1821
A congress of the European powers, held at Laibach, in Austria, determined
to suppress the liberal movement in Italy and to restore absolute rule in
Naples. King Ferdinand of Naples agreed, though he had recently sworn to
uphold the constitution. Austrian armies invaded Piedmont and Naples,
speedily crushed the revolutionary movement, and the leaders of the
popular party were shot or imprisoned.
Both in the Old World and in the New the year was one of political unrest.
Brazil rebelled against Portuguese rule, and Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador
against Spanish domination. Greece and the Christian tribesmen of the
Balkans rose against Turkey. In retaliation, Greeks in Constantinople were
strangled; Greek settlements on the Bosporus were wiped out; and the
Patriarch of Constantinople, head of the Greek Church, was hanged by the
Turks. Russia, on the point of declaring war against Turkey, was
restrained by England and Metternich. Both Greeks and Turks carried on a
war of indiscriminate slaughter.
Napoleon died at St. Helena, May 5, after nearly six years of captivity. A
curious feature of his will was his bequest of ten thousand francs to
Cantillon, who had attempted to assassinate Wellington. Queen Caroline of
England, wife of George IV, died; serious riots at her funeral. John
Keats, English poet, died.
In the United States, James Monroe began his second term as President.
Missouri was admitted to the Union. Arrangements were made to open the
territory of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, as a colony for
freedmen. Amherst College and the Massachusetts General Hospital were
founded.
=POPULATION--Washington, D.C., 13,247; New York (including the boroughs
now forming Greater New York), 152,056; New York (Manhattan), 123,706;
London (Metropolitan District), 1,225,694; London (old city), 125,434;
United States (1820), 9,633,822; Great Britain and Ireland (1821),
20,893,584.=
=RULERS--United States, James Monroe; Great Britain, George IV; France,
Louis XVIII; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia,
Alexander I; Austria, Francis I; Pope Pius VII.=
1822
The Turks slaughtered some twenty-five thousand Greeks on the island of
Scio (Chios), and sold the surviving women and children into slavery.
Constantine Kanaris, unaided, burned the flag-ship of the Turkish fleet. A
Turkish army under Dramalis invaded the Grecian mainland, and reached
Corinth, but gained no decisive success. Other nations, in response to
popular sympathy for the Greeks, intervened to put an end to the war.
Spain disturbed by civil war; King Ferdinand VII imprisoned in his own
palace. Spanish efforts to reconquer the revolted colonies in South
America ended disastrously in the battle of Ayacucho, in which General
Sucre, a lieutenant of the great liberator Bolivar, decisively defeated
the Spaniards. Brazil became independent of Portugal by a peaceful
revolution, which set Dom Pedro, son of the Portuguese king, upon the
Brazilian throne with the title of emperor. General Iturbide proclaimed
himself Emperor of Mexico.
Percussion-caps invented. Cabs introduced in London, and their use
immediately spread. Aleppo, Syria, destroyed by an earthquake; twenty
thousand people killed. Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet; Sir William
Herschel, astronomer; and Antonio Canova, Italian sculptor, died. Viscount
Castlereagh, British statesman, committed suicide.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1823
Louis XVIII of France decided to invade Spain in order to maintain Bourbon
rule, which was threatened by the Spanish liberal movement; the Cortes
withdrew to Cadiz, which was besieged and captured by the French.
Ferdinand VII, being restored to absolute power, dissolved the Cortes,
despite all persuasion annulled the constitution, and implacably punished
by death, exile, or imprisonment all who had sided against him. The
struggle between the Greeks and the Turks continued with much desperate
fighting, but no decisive result. A notable episode of the war was the
gallant defense of Missolonghi by Markos Bozzaris. Central America
declared itself free from Spanish rule.
In the United States, 1823 is historically memorable as the year in which
President Monroe, in his annual message to Congress, enunciated the
so-called Monroe Doctrine, which has since been the keynote of American
foreign policy. First steam printing-press operated in New York; an
earlier attempt made by the London _Times_ was only partially successful.
Gaslight introduced in New York. The first boat passed through the Erie
Canal from Rochester to New York.
Richard Jenner, discoverer of vaccination, and David Ricardo, political
economist, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Pope Pius VII died,
August 20, and was succeeded by Cardinai della Genga, who assumed the name
of Leo XII.=
1824
An Egyptian army, aiding the Sultan of Turkey--to whom Egypt was, and
nominally still is, a vassal state--landed in Crete, and nearly
exterminated the Greek population. It also captured the island of Kossos,
slaughtering most of the inhabitants, but on proceeding to attack Samos it
was repulsed and driven back to Crete. The Turks also captured Psara and
butchered or enslaved the whole population. The new independent states of
South America--Venezuela, New Granada (Colombia), Chile, Peru, and Buenos
Ayres (Argentina)--were formally recognized by the United States
government. In Mexico, the self-styled Emperor Iturbide was shot, and
Santa Anna established a republican government. The first Burmese War was
precipitated by Bundula, who invaded Bengal. He was repelled, and the
British captured Rangoon.
Lafayette revisited the United States and received a memorable welcome.
Robert Owen, the English Fourierist, founded a colony at New Harmony,
Indiana. First society for the prevention of cruelty to animals founded
in England. Portland cement invented by Joseph Aspden, of Leeds, England.
Lord Byron, English poet, died at Missolonghi, Greece, where he was
serving as a volunteer in the cause of Grecian liberty.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Louis XVIII of
France died, and was succeeded by his brother, Charles X.=
1825
The Turks reduced much of the Grecian territory to a desert, and
slaughtered thousands of its inhabitants, the patriot forces having been
defeated and scattered. General European resentment was aroused by the
inhuman savagery of the Turks. The British forces decisively defeated the
Burmese, and added greatly to British territory on the eastern frontier of
India.
The first public steam railroad was opened in England, between Stockton
and Darlington, George Stephenson himself driving the engine. It was the
first thorough and practical test of the locomotive, though in 1813
William Hedley had partially succeeded at the Wyland colliery, and in 1814
Stephenson built an engine that made six miles an hour, but it proved
defective. After the success of the new road was undeniable, it was
difficult to persuade Parliament to sanction it.
In the United States, Congress decided the disputed Presidential election
in favor of John Quincy Adams, John Calhoun becoming Vice-President. John
Randolph and Henry Clay fought a resultless duel. Reorganization of United
States political parties, the Whigs lining up as supporters of President
Adams, with the Democrats, whose main strength lay in the South, as their
opponents.
The first boat came through the entire length of the Erie Canal, from
Buffalo to New York. Bunker Hill monument begun; Lafayette present;
Webster the orator of the day. Congress granted Lafayette two hundred
thousand dollars and a township site.
Mutiny of Russian troops at the coronation of Nicholas I put down after
much bloodshed. First steam voyage from England to India, by the Cape of
Good Hope route, eighty-five days out. Augustine Fresnel, French
scientist; Jacques Louis David, French historical painter; and Jean Paul
Richter, German author, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Nicholas I
succeeded Alexander I as Czar of Russia, and John Quincy Adams succeeded
James Monroe as President of the United States.=
1826
Insurrection in Portugal against the infant queen, Maria da Gloria.
Insurgents defeated and fled to Spain; aid sent to Portugal by England.
The Russian Czar Nicholas began his reign by hanging or exiling to Siberia
those who stood for a liberal government and for popular education. The
Russians pushed forward in the direction of Persia, defeating the Persian
troops and annexing disputed territory. Nicholas demanded from Turkey the
autonomy of Servia, Moldavia, and Wallachia; Turkey, still occupied with
its Grecian troubles, yielded. In Greece, the Turks captured Missolonghi
and Athens, though the Acropolis of the latter city still held out.
Financial and industrial depression prevailed in England; machine-smashing
continued; friction matches perfected by John Walker; lime-light
discovered by Thomas Drummond; English state lotteries prohibited.
On July 4, while the people of the United States were celebrating the
semi-centennial of the Declaration of Independence, two signers of that
immortal document, both ex-Presidents, died--Thomas Jefferson and John
Adams. A violent anti-Masonic movement further disturbed the American
political situation. Bellevue Hospital founded in New York.
Froebel published "The Education of Man." Famous men dying in 1826 were
Lindley Murray, grammarian; John Flaxman, sculptor; Reginald Heber, Bishop
of Calcutta and hymn-writer; and Prince Rostopchin, by whose orders Moscow
was burned in 1812.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1827
The revolt in Portugal finally suppressed, with the assistance of a
British army corps. The Acropolis at Athens captured by the Turks. Many
foreign volunteers joined the Greek forces, and England, Russia, and
France demanded that Turkey should agree to an armistice. As the Turks
refused, and continued their atrocities upon the helpless Greeks, Admiral
Codrington, commanding twenty-nine English, Russian, and French vessels,
attacked the Turkish and Egyptian fleets at Navarino--consisting of
seventy warships, forty transports, and four fire-ships--and utterly
destroyed them. The Sultan, however, remained obdurate, refusing all
demands, and insisting on an indemnity for his ships.
Popular discontent and anti-clerical riots in France; Charles X disbanded
the National Guard, and made ineffectual attempts to gag the press.
Joseph Smith, at Palmyra, New York, began to have visions that later
developed into Mormonism. Woehler, German chemist, discovered the metal
aluminum; Ohm made important discoveries concerning electric currents.
Famous men dying in this year were George Canning, English statesman;
Laplace, French astronomer; Ludwig van Beethoven, German musician; William
Blake, English poet and artist; and Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1828
Russia concluded peace with Persia, exacting an indemnity of twenty
million rubles and annexing two provinces. She now moved against Turkey,
where the Sultan Mahmoud had incited his people to a holy war. The
Russians won some early successes, but were hampered by poor commissariat
and transportation service, and could not pass the Turkish fortresses at
Silistria, Varna, and Shumla. Meanwhile a French force landed in Greece;
the Morea was evacuated by the Turks, and Greece became independent, with
Count Joannes Capo d'Istria, a Greek who had been foreign minister at St.
Petersburg, as president.
In the United States, Congress passed a bill establishing a protective
tariff. The North, formerly agricultural and in favor of free trade, had
turned to manufacturing, and, led by Webster, strenuously upheld
protection against the Southern leaders, once its advocates, now its
enemies. States rights discussions grew stronger. The first American steam
railroad constructed at Baltimore. Webster's Dictionary published.
Internal wars in Latin America. The Emperor of China sought to restrain
the English from carrying on the opium trade. Daniel O'Connell elected to
Parliament, but not permitted to sit, being a Roman Catholic. As a result,
however, a general sentiment in favor of Catholic emancipation developed
in England. British troops withdrawn from Portugal. Dom Miguel proclaimed
King of Portugal; absolutism supreme.
Famous people dying in 1828 were Franz Schubert, Viennese musician; Lady
Caroline Lamb, English author; Dugald Stewart, Scottish philosopher; and
Thomas Bewick, engraver.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year.=
1829
In the Balkans, the Russian forces renewed the campaign against Turkey,
severely defeated the Turks at Kulevtcha, and captured Silistria and
Adrianople. Other European powers demanded peace, and on April 14 a treaty
was signed giving Russia a protectorate over the newly liberated Danubian
principalities, Turkey surrendering all fortified points on the left bank
of the Danube.
In the United States, President Jackson began his term by declaring that
"to the victors belong the spoils," and instantly removing one hundred and
sixty-seven appointees made by John Quincy Adams. Adams absented himself
from the inaugural ceremonies. Georgia and South Carolina, in the course
of their opposition to the tariff, maintained the right of the States to
nullify acts of Congress. Jackson involved in quarrels with his Cabinet.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened.
The popular opposition to King Charles of France increased in intensity.
The Catholic Emancipation Act passed by the British Parliament. Capital
punishment for burglary abolished in England. The burning alive of widows
forbidden in India. Sir Charles Gurney invented a steam-driven omnibus,
the forerunner of the automobile. Sir John Ross, the British explorer,
made the first Arctic voyage in a steamship. Jean Baptiste de Lamarck,
French scientist; Karl von Schlegel, German scholar; and Thomas Young and
Sir Humphry Davy, English scientists, died.
=RULERS--The same as in the previous year, except that Andrew Jackson
became President of the United States, and Pope Leo XII died, February 10.
Cardinal Castiglione, his successor, took the name of Pius VIII.=
1830
France seized Algiers, despite English protests, thus laying the
foundation of her vast colonial empire in Africa. The liberals gained a
majority in the French chamber, and on an appeal to the people the
government was overwhelmingly defeated. On July 24 Charles X dissolved the
legislature and made Marshal Marmont commandant of Paris. Next day
barricades were thrown up in the streets, merchants, working men,
students, and soldiers joining in opposition to the government. Paris was
declared in a state of siege, but the Louvre and the Tuileries were
captured by the revolutionists. After vainly endeavoring to quiet the
country by concessions, Charles abdicated and fled to England. His cousin,
Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, son of the so-called Philippe Egalite,
was crowned king.
Rebellion began in Brussels, and Holland and Belgium, which had been
united as one state since the downfall of Napoleon, formed separate
governments. Uprising in Spain against Ferdinand VII, because he had
abolished the Salic law, being without male issue and wishing his wife to
succeed him. Poland also rose against Russian domination, and set up a
provisional government. The Sultan of Turkey formally recognized the
independence of Greece.
In the United States Congress, nullification continued to be the absorbing
topic; Webster, speaking on it, made his famous oration in reply to Hayne,
of South Carolina (January 26, 27). Mormon Church organized at Manchester,
New York. First American-built locomotive operated at Baltimore. A portion
of Texas was claimed as United States territory by settlers living on the
Texan border; Congress refused to take action in the matter.
In England, the Duke of Wellington's ministry resigned, and was succeeded
by Earl Grey's. In the British colony of Van Diemen's Land--since renamed
Tasmania--the white inhabitants began a war of extermination upon the
natives. A cordon was drawn across the island, but failed to accomplish
the work. There was further political unrest in Germany; Duke Charles
Frederick of Brunswick was expelled from his dominions by a popular
uprising, and the people of Saxony forced their king, Antony, to promise
them a constitution.
Barthelemy Thimonnier, French tailor, introduced a practical chain-stitch
sewing-machine. Joseph Lister contributed greatly to the utility of the
microscope. Simon Bolivar, liberator of South America, and Sir Thomas
Lawrence, English painter, died.
=RULERS--United States, Andrew Jackson; Great Britain, George IV, died
June 26, succeeded by William IV; France, Charles X, deposed, succeeded by
Louis Philippe; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III;
Russia, Nicholas I; Austria, Francis I; Pope, Pius VIII, died March 31.
The Papacy remained vacant until the following year.=