1843

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1810s  1820s  1830s  – 1840s –  1850s  1860s  1870s
Years:	1840 1841 1842 – 1843 – 1844 1845 1846

Events

• February 6 – The Virginia Minstrels perform the first minstrel show (Bowery Amphitheatre, New York City).
• February 8 – Earthquakes in Guadeloupe magnitude 8.5, 5000 people report killed.
• February 11 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera I Lombardi premieres in Milan.
• May 18 – The Disruption of the Church of Scotland took place in Edinburgh.
• May 22 – The first major wagon train headed for the northwest sets out with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.
• July 19 – The SS Great Britain is launched from Bristol.
• August 15 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opened in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• October 13 – In New York City, Henry Jones and 11 others found B'nai B'rith (the oldest Jewish service organization in the world).
• November 28 – Ka La Ku'oko'a: Hawaiian Independence Day. The Kingdom of Hawai`i was officially recognized by the United Kingdom and France as an independent nation.
• The world's first commercial Christmas cards are printed by Sir Henry Cole in London.
• December 17 – First publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
• James Joule quantifies the conversion of work into heat.
• In Barbados, the first black man, Samuel Jackson Prescod, is elected to the House of Assembly.
• The Danish government re-establishes the althing in Iceland as an advisory body.
• The first tunnel under the Thames is finished.
• Argentina supports Rosas of Uruguay and begins a siege of Montevideo.
• Quaternions are discovered by William Rowan Hamilton.
• The Economist is first published.
• Bishop's University is founded.
• Abbeville is founded by descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia.

Births

for more information, see Category:1843 births.

Deaths

for more information, see Category:1843 deaths.

• January 1 – Francis Scott Key, American lawyer and lyricist (b. 1779)