Nineteenth century
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The 19th century (1801–1900) was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish , Portuguese , Chinese , Holy Roman and Mughal empires. This paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire , the German Empire and the United States , spurring military conflicts but also advances in science and exploration.
After the defeat of the French Empire and its allies in the Napoleonic Wars , the British Empire became the world's leading power, controlling one quarter of the world's population and one third of the land area. It enforced a Pax Britannica , encouraged trade, and battled rampant piracy . The 19th century was an era of invention and discovery, with significant developments in the fields of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, electricity, and metallurgy that lay the groundwork for the technological advances of the 20th century. The Industrial Revolution began in Europe. The Victorian era was notorious for the employment of young children in factories and mines.
Advances in medicine and the understanding of human anatomy and disease prevention took place in the 1800s, and were partly responsible for rapidly accelerating population growth in the western world . Europe's population doubled during the 19th century, from roughly 200 million to more than 400 million. The introduction of railroads provided the first major advancement in land transportation for centuries, changing the way people lived and obtained goods, and fueling major urbanization movements in countries across the globe. Numerous cities worldwide surpassed populations of a million or more during this century. London was transformed into the world's largest city and capital of the British Empire. Its population expanded from 1 million in 1800 to 6.7 million a century later. The last remaining undiscovered landmasses of Earth, including vast expanses of interior Africa and Asia, were discovered during this century, and with the exception of the extreme zones of the Arctic and Antarctic, accurate and detailed maps of the globe were available by the 1890s. Liberalism became the preeminent reform movement in Europe.
Slavery was greatly reduced around the world. Following a successful slave revolt in Haiti , Britain forced the Barbary pirates to halt their practice of kidnapping and enslaving Europeans, banned slavery throughout its domain , and charged its navy with ending the global slave trade . Britain abolished slavery in 1834, America's 13th Amendment following their Civil War abolished slavery there in 1865, and in Brazil slavery was abolished in 1888 (see Abolitionism ). Similarly, serfdom was abolished in Russia .
The 19th century was remarkable in the widespread formation of new settlement foundations which were particularly prevalent across North America and Australasia, with a significant proportion of the two continents' largest cities being founded at some point in the century. In the 19th century approximately 70 million people left Europe.
The 1800s also saw the rapid creation, development and codification of many sports, particularly in Britain and the United States. Association football , rugby union , baseball and many other sports were developed during the 19th century, while the British Empire facilitated the rapid spread of sports such as cricket to many different parts of the world.
Eras
Events
Map of the world from 1897. The
British Empire (marked in pink) was the superpower of the 19th century.
1800–1809
1810s
1816:
Shaka rises to power over the
Zulu kingdom
1820s
The Great Exhibition in London. The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to industrialise.
1830s
1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is established on April 6, 1830.
1830: July Revolution in France.
1830: The Belgian Revolution in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands led to the creation of Belgium.
1830: Greater Colombia dissolved and the nations of Colombia (including modern-day Panama), Ecuador , and Venezuela took its place.
1830 November Uprising in Poland against Russia.
1831: France invades and occupies Algeria .
1833: Slavery Abolition Act bans slavery throughout the British Empire .
1833–76: Carlist Wars in Spain.
1834: The German Customs Union is formed.
1834: Spanish Inquisition officially ends.
1834–59: Imam Shamil 's rebellion in Russian-occupied Caucasus .
1835–36: The Texas Revolution in Mexico resulted in the short-lived Republic of Texas .
1836: The Battle of the Alamo .
1837–1838: Rebellions of 1837 in Canada.
1837–1901: Queen Victoria 's reign is considered the apex of the British Empire and is referred to as the Victorian era .
1838–40: Civil war in the Federal Republic of Central America led to the foundings of Guatemala , El Salvador , Honduras , Nicaragua , and Costa Rica .
1839–51: Uruguayan Civil War
1839–60: After two Opium Wars , France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia gained many concessions from China resulting in the decline of the Qing Dynasty .
1840s
1850s
1860s
Robert Koch discovered the tuberculosis bacilli. In the 19th century,
tuberculosis killed an estimated one-quarter of the adult population of Europe.
1861–65: American Civil War between the Union and seceding Confederacy
1861: Russia abolishes serfdom .
1861–67: French intervention in Mexico and the creation of the Second Mexican Empire , ruled by Maximilian I of Mexico and his consort Carlota of Mexico .
1862–1877: Muslim Rebellion in northwest China.
1863: Bahá'u'lláh declares His station as "He whom God shall make manifest ". This date is celebrated in the Bahá'í Faith as The Festival of Ridván .
1863: Formation of the International Red Cross is followed by the adoption of the First Geneva Convention in 1864.
1863–1865: Polish uprising against the Russian Empire .
1864–66: The Chincha Islands War was an attempt by Spain to regain its South American colonies.
1864–70: The War of the Triple Alliance ends Paraguayan ambitions for expansion and destroys much of the Paraguayan population.
1865–77: Reconstruction in the United States; Slavery is banned in the United States by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution .
1865-April 9, 1865 Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia (26,765 troops) to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia , effectively ending the American Civil War .
1865-April 15, 1865, United States President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated while attending a performance at Ford's Theater , Washington, D.C. .
1866: Successful transatlantic telegraph cable follows an earlier attempt in 1858.
1866: Austro-Prussian War results in the dissolution of the German Confederation and the creation of the North German Confederation and the Austrian-Hungarian Dual Monarchy .
1866–1868: Famine in Finland .
1866–69: After the Meiji Restoration , Japan embarks on a program of rapid modernization .
1867: The United States purchased Alaska from Russia.
1867: Canadian Confederation formed.
1867: The Principality of Serbia passes a Constitution which defines its independence from the Ottoman Empire . International recognition followed in 1878.
1869: First Transcontinental Railroad completed in United States on May 10.
1869: The Suez Canal opens linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea .
1870s
1870–71: The Franco-Prussian War results in the unifications of Germany and Italy , the collapse of the Second French Empire , the breakdown of Pax Britannica, and the emergence of a New Imperialism .
1871–1872: Famine in Persia is believed to have caused the death of 2 million.
1871–1914: Second Industrial Revolution
1870s-90s: Long Depression in Western Europe and North America
1872: Yellowstone National Park is created.
1873: Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism published.
1874: The Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, and Graveurs , better known today as the Impressionists organize and present their first public group exhibition at the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar .
1874: The British East India Company is dissolved.
1874–1875: First Republic in Spain.
1875–1900: 26 million Indians perished in India due to famine .
1876: The Bulgarian revolt against Ottoman rule.
1876–1879: 13 million Chinese died of famine in northern China.
1876–1914: The massive expansion in population, territory, industry and wealth in the United States is referred to as the Gilded Age .
1877: Great Railroad Strike in the United States may have been the world's first nationwide labor strike .
1877–78: Following the Russo-Turkish War , the Treaty of Berlin recognizes formal independence of the Principality of Serbia , Montenegro and Romania . Bulgaria becomes autonomous.
1878: First commercial telephone exchange in New Haven, Connecticut .
1879: Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa.
1880s
1890s
Significant people
Clara Barton , nurse, pioneer of the American Red Cross
Sitting Bull , a leader of the Lakota
John Burroughs , Naturalist, conservationist, writer
Benito Juárez , Mexican President
Davy Crockett , King of the wild frontier , folk hero , frontiersman , soldier and politician
Jefferson Davis , Confederate States President
William Gilbert Grace , English cricketer
Baron Haussmann , civic planner
Franz Joseph I of Austria , Emperor of Austria and brother of Mexican Emperor
Chief Joseph , a leader of the Nez Percé
Ned Kelly , Australian folk hero, and outlaw
Elizabeth Kenny , Australian Nurse and found an Innovative Treatment of Polio
Sándor Körösi Csoma , explorer of the Tibetan culture
Abraham Lincoln , United States President
Fitz Hugh Ludlow , writer and explorer
John Muir , Naturalist, writer, preservationist
Florence Nightingale , nursing pioneer
Napoleon I , First Consul and Emperor of the French
Charles Stewart Parnell , Irish political leader
Commodore Perry , U.S. Naval commander, opened the door to Japan
Dr. Jose P. Rizal , Filipino hero, novelist, liberator
Sacagawea , Important aide to Lewis&Clark
Ignaz Semmelweis , proponent of hygienic practices
Dr. John Snow , the founder of epidemiology
F R Spofforth , Australian cricketer
Queen Victoria , Queen of the United Kingdom
William Wilberforce , Abolitionist, Philanthropist
Hong Xiuquan inspired China's Taiping Rebellion , perhaps the bloodiest civil war in human history
Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto, promoted change in the labor system of Europe
Show business and theatre
David Belasco , actor, playwright, theatrical producer
Sarah Bernhardt , actress
Edwin Booth , actor
Dion Boucicault , playwright
Mrs Patrick Campbell , actress
Anton Chekhov , playwright
Buffalo Bill Cody , Wild West legend, and showman
Baptiste Deburau , Bohemian –French actor and mime .
Eleonora Duse , actress
Henrik Ibsen , playwright
Edmund Kean , actor
Charles Kean , actor
Lillie Langtry , actress, socialite
Frédérick Lemaître , actor
Jenny Lind , opera singer called the Swedish Nightingale
Céleste Mogador, dancer
Lola Montez , exotic dancer
Adelaide Neilson , actress
Annie Oakley , Wild West , sharp-shooter
Lillian Russell , singer, actress
George Bernard Shaw , playwright
Edward Askew Sothern , actor
Ellen Terry , actress
Athletics
Cap Anson , baseball player
Gentleman Jim Corbett , heavyweight boxer
Big Ed Delahanty , baseball player
Bob Fitzsimmons , heavyweight boxer
Pud Galvin , baseball player
Olympic Games , 1894 the IOC is formed, and the first Summer Olympics games are held in Athens , Greece in 1896
Dr William Gilbert 'WG' Grace , cricketer
Peter Jackson , heavyweight boxer
James J. Jeffries , heavyweight boxer
Old Hoss Radbourn , baseball player
Tom Sharkey , heavyweight boxer
John L. Sullivan , heavyweight boxer
John Montgomery Ward , baseball player
Evangelis Zappas , Founder of the International Modern Olympic Games
Business
John Jacob Astor III , Real Estate
Andrew Carnegie , Industrialist, philanthropist
Jay Cooke , Finance
Henry Clay Frick , Industrialist, art collector
Jay Gould , Railroad developer
Meyer Guggenheim Family patriarch, mining
Daniel Guggenheim (copper)
E. H. Harriman , Railroads
Henry O. Havemeyer (sugar), art collector
George Hearst , Gold
James J. Hill (railroads) – The Empire Builder
Andrew W. Mellon , Industrialist, philanthropist, art collector
J.P. Morgan , banker, art collector
George Mortimer Pullman (railroads)
Charles Pratt Oil, founder of the Pratt Institute
Cecil Rhodes diamonds, mining magnate, founder of De Beers .
John D. Rockefeller , Oil, Business tycoon, philanthropist
Levi Strauss , clothing manufacturer
Cornelius Vanderbilt , Shipping, Railroads
Famous and infamous personalities
William Bonney aka Henry McCarty aka Billy the Kid , Wild West , outlaw
John Wilkes Booth , assassin
James Bowie , Soldier, Texan who died at the Alamo , invented the Bowie knife
Jim Bridger , Wild West , Mountain man
John Brown , a fanatical abolitionist who led an armed insurrection at Harpers Ferry, Virginia , in 1859.
Kit Carson , Wild West , frontiersman
Cochise , Chiricahua Apache leader
George Armstrong Custer , soldier, whose last stand was in the Wild West
Wyatt Earp , Wild West , lawman
Pat Garrett , Wild West , lawman
Charles J. Guiteau , assassin
Jack The Ripper , serial killer whose identity remains unknown.
Geronimo , Chiricahua Apache leader
Wild Bill Hickock , Legendary Wild West , lawman
Doc Holliday , Legendary Wild West, gambler, gunfighter
Crazy Horse , War leader of the Lakota
Frank James , Wild West , outlaw, older brother of Jesse
Jesse James , Legendary Wild West, outlaw
Calamity Jane , Frontierswoman
Bat Masterson , Wild West , lawman, gambler, newspaperman
Allan Pinkerton , spy, founded the Pinkerton Agency , first detective agency in the United States
William Poole aka Bill the Butcher , member of the New York City gang, the Bowery Boys , a bare-knuckle boxer , and a leader of the Know Nothing political movement.
Belle Starr Legendary Wild West , female outlaw
Nat Turner , led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia during August 1831.
Anthropology, archaeology, scholars
Churchill Babington , Archaeology
Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier , Archaeology
Franz Boas , Anthropology
Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg , Archaeology
Louis Agassiz Fuertes , Ornithology
George Bird Grinnell , Anthropology
Joseph LeConte , Scholar, preservationist
Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai , Anthropology
Clinton Hart Merriam , Zoology
Lewis H. Morgan , Anthropology
Jules Etienne Joseph Quicherat , Archaeology
Robert Ridgway , Ornithology
Edward Burnett Tylor , Anthropology
Karl Verner , Linguist
Journalists, missionaries, explorers
Roald Amundsen , explorer
Samuel Baker , explorer
Thomas Baines , artist, explorer
Heinrich Barth , explorer
Henry Walter Bates , naturalist, explorer
Jim Bridger , explorer
Richard Francis Burton , explorer
The Lewis&Clark expedition, exploration
Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh , explorer
Percy Fawcett , adventurer, explorer, proto-Indiana Jones
Horace Greeley , journalist
Peter Jones (missionary) , Canadian Methodist minister, and go-between between Christians and his fellow Mississaugas and other Indian tribes.
Adoniram Judson , missionary
Sir John Kirk , explorer, physician, companion of David Livingston
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker , botanist, explorer, friend of Charles Darwin
Sir William Jackson Hooker , botanist, explorer, father of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker
Meriwether Lewis , explorer
David Livingstone , missionary
Thomas Nast , journalist, caricaturist and editorial cartoonist
Robert Peary , explorer
Marcelo H. del Pilar , writer, journalist, editor of La Solidaridad .
Nikolai Przhevalsky , explorer
Frederick Selous , explorer
John Hanning Speke , explorer
Henry M. Stanley , journalist, explorer
John McDouall Stuart , explorer
John L. O'Sullivan , journalist who coined Manifest Destiny
Photography
Ottomar Anschütz , chronophotographer
Mathew Brady , documented the American Civil War
Edward S. Curtis , documented the American West notably Native Americans
Louis Daguerre , inventor of daguerreotype process of photography, chemist
Thomas Eakins , pioneer motion photographer
George Eastman , inventor of the roll of film
Hércules Florence , pioneer inventor of photography
Auguste and Louis Lumière , pioneer filmmakers, inventors
Étienne-Jules Marey , pioneer motion photographer, chronophotographer
Eadweard Muybridge , pioneer motion photographer, chronophotographer
Nadar aka Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, portrait photographer
Nicéphore Niépce , pioneer inventor of photography
Louis Le Prince , motion picture inventor and pioneer filmmaker
William Fox Talbot , inventor of the negative / positive photographic process.
Visual artists, painters, sculptors
The Realism and Romanticism of the early 19th century gave way to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the later half of the century, with Paris being the dominant art capital of the world. In the United States the Hudson River School was prominent. 19th century painters included:
Music
Sonata form matured during the Classical era to become the primary form of instrumental compositions throughout the 19th century. Much of the music from the nineteenth century was referred to as being in the Romantic style. Many great composers lived through this era such as Ludwig van Beethoven , Franz Liszt , Frédéric Chopin , Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Wagner . The list includes:
Literature
On the literary front the new century opens with Romanticism , a movement that spread throughout Europe in reaction to 18th-century rationalism, and it develops more or less along the lines of the Industrial Revolution, with a design to react against the dramatic changes wrought on nature by the steam engine and the railway . William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are considered the initiators of the new school in England, while in the continent the German Sturm und Drang spreads its influence as far as Italy and Spain.
French arts had been hampered by the Napoleonic Wars but subsequently developed rapidly. Modernism began.
The Goncourts and Emile Zola in France and Giovanni Verga in Italy produce some of the finest naturalist novels. Italian naturalist novels are especially important in that they give a social map of the new unified Italy to a people that until then had been scarcely aware of its ethnic and cultural diversity. On February 21, 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Communist Manifesto.
There was a huge literary output during the 19th century. Some of the most famous writers included the Russians Leo Tolstoy , Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoevsky ; the English Charles Dickens , John Keats , and Jane Austen ; the Scottish Sir Walter Scott ; the Irish Oscar Wilde ; the Americans Edgar Allan Poe , Ralph Waldo Emerson , and Mark Twain ; and the French Victor Hugo , Honoré de Balzac , Jules Verne and Charles Baudelaire . Some other important writers of note included:
Science
The 19th century saw the birth of science as a profession; the term scientist was coined in 1833 by William Whewell . Among the most influential ideas of the 19th century were those of Charles Darwin , who in 1859 published the book The Origin of Species , which introduced the idea of evolution by natural selection . Louis Pasteur made the first vaccine against rabies , and also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, including the asymmetry of crystals . Thomas Alva Edison gave the world a practical everyday lightbulb . Karl Weierstrass and other mathematicians also carried out the arithmetization of analysis . But the most important step in science at this time was the ideas formulated by Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell . Their work changed the face of physics and made possible for new technology to come about. Other important 19th century scientists included:
Amedeo Avogadro , physicist
Johann Jakob Balmer , mathematician, physicist
Henri Becquerel , physicist
Alexander Graham Bell , inventor
Ludwig Boltzmann , physicist
János Bolyai , mathematician
Louis Braille , inventor of braille
Robert Bunsen , chemist
Marie Curie , physicist, chemist
Pierre Curie , physicist
Gottlieb Daimler , engineer, industrial designer and industrialist
Christian Doppler , physicist, mathematician
Thomas Edison , inventor
Michael Faraday , scientist
Léon Foucault , physicist
Gottlob Frege , mathematician, logician and philosopher
Sigmund Freud , the father of psychoanalysis
Carl Friedrich Gauss , mathematician, physicist, astronomer
Josiah Willard Gibbs , physicist
Ernst Haeckel , biologist
Heinrich Hertz , physicist
Alexander von Humboldt , naturalist, explorer
Robert Koch , physician, bacteriologist
Justus von Liebig , chemist
Nikolai Lobachevsky , mathematician
James Clerk Maxwell , physicist
Wilhelm Maybach , car-engine and automobile designer and industrialist
Gregor Mendel , biologist
Dmitri Mendeleev , chemist
Samuel Morey , inventor
Alfred Nobel , chemist, engineer, inventor
Louis Pasteur , microbiologist and chemist
Santiago Ramón y Cajal , biologist
Bernhard Riemann , mathematician
William Emerson Ritter , biologist
Nikola Tesla , inventor
William Thomson , Lord Kelvin, physicist
Philosophy and religion
The 19th century was host to a variety of religious and philosophical thinkers, including:
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad founded the Ahmadiyya Islamic movement in India.
Bahá'u'lláh founded the Bahá'í Faith in Persia
Mikhail Bakunin , anarchist
William Booth , social reformer, founder of the Salvation Army
Auguste Comte , philosopher
Mary Baker Eddy , religious leader, founder of Christian Science
Friedrich Engels , political philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard , philosopher
Karl Marx , political philosopher
John Stuart Mill , philosopher
William Morris , social reformer
Friedrich Nietzsche , philosopher
Nikolai (Nicholas) of Japan , religious leader, introduced Eastern Orthodoxy into Japan
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa , Hindu mystic
Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon , founder of French socialism
Arthur Schopenhauer , philosopher
Joseph Smith, Jr. and Brigham Young , founders of Mormonism
Ayya Vaikundar , initiator of the belief system of Ayyavazhi
Ellen White religious author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
Politics and the Military
John Adams , American statesman, lawyer, and president
John Quincy Adams , U.S. congressman, lawyer, and president
Susan B. Anthony , U.S. women's rights advocate
Otto von Bismarck , German chancellor
Napoleon Bonaparte , French general, first consul and emperor
John C. Calhoun , U.S. senator
Henry Clay , U.S. statesman, "The Great Compromiser"
Jefferson Davis , President of the Confederate States of America just before and during the American Civil War .
Benjamin Disraeli , novelist and politician
Frederick Douglass , U.S. abolitionist spokesman
Ferdinand VII of Spain
Joseph Fouché , French politician
John C. Frémont , Explorer, Governor of California
Giuseppe Garibaldi , unifier of Italy and Piedmontese soldier
Isabella II of Spain
Gojong of Joseon , Korean emperor
William Lloyd Garrison , U.S. abolitionist leader
William Ewart Gladstone , British prime minister
Ulysses S. Grant , U.S. general and president
George Hearst , U.S. Senator and father of William Randolph Hearst
Theodor Herzl , founder of modern political Zionism
Andrew Jackson , U.S. general and president
Thomas Jefferson , American statesman, philosopher, and president
Lajos Kossuth , Hungarian governor; leader of the war of independence
Robert E. Lee , Confederate general
Libertadores , Latin American liberators
Abraham Lincoln , U.S. president; led the nation during the American Civil War
Sir John A. Macdonald , Canada, first Prime Minister of Canada
Klemens von Metternich , Austrian Chancellor
Mutsuhito , Japanese emperor
Napoleon III
Cecil Rhodes
Theodore Roosevelt , Explorer, Naturalist, future President of The United States
William Tecumseh Sherman , Union general during the American Civil War
Fulwar Skipwith , the first and only president of the short lived Republic of West Florida
Leland Stanford , Governor of California, U.S. Senator, entrepreneur
István Széchenyi , aristocrat, leader of the Hungarian reform movement
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand , French politician
Harriet Tubman , African-American abolitionist , humanitarian , played a part in the Underground Railroad
William M. Tweed , aka Boss Tweed , influential New York City politician, head of Tammany Hall
Queen Victoria , British monarch
Hong Xiuquan , revolutionary, self-proclaimed Son of God
Tokugawa Yoshinobu , Japanese Shogun (The Last Shogun)
See also
External links
Private Letters from the 1800s century - at the Letter Repository
References
^ Encyclopædia Britannica's Great Inventions. Encyclopædia Britannica .
^ "The United States and the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century"
^ Laura Del Col, West Virginia University, The Life of the Industrial Worker in Nineteenth-Century England
^ Modernization – Population Change. Encyclopædia Britannica .
^ Liberalism in the 19th century. Encyclopædia Britannica.
^ Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore. BBC.
^ The Atlantic: Can the US afford immigration?. Migration News . December 1996.
^ Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
^ "William Whewell". Stanford University. http://www.science.uva.nl/~seop/entries/whewell/ . Retrieved 2008-03-03 .
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