The machine would be able to perform conditional jumps. There would also be a form of microcoding: the meaning of instructions would depend on the positioning of metal studs in a slotted barrel, called the "control barrel". The machine would do an addition in 3 seconds and a multiplication or division in 2-4 minutes.
1835	November 7, The first Texas provisional government was formed at San Felipe de Austin. This council passed a declaration of support for the 1824 Mexican constitution, and appointed a governor and other officials. This council stopped short of declaring Texas independence. December 20, The first declaration of independence for modern Texas, by both Anglo-Texian settlers and local Tejanos, was signed in Goliad .
1836	March 2, The Convention of 1836 was convened at Washington-on-the-Brazos with Richard Ellis presiding, and the Texas Declaration of Independence was enacted effectively creating the independent, white-ruled Republic of Texas. Ten years of independence brought the Texas republic epidemics, financial crises and continued clashes with Mexico. But enduring Texas imagery was born in this period: the American cowboy; Texas Rangers with their Colt six-shooters; the rugged individualism of Sam Houston. On December 29, 1845, Texas joined the United States. March 6, The thirteen day Siege of the Alamo ended as Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna's forces defeated the 183 Texans defending the small mission (which would eventually become the center of the city of San Antonio). Remember the Alamo! became the battle cry of the Texas Revolution. April 21, Sam Houston defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, near the present-day city of Houston. General Santa Anna's entire force of 1,600 men were killed or captured by Texas General Sam Houston's army of 800 Texans; only nine Texans died. May 1836, Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southern and western limit, according to the Treaties of Velasco. Mexico rejected the treaty as invalid and refused to recognize the existence of the Republic of Texas, although it was recognized by every other major power. Mexico insisted that Texas remained its province. Texas tried to gain recognition from Mexico as an independent state, putting the Nueces as the territorial limit in the negotiation table, to no avail. The British tried to mediate but the Mexican government refused to accept mediation. The Republic of Texas The map includes the following headings: A Map of TEXAS COMPILED FROM SURVEYS RECORDED IN THE LAND OFFICE OF TEXAS John Arrowsmith LONDON
1837	February 10, Russian author Aleksandr Pushkin was killed in a duel defending his wife's honour. June 20 1837 Queen Victoria ascended to the throne after the death of her uncle William IV. Due to her secluded childhood, she displayed a personality marked by strong prejudices and a willful stubbornness. Barely eighteen, she refused any further influence from her domineering mother and ruled in her own stead. When Victoria ascended the throne the monarchy had fallen into disrepute and Popular respect for the Crown was at a low point at her coronation. Victoria was just over 18 years old when she became Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, an unknown figure but with the help of her chief adviser, Lord Melbourne, and of her husband, Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whom she married in 1840, Victoria set out to restore the monarchy's respectability. The modest and straightforward young Queen won the hearts of her subjects. She wished to be informed of political matters, although she had no direct input in policy decisions. The Reform Act of 1832 had set the standard of legislative authority residing in the House of Lords, with executive authority resting within a cabinet formed of members of the House of Commons; the monarch was essentially removed from the loop. She respected and worked well with Lord Melbourne (Prime Minister in the early years of her reign) and England grew both socially and economically. Omani Muzrui Dynasty wrestles control of Mombasa from the Busaidi.
1838	April 8, The Great Western, the earliest regular transatlantic steamer, embarked on its maiden voyage from Bristol, England, to New York City. Regular steamship service begins across the Atlantic Ocean.
1839	Former slave-owning sugar planters riot in Jamaica, forcing a showdown between Prime Minister Robert Peel and Queen Victoria. The Queen triumphs and order is soon restored.
1840	February 6, Maori tribes of New Zealand signed the Treaty of Waitangi with Great Britain, a historic agreement purported to protect Maori rights that was the immediate basis of the British annexation of New Zealand. February 10, only three years after taking the throne, Victoria took her first vow and married her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Their relationship was one of great love and admiration. Together they bore nine children - four sons and five daughters: Victoria, Bertie, Alice, Alfred, Helena, Louise, Arthur, Leopold, and Beatrice. Prince Albert replaced Melbourne as the dominant male influence in Victoria's life. She was thoroughly devoted to him, and completely submitted to his will. Victoria did nothing without her husband's approval. Albert assisted in her royal duties. He introduced a strict decorum in court and made a point of straitlaced behavior. Albert also gave a more conservative tinge to Victoria’s politics. If Victoria was to insistently interject her opinions and make her views felt in the cabinet, it was only because of Albert’s teachings of hard work. March 30, The English dandy Beau Brummell died, destitute and mad, in Caen, France. 1 May 1840, The first official adhesive postage stamp is introduced by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for use from 6 May. It depicts Queen Victoria and is called the "Penny Black". Although all London post offices received official issues of the new stamps, other offices throughout the United Kingdom did not, and continued to accept postage payments in cash only for some time. Post offices in some other localities, such as those in the city of Bath, began offering the stamp unofficially after 2 May. June, China bans the lucrative British practice of opium trading. The Opium Wars between Britain and China begin. 23 July, in an effort to prevent American expansion into British territory, Canada is granted partial independence from Britain.
1842	The Opium Wars between Great Britain and China end. China cedes Hong Kong back to the British, who reopen the city's ports for trade. Babbage's difference engine project is officially cancelled. (The cost overruns have been considerable, and Babbage is spending too much time on redesigning the Analytical Engine.)
1843	Opening of the Thames Tunnel, constructed by Sir Marc Brunel and his son Isambard in London. Geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin is one of the first people to realize that there were several ice ages.
1844	24 May, Inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872), an American, painter of portraits and historic scenes, and co-inventor (with Alfred Vail) of the Morse Code, sends his famous first telegraph message, "What hath God wrought" to officially open the first telegraph line which ran along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between the US Capitol and Baltimore. 6 June, George Williams originated the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London. Johann Ludwig Krapf establishes a mission on the outskirts of Mombasa.
1845	February 28, The U.S. Congress passed a bill that would authorize the United States to annex the Republic of Texas over Mexican and British objections. Two companies, the East Indian Railway Company operating from Calcutta, and the Great Indian Peninsula Railway (GIPR) operating from Bombay, are formed. March 1, U.S. President John Tyler signed the bill that would authorize the United States to annex the Republic of Texas. The legislation set the date for annexation for December 29 of the same year. October 13, a majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approved a proposed constitution that was later accepted by the US Congress, making Texas a U.S. state on the same day annexation took effect (therefore bypassing a territorial phase). One of the primary motivations for annexation was that the Texas government had incurred huge debts which the United States agreed to assume upon annexation. The red, white and blue flag with its lone star adopted by the republic in 1839 became the state flag. Sam Houston favored the annexation of Texas to the United States, and was elected its first United States Senator in 1846. In that station he remained until 1859, when he was chosen governor of Texas. The annexation resolution has been the topic of some incorrect historical beliefs—chiefly, that the resolution granted Texas the explicit right to secede from the Union. This was a right argued by some to be implicitly held by all states at the time, up until the conclusion of the Civil War. However, no such right was explicitly enumerated in the resolution. The resolution did include two unique provisions: first, it gave the new state of Texas the right to divide itself into as many as five states with approval of its legislature. Second, Texas did not have to surrender its public lands to the federal government. While Texas did cede all territory outside of its current area to the federal government in 1850, it did not cede any public lands within its current boundaries. This means that generally, the only lands owned by the federal government within Texas have actually been purchased by the government. Blight strikes the potato crop in Ireland. The Great Famine or the Great Hunger (Irish: An Gorta Mór or An Drochshaol) is the name given to the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1849. The Famine was partly due to "the (potato) Blight" (also known as phytophthora)– the oomycete that almost instantly destroyed the primary food source for many Irish people. Serious famine develops because, at the time, over six million people in Britain and Ireland subsist almost completely on potatoes. The Potato Famine leads to a massive Irish emigration to Great Britain, the United States, Canada, and Australia. First Arab slave traders arrive in Uganda.
1846	February 10, The British beat the Sikhs in northwestern India at the Battle of Sobraon, the most decisive engagement of the First Sikh War. May 13, tensions between Mexico and the United States—stemming from the U.S. annexation of Texas (1845)—led the U.S. Congress on this day in 1846 to approve overwhelmingly a declaration of war against its southern neighbour. June 14, The Bear Flag Republic was declared in California in an informal rebellion that lasted less than a month. Before the Bear Flag Republic was declared, California was a department of Mexico called Alta California. In the 1840's, American pioneers traveled in large wagon trains from Missouri to Alta California only to be met by this frustrating news. At dawn on June 14, 1846, thirty-three heavily-armed Americans gathered at the fortified adobe home of General Mariano Vallejo, on the north side of Sonoma's Plaza in California. These rebellious white settlers from the Grigsby-Ide party, some mountain men and explorers, but all displeased with Mexican rule pounded on the adobe door and loudly demanded the General come out and surrender the little fortress to them. Vallejo quickly donned his dress uniform, then opened the door and invited three representatives of the group in for breakfast and wine. The General's military bearing and immaculate uniform must have contrasted starkly with the clothing of his "visitors." Some of the Americans wore buckskins, others wore their work clothes, still others wore only what rags they had picked up or made during their travels. Robert Semple, a member of the group, later noted in his memoirs that the party "was as rough a looking set of men as one could imagine." Because Vallejo realized that Mexican rule was inadequate to manage an area as large and rich as California, he had been hoping the United States would annex the region. He told the Americans that morning to consider him one of them. The group was wary; they respectfully informed him he was under arrest and sent him to Sutter's Fort for safeguarding. Vallejo would eventually return to Sonoma after the U.S. took control of California. He would go on to serve as a delegate to the California Constitutional Convention, and later as a State Senator. Having won such a surprising and effortless victory, the Americans, (now twenty-four strong), were at a temporary loss. Some suggested looting the adobe, which was also an arsenal, but William Ide made an impassioned plea for restraint, "Choose ye this day what you will be! We are robbers, or we must be conquerors!" To legitimize their conquest, the rebels decided to raise a new flag over the plaza. By most accounts, the making of this flag was overseen by William L. Todd, a nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the future president. A Californio woman donated a rectangular piece of very light brown muslin. The wife of John Sears, one of the Grigsby-Ide party, tore a four-inch wide strip from a red petticoat and sewed it to the muslin, making a stripe along the bottom reminiscent of the stripes on the American flag. Todd then drew a star in the upper left corner (some say in solidarity with Texas, then also fighting a war with Mexico) and a crude rendition of a grizzly bear next to it, using for both a brownish mixture of brick dust, linseed oil, and Venetian Red paint. The words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC were written in black in the middle, to the right of the star. Ten days later, U.S. Army Captain John C. Frémont took control. The republic's first and only president was William B. Ide, whose term lasted twenty-five days. June 19, Alexander Joy Cartwright arranged a baseball game between the New York Knickerbockers and the New York Nine at Hoboken, New Jersey—the first baseball game to use the set of rules on which today's game is based. July 7, a frigate and two sloops of the U.S. Navy, commanded by John D. Sloat, routed the detachment of the Mexican Coast Guard garrisoning the port of Monterey, California in a minor skirmish (the Battle of Monterey), and alerted Frémont and his men that the Mexican-American War had begun. The "Bear Flaggers" joined the war effort and replaced their flag with the Stars and Stripes.
1847	January 30, The town of Yerba Beuna officially renamed as San Fransisco. AN ORDINANCE WHEREAS, the local name of Yerba Buena, as applied to the settlement or town of San Francisco, is unknown beyond the district; and has been applied from the local name of the cove, on which the town is built: Therefore, to prevent confusion and mistakes in public documents, and that the town may have the advantage of the name given on the public map; IT IS HEREBY ORDAINED, that the name of SAN FRANCISCO shall hereafter be used in all official communications and public documents, or records appertaining to the town. – Washington Bartlett, Chief magistrate January 30, 1847 February 2, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signedbetween the United States and Mexico ending the Mexican War. It was signed at Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo, which is a northern neighbourhood of Mexico City. The treaty drew the boundary between the United States and Mexico at the Rio Grande and the Gila River; for a payment of $15,000,000 the United States received more than 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 square km) of land (now Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah) from Mexico and in return agreed to settle the more than $3,000,000 in claims made by U.S. citizens against Mexico. With this annexation, the continental expansion of the United States was completed except for the land added in the Gadsden Purchase (1853). The treaty helped precipitate civil war in both Mexico and the United States. In Mexico it left many citizens unsure of their country's future as an independent state; political extremism followed, and civil war broke out at the end of 1857. The expansion of slavery in the United States had been settled by the Missouri Compromise (1820), but addition of the vast Mexican tract as new U.S. territory reopened the question. Attempts to settle it led to the uneasy Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854). February 11 Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the ether propellor, phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and many other devices that make our lives fuller and simpler, was born in Milan, Ohio. June 10, The Chicago Tribune, one of the leading daily American newspapers and long the dominant, sometimes strident, voice of the Midwest, began publication. Babbage designs an improved, simpler difference engine, a project which took 2 years. The machine could operate on 7th-order differences and 31-digit numbers, this device would become the first product of Babbage's newly formed Imperial Business Machines (IBM) company. Chloroform, also known as trichloromethane and methyl trichloride, is a chemical compound with formula CHCl₃. is used for the first time by the Edinburgh obstetrician James Young Simpson to provide general anesthesia during childbirth. The use of chloroform during surgery expanded rapidly thereafter in Europe.
1848	January, Gold discovered in California. "It was in the first part of January, 1848, when the gold was discovered at Coloma, where I was then building a saw-mill. -- The Discovery of Gold in California" - by Gen. John A. Sutter Kelvin temperature scale established. 'Science' magazine first published. May 29, Wisconsin became the 30th state of the Union. Queen's College for Women is founded in London. First attempt to survey "Peak b" (now known as Everest) records a height of 30,200 feet. General public admitted to zoological gardens in Regents Park for the first time. Johann Rebmann, in the employment of the Church Missionary Society, sights the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Johann Ludwig Krapf, a collegue of Rebmann's, becomes the first European to sight Mount Kenya.
1849	March 23, At the Battle of Novara, during the first Italian War of Independence, outnumbered Austrian troops under Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky destroyed the poorly trained Italian troops of Charles Albert, king of Sardinia-Piedmont. The first of the great fires that visited San Francisco occurred at 6 o’clock on the morning of December 24, 1849, when it was estimated that $1,000,000 worth of property was destroyed. Discovery of the continental slope and the continental shelf break. Start of major drought in Arizona; it lasts until 1905. Harrod's department store is founded in London's Knightsbridge. The world's first women's rights conventionis held in New York. The first machine gun is introduced. Gold is discovered in California and Australia.
1850	April 4, With a population totaling about 1,600, Los Angeles was incorporated as an American city. A telegraph cable is laid along the seabed of the English Channel.
1851	The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. In 1851 Great Britain was arguably the leader of the industrial revolution, with a population of 21 million, and feeling very secure in that ideal. The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London was conceived to symbolize this industrial, military and economic superiority of Great Britain. Just representing the feats of Britain itself would have excluded many of the technological achievements pioneered by the British in its many colonies and protectorates, so it was decided to make the exhibit truly international with invitations being extended to almost all of the colonized world. The British also felt that it was important to show their achievements right alongside those of "less civilized" countries. The prevailing attitude in England at the time was ripe for the somewhat arrogant parading of accomplishments. Many felt secure, economically and politically, and Queen Victoria was eager to reinforce the feeling of contentment with her reign. It was during the mid-1850s that the word "Victorian" began to be employed to express a new self-consciousness, both in relation to the nation and to the period through which it was passing. The exhibition was also a triumph for Victoria's German husband, Albert, whom she had married in 1840. Despite outbursts of opposition to Albert by the press the family life of the Victorian court began to be considered increasingly as a model for the whole country. Albert had appreciated the achievements of Prime Minister Robert Peel's political and military advances and publicly advocated the advancement of industry and science. These facts began to sway opinion in his favor as respectable foundations of family life and industrial supremacy were becoming rapidly acquainted with the monarchy of Victoria and Albert. Conceived by prince Albert, the Great Exhibition was held in Hyde Park in London in the specially constructed Crystal Palace. The Crystal Palace was originally designed by Sir Joseph Paxton in only 10 days and was a huge iron goliath with over a million feet of glass. It was important that the building used to showcase these achievements be grandiose and innovative. Over 13,000 exhibits were displayed and viewed by over 6,200,000 visitors to the exhibition. The millions of visitors that journeyed to the Great Exhibition of 1851 marveled at the industrial revolution that was propelling Britain into the greatest power of the time. Among the 13,000 exhibits from all around the world were the Jacquard loom, an envelope machine, tools, kitchen appliances, steel-making displays and a reaping machine from the United States. The objects on display came from all parts of the world, including India and the countries with recent white settlements, such as Australia and New Zealand, that constituted the new empire. Many of the visitors who flocked to London came from European cities. The profits from the event allowed for the foundation of public works such as the Albert Hall, the Science Museum, the National History Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. This "bigger and better" building was divided into a series of courts depicting the history of art and architecture from ancient Egypt through the Renaissance, as well as exhibits from industry and the natural world. Major concerts were held in the Palace's huge arched Centre Transept, which also contained the world's largest organ. The Centre Transept also housed a circus and was the scene of daring feats by world famous acts such as the tightrope walker Blondin. National exhibitions were also staged within its glass and iron walls, including the world's first aeronautical exhibition (held in 1868) and the first national motor show, plus cat shows, dog shows, pigeon shows, honey, flower and other shows. The Crystal Palace itself was almost outshone by the park in which it stood, which contained a magnificent series of fountains, comprising almost 12,000 individual jets. The largest of these threw water to a height of 250ft. Some 120,000 gallons of water flowed through the system when it was in full play. The park also contained unrivaled collections of statues, many of which were copies of great works from around the world, and a geological display which included a replica lead mine and the first attempts anywhere in the world to portray life-size restorations of extinct animals, including dinosaurs. Crystal Palace park was also the scene of spectacular Brock's fireworks displays. After the Great Exhibition closed, the Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham Hill in South London and reconstructed in what was, in effect, a 200 acre Victorian theme park. The new Crystal Palace park at Sydenham was opened by Queen Victoria on June 10th, 1854. Ginger ale created in Ireland. 22 December, The first train in India becomes operational. It is used for the hauling of construction material in Roorkee.
1852	March 20, American author Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form. Anton Gaudí was born in Catalonia, Spain, in 1852 though no one knows exactly where. While many believe his birthplace to be the town of Reus, others claim it was in fact Riudoms. It is known, however, that he was baptized in Reus a day after his birth. The artist's parents, Francesc Gaudí Serra and Antonia Cornet Bertran, both came from families of metalsmiths. One of the primary motivations for the US annexation of the Republic of texas was that the Texas government had incurred huge debts which the United States agreed to assume upon annexation. In 1852, in return for this assumption of debt, a large portion of Texas-claimed territory, now parts of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Wyoming, was ceded to the Federal government.
1853	April 7, Queen Victoria's son, Leopold George Duncan Albert (7 April 1853 – 28 March 1884) later Prince Leopold and Duke of Albany, is born. His birth is highly publicized, mainly because Queen Victoria herself used chloroform during childbirth. Dr. John Snow gave her chloroform, but using an open-drop method rather than the inhaler he had earlier invented. April 16, the first passenger train between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thana covering a distance of 34 km (21 miles) was inaugurated, formally heralding the birth of railways in India. The British government encouraged the setting up of railways by private investors under a scheme that would guarantee an annual return of 5% during the initial years of operation. Once completed, the company would be passed under government ownership, but would be operated by the company that built them. To Babbage's delight, the Scheutzes complete the first full-scale difference engine, which they call a Tabulating Machine. It operates on 15-digit numbers and 4th-order differences, and produces printed output as Babbage's would have. A second machine is later built to the same design by the firm of Brian Donkin of London. October, The Crimean War (October 1853–February 1856), war fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish, with support, from January 1855, by the army of Sardinia-Piedmont. The war arose from the conflict of great powers in the Middle East and was more directly caused by Russian demands to exercise protection over the Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman Empire.
1854	Beginning in 1854, American warships conducted cruises along the Yangtze River in China. Initially the mission of these cruises was to show the American flag and support American consular officers. The mission became more complex over time with the added trappings of supporting American foreign policy in defining the relationship between the USA and China and later with Japan. March 20, A meeting of Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and Free-Soilers in Ripon, Wisconsin, proposed the formation of what became the Republican Party in the United States. March 31, U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry and representatives of Japan signed the Convention of Kanagawa (日米和親条約, Nichibei Washin Jōyaku) or Kanagawa Treaty (神奈川条約, Kanagawa Jōyaku) was signed at Kanagawa (now part of Yokohama) in Japan, ending that country's period of seclusion known as Sakoku (Japanese: 鎖国, literally "country in chains" or "lock up of country") which lasted from 1639 until 1854. The treaty was signed as a result of pressure from U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who sailed into Tokyo Bay with a fleet of warships in July 1853 and demanded the opening of the Japanese ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to United States trade, guaranteed the safety of shipwrecked U.S. sailors and established a permanent consul. This was an unequal treaty imposed on Japan by the superior strength of Perry's fleet. However, it remained illegal for Japanese people to leave Japan until the Meiji Restoration (1868). May 30, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, providing for the territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska under the principle of popular sovereignty. October, The Crimean War (1854–1856) was fought between Imperial Russia on one side and an alliance of France, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the Ottoman Empire on the other. The majority of the conflict took place on the Crimean Peninsula, with additional actions occurring in western Turkey, the Baltic Sea region, and in the Russian Far East.
1856	March 30, The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Crimean War. May 21, During the small civil war known as Bleeding Kansas—a dispute over control of the new U.S. territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty—the town of Lawrence was sacked by a proslavery mob intent on destroying the “hotbed of abolitionism.” May 24, a group of abolitionists led by John Brown launched a nighttime raid on a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas Territory during which five men were murdered. James Maxwell demonstrates that all electromagnetic and optical phenomenon were explainable in terms of stresses in the one ether. July 3, The U.S. House of Representatives voted to admit Kansas to statehood under the antislavery resolution known as the Topeka Constitution, despite the opposition of the Senate and President Franklin Pierce. July 9/10 Nikola Tesla born in Smiljan, Lika (Austria-Hungary). William Thomas Blanford notes that the "Talchir conglomerates" in India were caused by glaciation. This idea will lead to the realisation that ice ages occurred many times in the past - and in both hemispheres. The state of Awadh/Oudh was annexed by the British East India Company. Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was told that he would be the last Emperor and the Mughal Empire would cease to exist after him. Excavations in Germany uncover Neanderthal fossils. Surveyor Andrew Waugh measures Peak XV (Everest) at 29,002 feet (8,840 m)
1857	March 6, U.S. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney announced the Dred Scott decision, making slavery legal in all U.S. territories. May, 1857, the famous Sepoy Rebellion erupted, a mutiny by native troops that swept across northern India, weakened the British Raj, and set up future confrontations between India and Britain. Small precursors of brewing discontent involving incidences of arson in cantonment areas, began to manifest themselves in January. When the native troops of the Bengal army rose against their colonial masters in May, the ensuing insurrection was to become the bloodiest in the history of the British Empire. This war brought about the end of the British East India Company's rule in India, and led to direct rule by the British government (British Raj) of much of the Indian subcontinent, although some states retained nominal independence under their respective princes. There is no agreed name for the events of this period, but terms in use include First War of Independence, War of Independence of 1857, Indian Mutiny, the Great Indian Mutiny, the Sepoy Mutiny, the Sepoy Rebellion, the Great Mutiny, and the Revolt of 1857. It is probably fair to say that First War of Independence and War of Independence of 1857 have, for the moment, greater prominence in India than elsewhere. British explorers Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS (March 19, 1821 – October 20, 1890) and John Hanning Speke (May 4, 1827 – September 15, 1864) lead a Royal Geographical Society backed expedition into Central Africa seeking the source of the Nile. The journey was extremely strenuous and both men fell ill from a variety of tropical diseases. Speke suffered severely when he became temporarily deaf after a beetle crawled into his ear and he had to remove it with a knife. He also later went temporarily blind. After an arduous journey the two became the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika (although Speke was still blind at this point and could not properly see the lake). Burton and Speke's exploration to Tanganyika and Victoria was, arguably, their most celebrated exploration but what followed was a prolonged public quarrel between the two men which damaged Burton's reputation severely. From surviving letters it seems that Speke already distrusted and disliked Burton before the start of their second expedition. There are several reasons why they became estranged. It seems obvious that the two men were very different in character with Speke being more in tune with the prevailing morality of Victorian England. There was obviously a great element of professional rivalry. September 11, the Mountain Meadows massacre of the Baker-Fancher emigrant party at Mountain Meadows by Mormon militia and some Paiute supporters. The emigrants mostly from four northwestern counties in Arkansas were travelling through the Utah Territory during the Utah War to California. Sources estimate that between 100 and 140 men, women and children were killed at Mountain Meadows, a rest stop on the Old Spanish Trail, in the Utah territory. Mormons along the way had mistakenly linked them with a number of crimes and past Mormon persecutions. The emigrants stopped to rest at Mountain Meadows, near where anxious members of the Iron County Military District of the Nauvoo Legion (the Mormon militia in the Utah Territory) had been mustered to fight the approaching United States Army, which Mormons thought intended to destroy them. Initially intending to orchestrate an Indian massacre, the local leaders of church and state directed Indian agent John D. Lee to lead an auxiliary contingent of Paiute tribesmen along with some militiamen disguised as Native Americans in a raid. The emigrants fought back, and a siege ensued. Believing that complicity in the siege by Mormons would complicate the Utah War, the militia induced the party to surrender and give up their weapons. After escorting the emigrants out of their fortification, the militiamen then executed an estimated 120 men, women and children. Seventeen smaller children were spared. Investigations, interrupted by the U.S. Civil War, resulted eventually in nine indictments being issued in 1874. Despite others' involvement, only John D. Lee was tried and convicted. Lee was executed by firing squad at the location of the massacre in 1877. Members of the ill-fated Baker-Fancher wagon train The Fancher party's constituent trains left from four northwestern Arkansas counties. From Benton county left the original Fancher train—as did the Huff— while from Johnson county left the Cameron, the Miller, and (a trio of cousins) the Poteet-Tackett-Jones trains; from Marion county left the Mitchell, the Dunlap, and the Prewitt trains while from Beller's Stand near Harrison in Carroll county (today Boone county) left the (John Twitty) Baker train—the wagon-master/captain historians reference when they call the grand company the "Baker-Fancher trains". Believed murdered at Mountain Meadows Aden, William Allen, 19 Baker, Abel, 19 Baker, George W., 27 Baker, John T., 52 Baker, Manerva A. Beller, 25 Baker, Mary Lovina, 7 Beach, John, 21 Beller, David W., 12 Beller, Melissa Ann, 14 Cameron, Henry, 16 Cameron, Isom, 18 Cameron, James, 14 Cameron, Larkin, 8 Cameron, Martha, 11 Cameron, Martha, 51 Cameron, Tillman, 24 Cameron, William, 51 Cameron?, Nancy (William Cameron's niece), 12 Deshazo, Allen P., 20 Dunlap, Mary Wharton, 39 Dunlap, Ellender, 18 Dunlap, Nancy M., 16 Fancher, Alexander, 45 Fancher, Eliza Ingrum, 32 Fancher, Frances "Fanny" Fulfer, Fancher, Hampton, 19 Fancher, James Mathew, 25 Fancher, Margaret A., 7 Fancher, Martha, 10 Fancher, Mary, 15 Fancher, Robert, 19 Fancher, Sarah G., 7 Fancher, Thomas, 14 Fancher, William, 17 Huff, Elisha, Huff, Saladia Ann Brown, Huff, William Huff, Possible unknown son Jones, Eloah Angeline Tackitt, 27 Jones, John Milum, 32 Jones, Newton Jones, Possible unknown daughter Jr., Jesse Dunlap, 39 McEntire, Lawson A., 21 Miller, James William, 9 Miller, Josiah (Joseph), 30 Miller, Matilda Cameron, 26 Mitchell, Charles R., 25 Mitchell, Infant (possible) Mitchell, Joel D., 23 Mitchell, John, Mitchell, Sarah C. Baker, 21 Prewit, John, 20 Prewit, William, 18 Tackitt, Pleasant, 25 Wood, Solomon R., 38 Wood, William Edward, 26 Children who were returned to live with relatives Seventeen small children, all under the age of seven, survived the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Two years after the Massacre, the orphans were returned to their families. These children were: Mary Elizabeth, Sarah Frances and William Twitty Baker, the children of George and Minerva Baker; Rebecca, Louisa and Sarah Dunlap, the daughters of Jesse and Mary Dunlap; Prudence Angeline and Georgia Ann Dunlap, the daughters of Lorenzo and Nancy Dunlap; Christopher and Tryphenia Fancher, the children of Alexander and Elizabeth Fancher; Nancy Sophronia Huff, the daughter of Peter and Saleta Huff; Felix Marion Jones, the son of John and Eloah Jones; John Calvin, Mary and Joseph Miller, the children of Josh and Matilda Miller; and Emberson Milum and William Henry Tackitt, the sons of Pleasant and Armilda Tackitt. Baker, Mary Elizabeth, 5 Baker, Sarah Frances, 3 Baker, William Twitty, 9 months Dunlap, Georgia Ann, 18 months Dunlap, Louisa, 4 Dunlap, Prudence Angeline, 5 Dunlap, Rebecca J., 6 Dunlap, Sarah E., 1 Fancher, Christopher "Kit" Carson, 5 Fancher, Triphenia D., 22 months Huff, Nancy Saphrona, 4 (A photograph of Nancy Saphrona Huff, taken when she was a young woman back in Arkansas, is featured in the documentary Burying the Past. (Note: it can be viewed by clicking on the footnote.)) Jones, Felix Marion, 18 months Miller, John Calvin, 6 Miller, Joseph, 1 Miller, Mary, 4 Tackitt, Emberson Milum, 4 Tackitt, William Henry, 19 months Fate unknown or evidence of survivorship in Utah Territory or Wyoming Dunlap, Lorenzo Dow, 42 Dunlap, John H.,16 Dunlap, Mary Ann, 13 Dunlap, Talitha Emaline, 11 Dunlap, Mary Ann, 9 Dunlap, Thomas J., 17 Dunlap, Nancy M., 16 Dunlap, James D., 14 Dunlap, Susannah, 12 Dunlap, Lucinda, 12 Dunlap, Margerette, 11 Dunlap, Nancy, 9 Dunlap, America Jane, 7 Tackitt, Cynthia, 49 Tackitt, Marion, 20 Tackitt, Armilda Miller, 22 Tackitt, Sebron, 18 Tackitt, Matilda, 16 Tackitt, James, 14 Tackitt, Jones M., 12
1858	Alfred Russel Wallace's Theory of Evolution. Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist, is best known for his formulation of a theory of evolution by natural selection, at the same time as Charles Darwin. Wallace formulated his ideas during an expedition to the Malay Archipelago, where he noted differences between the animal species of Asia and Australia. He corresponded with Darwin on his ideas. Both men produced a joint paper on the theory of natural selection. In the hot summer of 1858, the stench from the Thames was so bad that Members of Parliament fled from rooms adjacent to the river, handkerchiefs to noses, terrified that the smell itself would make them victims of the cholera epidemics that had carried off 40,000 Londoners. In the early 19th century the River Thames was practically an open sewer, with disastrous consequences for public health in London, including a seemingly endless sequence of cholera epidemics. The press called the crisis “the Great Stink”. Benjamin Disraeli introduced a Bill to Parliament that gave Sir Joseph William Bazalgette (1819-1891),the authority to construct the intercepting sewers he had designed two years earlier but had been held up by arguments over cost and design. The “Great Stink” concentrated MPs’ minds wonderfully. The Bill passed into law within 16 days. Bazalgette subscribbed to the Miasma theory which held that disease was spead by the smell of sewage. Medical opinion at the time held that cholera was caused by foul air: a so-called miasma. Dr John Snow had earlier advanced the explanation that we now know to be correct: cholera was spread by contaminated water, but his view was not generally accepted. However, moving the smell out of London ironically also fixed the actual cause as it moved the contaminants from the London water supply. Bazalgette's scheme consisted of three major elements: * the intercepting sewers * the pumping stations and the outfall sewers * the pumping stations at Beckton and Crossness. Over the next 16 years Bazalgette built 132 km (82 mi) of main intercepting sewers, 1,770 km (1,100 mi) of street sewers, 4 pumping stations, and the 2 treatment works at Beckton and Crossness that Thames Water still operates. The system has been extended and updated as London has expanded but the system constructed by Bazalgette continues to serve the city. He designed systems for many other communities including Cambridge, Norwich, Budapest, and Port Louis, Mauritius. Bazalgette did much else besides. He built the Victoria Embankment between Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges (see London’s Bridges) to house the northern low-level sewer and the underground railway (now the District and Circle Lines of the London Underground). It also provided a much-needed route from Westminster to the City of London to bypass the grossly congested Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill route and furnished that part of the capital with a much-needed green space, Victoria Embankment gardens. Bazalgette also built the Chelsea Embankment and the Albert Embankment on which St Thomas’s Hospital and the MI6 building now stand. These embankments reclaimed 52 acres from the Thames. He re-housed 40,000 Londoners from foul tenements that he demolished to construct Charing Cross Road as well as creating other famous London streets including Garrick Street, Queen Victoria Street, Northumberland Avenue, and Shaftesbury Avenue. He built the present Hammersmith, Putney, and Battersea bridges. Towards the end of his career Bazalgette identified the need for river crossings below London Bridge, resulting in the creation of the Woolwich Free Ferry and the design of the Blackwall Tunnel (see Thames Tunnels). He laid out many of London’s parks and squares and proposed a high-level bridge near the Tower of London that we know today as Tower Bridge. Aerial picture of Paris taken from a balloon. Speke is the first European to sight Lake Victoria which he names afer the Queen. After discovering Lake Tanganika Burton and Speke heard of a second lake in the area, but Burton was too sick to make the voyage. Speke thus went alone, and found the lake, which he christened Lake Victoria. It was this lake which eventually proved to be the source of the river Nile. However, much of the expedition's survey equipment had been lost at this point and thus vital questions about the height and extent of the lake could not be answered. 25 August, the first transatlantic telegraph cable was successfully completed on which was sent by the United States and recieved by Great Britain, allowing transatlantic telegraph communications for the first time. Earlier transatlanticsubmarine cables installed in 1857 and 1858 only operated for a few days or weeks before they failed. The study of underwater telegraph cables accelerated interest in mathematical analysis of these transmission lines. Hadrosaurus skeleton discovered in the US by Joseph Leidy November 1, the Governor-General of India appointed the first Viceroy in token of the direct responsibility assumed by the Crown, announced the terms of the Queen's Proclamation in great state at Allahabad. The gracious message lost none of its force by being delivered while the clash of arms, resulting from the Indian Mutiny, was yet being heard in central India and on the frontiers of Nipal. Her Majesty accepted all treaties and engagements made by the Company with the native princes and promised to respect their rights, dignity, and honour. In an impressive passage, inserted by her own special desire, the Queen acknowledged with gratitude the solace of religion, and declared that all her Indian subjects should be protected in the exercise of their religious observances. A principle already enunciated in the Charter Act of 1833 was reinforced, and all, of every race or creed, were to be admitted as far as possible to those offices in her service for which they might be qualified. The Viceroy's proclamation of amnesty was confirmed, and the royal clemency extended to all rebels save those convicted of taking a direct part in the murder of British subjects. The aim of the Queen's government was to be that which had so frequently been announced by the Company, the benefit of all her subjects resident in India" In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward." The first Tabulating Machine (see 1853) is bought by the Dudley Observatory in Albany, New York, and the second one by the British government. The Albany machine is used to produce a set of astronomical tables; but the observatory's director is then fired for this extravagant purchase, and the machine is never seriously used again, eventually ending up in a museum. The second machine, however, has a long and useful life. The Fenian Brotherhood was initially founded in 1858 as the Irish Republican Brotherhood's American branch by John O'Mahony, James Stephens, and Michael Doheny. In the face of nativist suspicion, it quickly established an independent existence, although it still worked to gain Irish-American support for armed rebellion in Ireland. Initially, O'Mahony ran operations in the USA, sending funds to Stephens and the IRB in Ireland, disagreement over O'Mahony's leadership led to the formation of two Fenian Brotherhoods in 1865. The U.S. chapter of the movement was also sometimes referred to as the IRB. After the failed invasion of Canada, it was replaced by Clan na Gael. The term Fenian derives from the Irish ''Na Fianna'' or ''Na Fianna Éireann'' who in Celtic mythology were a band of warriors formed to protect Ireland, Fionn Mac Cumhaill being the most famous of its warriors.
1859	April 8, German philosopher Edmund Husserl, founder of phenomenology, was born. June 30, Jean-François Gravelet, known as Blondin, crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope that was 335 metres (1,100 feet) long and 49 metres (160 feet) above the water. Oct 14, Francois-Claudius Koeningstein, known to posterity as the anarchist Ravachol, was born to Dutch and French parents at Saint-Chamond, near St. Etienne in Eastern France. November 1859 Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species published. Charles Darwin revolutionized understanding of life on Earth by the publication of his highly influential work, On the Origin of Species, explaining his theory of evolution by natural selection, in 1859. Darwin had been preparing a longer work and was stimulated to publish what he regarded as this sketch of his theory by receiving communication of independent work by the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who had come to similar conclusions. Darwin had developed his theory of evolution from his observations of the small differences between species of animals on different islands of the Galápagos archipelago during his voyage aboard the Beagle. The idea that species evolve over time in response to selection pressures from their environment radically challenged the traditional religious view of the creation of individual species by a deity. Darwin’s theory has been central to the great modern advances in the biological sciences. Edwin Laurentine Drake drills the world's first oil well in Titusville, Philadelphia Harry Reid develops the elastic rebound theory of the cause of earthquakes, in which one fault moving against another causes the quakes. Egyptian workers started working on the construction of the Canal in conditions described by historians as slave labor. The canal project was undertaken by former French Consul in Cairo and famous Canal digger Ferdinand de Lesseps. French photographer Gaspard Felix Tournachon, also known as Nadar, carried out the first land surveys from aerial photographs taken from a balloon.
1860	April 3, The Pony Express mail delivery system, which used continuous horse-and-rider relays along a 1,800-mile (2,900-km) route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, was launched in the United States. The Pony Express reduced the time for mail to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the USA to around ten days. The service only operated for 18 months closing in October 1861. May 18, Abraham Lincoln became the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency on the third ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. The Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 called for the facilitation of communication between the east and west coasts of the United States of America. Hiram Sibley of the Western Union Telegraph Company won the contract. In 1861, Benjamin Franklin Ficklin joined Hiram Sibley in helping to form the Pacific Telegraph Company of Nebraska. At the same time, Jeptha Wade was asked by Hiram Sibley to consolidate smaller telegraph companies in California. While the Pacific Telegraph Company built west from Omaha, Nebraska, the Overland Telegraph Company of California was thus formed and built east from Carson City, Nevada. With their connection in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 24, 1861, the final link between the east and west coasts of the United States of America was made by telegraph.The Pacific Telegraph Company and the Overland Telegraph Company of California were eventually absorbed into the Western Union Telegraph Company. Etienne Moreau theorized on the properties and distribution of ether. Edison begins research on a prototype Ether Propeller. Abraham Lincoln wins the election for president of the United States of America South Carolina, seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. Burke and Wills led Great Northern Exploration Expedition to cross Australia from South to North. Herman von Meyer discovers a rare fossil of soft tissue; in this case, it is the feather, the first part of what Meyer names Archaeopteryx. Speke returns to Lake Victoria accompanied by explorer the Scottish explorer James Augustus Grant (April 11, 1827 — February 11, 1892) . By this date, almost 500 telegraph stations across the US are recording weather observations for the Smithsonian.
1861	Mississippi seceded from the Union on January 9, 1861, and Florida on the 10th. Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. March 3, The Russian emancipation of the serfs by Tsar Alexander II of Russia is known as 'the abolition of slavery' in Russia. Although serfs in Imperial Russia were technically not slaves, they were nonetheless forced to work and were forbidden to leave their assigned land. March 17 Kingdom of Italy Proclaimed. The movement for the unification of Italy, called the Risorgimento, began early in the 19th century. Having gone through a revolutionary and military phase by 1848, the movement entered a diplomatic stage, which, together with Guiseppe Garibaldi’s campaigns, culminated in a successful proclamation of a united Kingdom of Italy, on March 17, 1861. Victor Emmanuel II was declared king. Rome and Venice remained outside the kingdom. April 12 Staret of the American Cil War. The sitting US President, James Buchanan felt himself powerless to act. Federal arsenals and fortifications throughout the South were occupied by southern authorities without a shot being fired. In the four months between Lincoln’s election and his inauguration the South was allowed to strengthen its position undisturbed. Lincoln’s inaugural address was at once firm and conciliatory. Unwilling to strike the initial blow to compel the southern states back into the Union, he decided to bide his time. When a Federal ship carrying supplies was dispatched to reprovision Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, the secessionist hand was forced. To forestall the resupply of the fort the Rebel batteries ringing it opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on the 12th of April, 1861, forcing its rapid capitulation. President Lincoln immediately called upon the states to supply 75,000 troops to serve for ninety days against “combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Virginia, Arkansas, and Tennessee promptly seceded. The war was on in earnest. Ironically, the combination of political events, southern pride, and willfulness succeeded in paving the way to the abolition of slavery; a condition that no combination of legal action on the part of the most virulent abolitionist could possibly have accomplished. April 19 Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of the South. May 21 Richmond, Va. was chosen as the Confederate capital. Francis Galton produces the first modern weather map. July sees 366 inches of rainfall at Cherrapunji, India, the highest figure recorded. July 21 Northern troops retreated in disorder after the first battle of Bull Run(Manassas). October 24, With the connection of the lines being built by the Pacific Telegraph Company building west from Omaha, Nebraska, and the Overland Telegraph Company of California building east from Carson City, Nevada in Salt Lake City, Utah the final link between the east and west coasts of the United States of America was made by telegraph.The Pacific Telegraph Company and the Overland Telegraph Company of California were eventually absorbed into the Western Union Telegraph Company. October 26, Closure of the Pony Express service. Since its replacement by the First Transcontinental Telegraph, the Pony Express has entered the romance of the American West. Its reliance on the ability and endurance of the individual riders and horses over technological innovation is part of "American rugged individualism". December 14 The Death of the Prince Consort, Prince Albert dies of typhoid fever. Following the death of Prince Albert in 1861, Queen Victoria withdrew into a protracted period of mourning. Nevertheless, her image, a familiar, steadying, and traditional element in a rapidly changing world, was immensely popular. The Gatling gun, patented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling, is the first machine gun to offer controlled, sequential automatic fire with automatic loading.
1862	February 6 Grant's Northern troops cunder the command of Union naval commodore Andrew Foote, leading a flotilla of ironclads, captured Fort Henry, Tennessee, a strategic Confederate position during the American Civil War. February 16 Fort Donelson fell to Union Forces. March 9 In the first ever battle of ironclad ships, the ironclad ships Monitor and Merrimack battled to a draw. Ironclad ships Monitor and Merrimack fired cannonades at on another at point-blank range during the historic battle of Hampton Roads in the U.S. Civil War. The Union Monitor was designed by Swedish-American engineer John Ericsson. It was smaller and lighter than its Confederate counterpart and had a revolving gun turret with two heavy guns. Although the two armored ships fought each other for several hours, the Merrimack withdrew because of low tides, and the battle was considered a draw. Earlier, the Merrimack had been successful in breaking the Union blockade of the Chesapeake Bay and caused the United States to warn Britain about supplying warships to the Confederacy. In May of 1862, the Merrimack was destroyed so it could not be captured. The Monitor foundered and sank several months later during a storm off Cape Hatteras. April 4, Union forces under George B. McClellan began the unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. April 6-7, Both sides suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Shiloh in southwestern Tennessee, won by the Union. April 16, The Confederacy began to draft soldiers. April 18-29, A Union Fleet under Farragut captures New Orleans. May 4, McClellan's Union troops occupied Yorktown, Va., and advanced on Richmond. May 5,Mexico repelled the French forces of Napoleon III at the Battle of Puebla, a victory that became a symbol of resistance to foreign domination and is now celebrated as a national holiday, Cinco de Mayo. May 20, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which provided 160 acres of public land virtually free of charge to those who had lived on and cultivated the land for at least five years. May 30, Northern forces occupied Corinth, Miss. June 6, Memphis fell to Union Armies. June 25-July 1, Confederate forces under Lee saved Richmond in the Battles of the Seven Days. July 1, The Pacific Railway Act passed by the US Congress beginning work on the Trans-Continental railroad. August The Minnesota massacre, which killed 700 settlers and 100 soldiers, occurred because the Indians had been denied money pledged them by treaty and were starving. A military commission sentenced 303 Sioux to death by hanging, but Abraham Lincoln overturned most of the sentences. On December 26, 1862, thirty-eight Santees were executed, including Tehedo Necha August 29-30, Lee and Jackson led Southern troops to victory in the second Battle of Bull Run. September 17, Confederate forces retreated in defeat after the Bloody Battle of Antietam(Sharpsburg). September 22, Lincoln issued a Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. October 8, Buell's forces ended Bragg's invasion of Kentucky in the Battle of Perryville. December 13, Burnside's Union forces received a crushing blow in the Battle of Fredericksburg. December 31-January 2, 1863 Union troops under Rosecrans forced the Confederates to retreat after the Battle of Murfreesboro (Stones River). Speke and Grant are the first European explorers to visit the Buganda people in Uganda. Speke reaches the source of the White Nile, at Ripon falls issuing from Lake Victoria's north. Angstrom Discovers Existence of Hydrogen in the Sun. Anders Jonas Ångström, a Swedish astronomer and physicist, is credited with the discovery of the presence of hydrogen in the atmosphere of the Sun. Ångström pioneered the study of spectroscopy, publishing Optiska Undersökningar (Optical Investigations) in 1853. In 1868 he published Recherches Sur le Spectre Solaire (Researches on the Solar Spectrum), in which he set out measurements of over 1,000 spectral lines in an atlas of the solar spectrum. The unit of measurement of wavelengths introduced in his work has been generally accepted as the angstrom. First multispectral imagery taken by Du Hauron with a single-lens beam splitter technique. Kelvin uses the Earth's cooling time to propose an age in the range 20-400 million years.
1863	January 1 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. 10 January,the Metropolitan Railway opened the world's first underground railway between Paddington (Bishop's Road) and Farringdon Street in London in an attempt to ease the traffic through the centre of London. It ran from Paddington to Farringdon, linking three mainline termini with the City, London’s central business district. Most of this 6 km (3? mi) line, still used today, runs under main roads and was built using “cut and cover” construction. This entails digging out a wide trench along the street, building retaining walls, and roofing over the trackbed before reinstating the roadway above. Locomotives with special condensing equipment were used to minimize steam emission in the tunnels. March 3 The North passed a draft law. May 1-4 Northern troops under Hooker were defeated in the Battle of Chancellorsville. May 1-19 Grant's army defeated Confederates in Mississippi and began to besiege Vicksburg. May 6 The Pacific Railroad bill passed the House of Representatives, and the Senate on June 20. Lincoln signed it into law on July 1 1862. The act called for several companies to build the railroad: from the west, the Central Pacific and the Nevada Central; and from the east, the newly chartered Union Pacific. Each was required to build only 50 miles in the first year; after that, only 50 more miles were required each year. Besides land grants along the right-of-way, each railroad was subsidized $16,000 for each mile built over an easy grade, $32,000 in the high plains, and $48,000 for each mile in the mountains. The race was on to see which road could build the furthest. July 1-3 The Battle of Gettysburg ended in a Southern defeat and marked a turning point in the war. July 4 Vicksburg fell to Northern troops. July 8 Northern forces occupied Port Hudson, La. September 19-20 Southern troops under Bragg won the Battle of Chickamauga. November 19 Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address at the dedication of the Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. November 23-25 Grant and Thomas led Union armies to victory in the Battle of Chattanooga. US National Academy of Sciences initiated by Abraham Lincoln. Granula was the first manufactured breakfast cereal invented by James Caleb Jackson in 1863. Granula was an early version of Grape-Nuts, comprising of heavy grains of bran-rich Graham flour. The grains had to be soaked overnight before use. The cereal was manufactured from a dough of Graham flour rolled into sheets and baked. The dried sheets were then broken into pieces, baked again, and broken into smaller pieces.
1864	January 8 in Sacramento, California, Governor Leland Stanford ceremoniously broke ground to begin construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. The Central Pacific made great progress along the Sacramento Valley, however construction was later slowed; first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, then by the mountains themselves and most importantly by winter snow storms. As a result, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire immigrant laborers (many of which were Chinese). The immigrants seemed to be more willing to tolerate the horrible conditions, and progress continued. Unfortunately, the increasing necessity for tunneling then began to slow progess of the line yet again. To combat this, Central Pacific began to use the newly-invented and very unstable nitroglycerin explosives — which accelerated both the rate of construction and the mortality of the laborers. Appalled by the losses, the Central Pacific began to use less volatile explosives. Construction began again in earnest. March 9 Grant became general in chief of the North. April 8-9 Federal troops under Banks met defeat in the Red River expedition. May 5-6 Union and Confederate troops clashed in the Battle of the Wilderness. May 8-12 Grant and Lee held their position in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. June 3 The Union suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Cold Harbor. June 20 Grant's Troops laid siege to Petersburg, Va. July 11-12 Early's Confederate forces almost reached Washington, but retreated after brief fighting. August 5 Farragut won the Battle of Mobile Bay. September 2 Northern troops under Sherman captured Atlanta. October 2, Launch of the Ictineo II: World's First Steam Powered Submarine. The Ictineo II was invented and built by Narcis Monturiol, an engineer born in Figueres (Girona, Spain) on September 28, 1819. Monturiol was a utopian social revolutionary, political misfit and self-taught engineer, he studied Law and wrote about Geography, Physics and Natural History. He first conceived the Ictineo to help coral fishermen in their rough job. He started to build the submarine on February 10, 1862. It was 17 meter long and 65 tons of weight, and was launched on October 2, 1864. In the beginning it worked with a propeller operated by sixteen men, but owe to its poor performance he decided to change the human power for a 6 Hp steam engine. The re-launching took place on October 22, 1867, once the difficulties were overcome. The submarine did thirteen immersions to as much as to 30 meters deep and the longest one lasted for seven and a half hours, while underwater it was propelled by a one-cylinder machine set on the ship's stern. Narcis Monturiol was ahead of his time and amongst other things, he invented the double hull as well as the bulb-shaped bow. In 1868 because of financial problems the Ictineo II was seized by creditors, broken up and sold as scrap metal. Narcis Monturiol died on September 6, 1885. November 8 Lincoln was re-elected President. November 15 Sherman began his march to the sea. November 16 Hood invaded Tennessee. November 30 Schofield's Union forces inflicted heavy losses on Hood in the Battle of Franklin. December 15-16 The Battle of Nashville smashed Hood's army. December 21 Sherman's troops occupied Savannah, Ga. Massive cyclone near Calcutta, India, killed an estimated 70,000 of the population. Photographs taken from a balloon used for military purposes during the American civil war. First oil pipeline constructed by van Syckel in Pennsylvania; it was rebuilt after a rival group destroyed it.
1865	February 3 The Hampton Roads Peace Conference failed to end the American Civil War. February 6 Lee became general in chief of the South. April 2 Confederate troops gave up Petersburg and Richmond. April 9 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. April 14 Lincoln was assassinated. April 26 Johnston surrendered to Sherman. May 4 Confederate forces in Alabama and Mississippi surrendered. May 26 The last Confederate troops surrendered. July 2, In London's East End, William Booth founded the ministry later called the Salvation Army. July 4, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published. Joseph Lister Discovers Antiseptics. In 1865 British surgeon Joseph Lister encountered the germ theory, developed by Louis Pasteur, that fermentation and putrefaction were caused by micro-organisms brought into contact with organic matter. Lister applied carbolic acid to clean instruments, and directly to wounds and dressings. Lister’s development of the technique of sterilization greatly reduced mortality in surgery. related links © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Founding of the Commons Preservation Society in England to protect woodlands and heaths used by communities for recreation. Peak XV is renamed Mount Everest. French doctor Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) publishes his Germ Theory of Disease. While Pasteur was not the first to propose germ theory (Girolamo Fracastoro, Agostino Bassi, Friedrich Henle and others had suggested it earlier), he developed it and conducted experiments that clearly indicated its correctness and managed to convince most of Europe it was true. Today he is often regarded as the father of germ theory and bacteriology, together with Robert Koch.
1866	June 14 - August 23, Seven Weeks' War. The Seven Weeks’ War was an armed conflict between Austria and Prussia. The war was fought for control over the 39-state German Confederation, following the unsatisfactory conclusion of the Convention of Gastein (1865). The speed of victory demonstrated the effectiveness of the Prussian military system. September 21 H.G. Wells was born
1867	July 1, Dominion of Canada established on this day in 1867, with the British North America Act, the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada were united as the Dominion of Canada, and the province of Canada was separated into Quebec and Ontario. Alfred Nobel Invents Dynamite. Swedish chemist and philanthropist Alfred Nobel is remembered for his invention of dynamite and for the endowment of the Alfred Nobel Foundation that awards prizes annually in a number of categories. Nobel had sought a safe way to handle the highly volatile nitroglycerine in industry, so he mixed nitroglycerin with kieselguhr to produce dynamite, a safer explosive, which he patented in 1867. He went on to develop gelignite in 1875 and a smokeless form of gunpowder, named ballistite, in 1887. June 19, The archduke of Austria and emperor of Mexico, a man whose naive liberalism proved unequal to the international intrigues that had put him on the throne and to the brutal struggles within Mexico, Maximilian, was executed by a firing squad. Karl Marx published Das Kapital. Das Kapital, one of the most influential treatises of the 19th century, represents a key analysis of the capitalist system. In it, the German philosopher and political author Karl Marx introduced the idea of “surplus value”; the concepts of class struggle and the exploitation of the working class; and the prediction of socialism’s victory over capitalism. Further volumes were published in 1885 and 1894. Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, defined communism. In the Communist Manifesto, which they wrote and published themselves in London in 1848, Marx and Engels portrayed the natural evolution of a communist utopia from capitalism. This revolutionary theory added fuel to the social struggles that characterized Europe during the latter half of the 19th century. Marx theorized that competition among capitalists would force more and more of them to be enveloped by the growing masses. A proletarian dictatorship would rule until all vestiges of capitalism had been eliminated; a communist utopia would then naturally emerge. Marx and Engels founded the International Workingman’s Association in 1864 to actively advocate their position and consider ways to speed the process. The United States Geological Survey established. March 30, William H. Seward, secretary of state under U.S. President Andrew Johnson, signed the Alaska Purchase, a treaty ceding Russian North America to the United States for a price—$7.2 million—that amounted to about two cents per acre.
1868	April 6, The Japanese emperor Meiji issued the Charter Oath, which served to modernize the country during the Meiji Restoration. May 16, The first of two key votes was held in the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson, who was ultimately acquitted of all charges. First working ether flyer mechanism demonstrated by Thomas A. Edison. June 10, Serbian Prince Michael III was assassinated, derailing the Balkan League's plans for a coordinated rebellion against the Ottomans and destroying the league. Opening of the first section of the Metropolitan District Railway from South Kensington to Westminster (now part of the District and Circle Lines) in London. Sir Edward Frankland, a British chemist, is credited, together with British astronomer Sir Joseph Lockyer, with the discovery of helium as a separate element. They undertook research into the spectrum of the Sun, identifying helium as a chemical element in its own right, whereas hitherto it had been viewed as a line in the spectrum. Frankland is perhaps better known for his development of the theory of chemical valency. Life discovered at 2,400 fathoms depth, disproving earlier theories of life not existing below 300 fathoms.
1869	May 10 Completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad in the USA. Joining of the rails linking the Central and Union Pacific Railroads, May 10, 1869, Promontory Summit, Utah. CPRR's "Jupiter" engine on the left, UPRR's engine "No. 119" on the right. "One of the classic icons of American imagery." Poster announcing railroad's opening November 17 Suez Canal Opened. The Suez Canal (Arabic: transliteration: Qana al-Suways), is a large artificial canal in Egypt, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163 km (101 miles) long and 300 m (984 ft) wide at its narrowest point, and runs between Port Said (Bur Sa'id) on the Mediterranean Sea, and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea. The canal allows two-way water transportation, most importantly between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before its opening in 1869, goods were sometimes offloaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The canal comprises two parts, north and south of the Great Bitter Lake, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea. Providing a shortcut for ships travelling from the Mediterranean Sea to ports in east Africa, the Middle East, and India; The canal was designed by Vicomte Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, a French diplomat and engineer. The Canal was officially inaugurated by Khedive Ismail in an extravagant and lavish ceremony. French, British, Russian, and other Royalty were invited for the inauguration which coincided with the re-planning of Cairo. A highway was constructed linking Cairo to the new city of Ismailia, an Opera House was built, and Verdi was commissioned to compose his famous opera, "Aida" for the opening ceremony. Ironically, Verdi did not complete the work in time and "Aida" premiered at the Cairo Opera a year later. Ferdinand de Lesseps was born on November 19, 1805 in Versailles, France. His Family was long distinguished in the French diplomatic service. At age 19, having studied law, he was appointed eleve-counsel to his uncle, then the French ambassador to Lisbon. He served in Tunis later with his father, until 1832 the year of his fathers death. Then came 7 years in Egypt, later Rotterdam, Malaga, Barcelona and Madrid. With the new Viceroy Mohammed Said in Egypt, whom de Lesseps had befriended years ago, he rushed to Cairo and soon the construction of the Suez Canal under his command began. November 17, 1869 the Gran Opening with luxuries ceremonies, a Cairo opera house had been built for the occasion and Verdi had been commissioned to write Aida. De Lesseps became a hero presented with many decorations. De Lesseps was granted a "firman" or decree by the khedive Said of Egypt to run the Canal for 99 years after completion.De Lesseps died in France in 1894. Dmitry Mendeleyev’s periodic table was constructed on the basis of the periodic law, which he formulated in 1869. The law stated that the chemical properties of the elements depend on their relative atomic masses. Therefore, in the table the elements were arranged by their related groups by atom

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Members of the ill-fated Baker-Fancher wagon train

Believed murdered at Mountain Meadows