1820
1820 was a
leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).
*
January 1 - Constitutionalist military insurrection at
Cádiz leads to summoning of
Spanish parliament (
March 7) and restoration of
1812 Constitution (
March 8) by king
Ferdinand VII. (See
Mid-nineteenth century Spain.)
*
January 28 -
Russian expedition lead by
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and
Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev approaches the
Antarctic coast. (See
History of Antarctica.)
*
January 29 -
George IV of the United Kingdom ascends the Throne, ending the period known as the
English Regency.
*
January 30 -
Edward Bransfield lands on the
Antarctic mainland. (See
History of Antarctica.)
*
February 6 - 86 free
African American colonists sail from
New York City to
Freetown, Sierra Leone.
*
February 23 - The
Cato Street conspiracy is exposed. The principals are executed on
May 1*
March 3 &
6 -
Slavery in the
United States: The
Missouri Compromise becomes law.
*
March 15 -
Maine is admitted as the 23rd
U.S. state.
* April -
Hans Christian Ørsted discovers the relationship between
electricity and
magnetism.
* April -
Radical War in
Scotland*
May 1 - Last hanging drawing and quartering in
Britain –
Cato Street conspirators for treason (only hanged and beheaded) (See
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom.)
*
Spring -
Joseph Smith, Jr. at age 14 claims to be visited in a vision by
God and
Jesus (Tradition holds that this occurred on
April 6)
* July -
Constitutionalist revolution in the
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies *
August 24 -
Constitutionalist insurrection at
Oporto,
Portugal; revolution in
Lisbon,
September 15 (See
Portugal's crises of the Nineteenth Century.)
*
October 9 -
Guayaquil declare independence from
Spain. (See also
History of Ecuador).
*
October 25-
November 20 -
Congress of Troppau (
Opava) between rulers of
Russia,
Austria and
Prussia*
December 3 -
U.S. presidential election, 1820 -
James Monroe is re-elected, virtually unopposed.
*The 6th Edition of
Encyclopædia Britannica begins appearing.
*The
Argentine Confederation (
Argentina) establishes a
penal colony in
Falkland Islands.
*
Venus de Milo found on the island of
Melos.
*
January 17 -
Anne Brontë, English author (d.
1849)
*
February 8 -
William Tecumseh Sherman, American Civil War general (d.
1891)
*
February 13 -
James Geiss, English businessman (d.
1878)
*
February 15 -
Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist (d.
1906)
*
February 17 -
Henri Vieuxtemps, Belgian violinist and composer (d.
1881)
*
February 28 -
John Tenniel, English illustrator (d.
1914)
*
March 3 -
Henry D. Cogswell, American philanthropist and
temperance movement pioneer (d.
1900)
*
March 14 -
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy (d.
1878)
*
May 12 -
Florence Nightingale, English nurse (d.
1910)
*
May 27 -
Mathilde Bonaparte, Italian princess (d.
1904)
*
July 9 -
John Wright Oakes, Landscape
painter (d.
1887)
*
July 23 -
Julia Gardiner Tyler,
First Lady of the United States (d.
1889)
*
September 17 -
Émile Augier, French dramatist (d.
1889)
*
September 27 -
Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel, German classical scholar (d.
1878)
*
September 29 -
Comte de Chambord, claimant to the French throne (d.
1883)
*
October 6 -
Jenny Lind, Swedish soprano (d.
1887)
*
November 23 -
Isaac Todhunter, English mathematician (d.
1884)
*
November 28 -
Friedrich Engels, German social philosopher (d.
1895)
*
Harriet Tubman, American abolitionist activist (d.
1913)
*
January 29 - King
George III of the United Kingdom (b.
1738)
*
February 14 -
Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry (stabbed) (b.
1778)
*
March 22 -
Stephen Decatur, American sailor (b.
1779)
*
May 30 -
William Bradley, Britain's tallest ever man (b.
1787)
*
June 19 - Sir
Joseph Banks, British naturalist and botanist (b.
1743)
*
September 3 -
Benjamin Latrobe, English architect (b.
1764)
*
October 15 -
Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Austrian field marshal (b.
1771)
*
December 25 -
Joseph Fouché, French statesman (b.
1763)
*
William Drennan, Northern Irish poet (b.
1754)
