1848
Contents
Year 1848 (MDCCCXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).
1848 is historically famous for the wave of revolutions that swept Europe and the world, starting in France. They significantly altered the political and philosophical landscape and had major ramifications throughout the rest of the century.
Events of 1848
February 2: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican–American War and ceding all the Republic of Texas's territorial claims to the United States for $15m.
April 10: "Monster Rally" of Chartists held on Kennington Common in London; the first photograph of a crowd depicts it.
January – March
- January 3 - Joseph Jenkins Roberts is sworn in as the first president of the independent African Republic of Liberia.
- January 12 - The Palermo rising erupts in Sicily, against the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
- January 24 - California Gold Rush: James W. Marshall finds gold at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California.
- January 31 - The Washington Monument is established.
- February 2 - Mexican–American War: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war and ceding to the United States virtually all of what is today the southwest of that country.
- February 21 - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.
- February 22 - In Paris, revolt erupts against King Louis Philippe. Two days later he abdicates, leading to the Second Republic.
- March - Artisans and factory workers revolt in Berlin.
- March 4 - Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will represent the first constitution of the Kingdom of Sardinia and later of unified Italy.
- March 7 - The Great Mahele (land division) is signed in Hawaii.
- March 10 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, is ratified by the United States Senate. (cf. February 2, above.)
- March 11 - Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine and Robert Baldwin become the first Prime Ministers of the Province of Canada to be democratically elected under a system of responsible government.
- March 15 - Revolution breaks out in Hungary: The Habsburg rulers are compelled to meet the demands of the Reform Party.
- March 18-19, Marsoroligheterna, in Stockholm, Sweden: Outside the Royal Castle, revolutionaries demand reforms, among them that Sweden become a republic. King Oscar I gives the guards orders to shoot at the demonstrators.
- March 20 - King Ludwig I of Bavaria abdicates.
- March 20 - Serfdom is abolished in Austria.
- March 21 - Frederick William IV promises to grant Prussia a liberal constitution and to merge Prussia into a new national German state.
- March 23 - The Province of Otago in New Zealand is founded.
April – June
- April 10
- A Chartist 'Monster Rally' is held in Kennington Park London, headed by Feargus O'Connor. A petition demanding the franchise is presented to parliament.
- A bridge collapses in Great Yarmouth, England, leaving 250 dead.
- May 1 - The Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity is founded at Washington & Jefferson College.
- May 15 - Radicals invade the French Chamber of deputies.
- May 18 - The first German National Assembly (Nationalversammlung) opens in Frankfurt, Germany.
- May 19 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican-American War, is ratified by the Mexican government. (cf. February 2, above.)
- May 29 - Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.
- June 17 - The Austrian army bombards Prague and crushes a working class revolt.
- June 22 - The French government dissolves the national workshops in Paris, giving the workers the choice of joining the army or going to workshops in the provinces.
July – September
- July 19 - Women's rights - Seneca Falls Convention: The 2-day Women's Rights Convention opens in Seneca Falls, New York and the "Bloomers" are introduced at the feminist convention.
- July 26 - Matale Rebellion against British rule in Sri Lanka.
- July 29 - Irish Potato Famine - Tipperary Revolt: In Tipperary, an unsuccessful nationalist revolt against British rule is put-down by a government police force.
- August 17 - Yucatán officially unites with Mexico.
- August 19 - California Gold Rush: The New York Herald breaks the news to the East Coast of the United States that there is a gold rush in California (although the rush started in January).
- August 28 - Mathieu Luis becomes the first black member to join the French Parliament as a representative of Guadaloupe.
- September 12 - One of the successes of the Revolutions of 1848, the Swiss Federal Constitution, patterned on the US Constitution, enters into force, creating a federal republic and one of the first modern democratic states in Europe.
- September 13 - Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage incredibly survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head.
October – December
- October 28 - In Catalonia, Spain, the Barcelona-Mataró railroad route (the first to be constructed in all the Iberian Peninsula) is inaugurated.
- November 1 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the first medical school for women, The Boston Female Medical School (which later merges with Boston University School of Medicine), opens.
- November 3 - A greatly revised Dutch constitution is proclaimed.
- November 4 - France ratifies a new constitution. The Second Republic of France is set up, ending the state of temporary government lasting since the Revolution of 1848.
- November 7 - U.S. presidential election, 1848: Whig Zachary Taylor of Louisiana defeats Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan in the first US presidential election held in every state on the same day.
- December 2 - Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicates in favor of his nephew, Franz Josef I.
- December 10 - Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte is elected first president of the French Second Republic.
- December 18 - Punta Arenas, the first mayor settlement in the Strait of Magellan, is founded.
- December 20 - President Bonaparte takes his Oath of Office in front of the French National Assembly.
- December 26 - Phi Delta Theta Fraternity is founded.