1820
| Years: 1817 1818 1819 – 1820 – 1821 1822 1823 | |
| Decades: 1790s 1800s 1810s – 1820s – 1830s 1840s 1850s | |
| Centuries: 18th century – 19th century – 20th century 1820 in topic: Lists of leaders: | |
1820 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).
Table of contents |
Events
- 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.
- January 28 – Russian expedition lead by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev approaches the Antarctic coast.
- January 29 – George the Prince Regent becomes king George IV of the United Kingdom, ending the period known as the English Regency.
- January 30 – Edward Bransfield lands on the Antarctic mainland.
- 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 – The Missouri Compromise becomes law in the United States.
- March 15 – Maine is admitted as the 23rd U.S. state.
- May 1 – Last hanging drawing and quartering in Britain – Cato Street conspirators for treason (only hanged and beheaded)
- 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
- September 28 -In Salem, Massachusetts, Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson eats a tomato in public to prove it is not poisonous.
- October 9 – Guayaquil declare independence from Ecuador.
- October 25-November 20 – Congress of Troppau (Opava) between rulers of Russia, Austria and Prussia
- November – James Monroe is re-elected, virtually unopposed.
- November 17 – Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica (the Palmer Peninsula was later named after him).
Unknown date
- The 6th Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica begins appearing.
- Republic of Buenos Aires (Argentina) establishes a penal colony in Falkland Islands.
- Venus de Milo found on the island of Melos.
- Hans Christian Ørsted discovers the relationship between electricity and magnetism.
Births
- January 17 – Anne Brontë, English author (d. 1849)
- February 8 – William Tecumseh Sherman, American Civil War general (d. 1891)
- February 15 – Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist (d. 1906)
- February 17 – Henri Vieuxtemps, Belgian composer (d. 1881)
- February 28 – John Tenniel, English illustrator (d. 1914)
- 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 23 – Julia Gardiner Tyler, First Lady of the United States (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)
Deaths
- 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)
- June 19 – Sir Joseph Banks, British naturalist and botanist (b. 1743)
- September 3 – Benjamin Latrobe, English architect (b. 1764)
Categories: 1820