Our Family Heritage

1840

• Paul Edmund de Strzelecki climbs and names Australia’s highest mountain, Mount Kosciusko
• Transportation of convicts to NSW ends
• First Welsh come to Australia
• Civil War breaks out in Uruguay between the Colorados (reds) and Blancos (whites).
• Upper and Lower Canada are united in the single Province of Canada.
• Queen Victoria marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg
• Maori chiefs sign over their tribal lands to Queen Victoria in the Treaty of Waitangi.
• The Underground Railroad is active in helping escaping slaves in the U.S.
• The metric system of measurement is reinstated in France.
• The first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, is issued in London.

1841 

• George Grey is appointed governor of South Australia to help save the colony. 
• Edward John Eyre explores South Australia and discovers Lake EyreEyre crosses the Nullarbor to Western Australia.
• First government building for postal services opens in Melbourne
• Australia’s first gas lighting is turned on in Sydney
• Silver-lead deposits are found near Adelaide.
• Harrison is inaugurated as the 9th U.S. president; Tyler becomes vice-president.
• New Zealand is established as a separate British colony.
• Whig prime minister Lord Melbourne resigns; he is succeeded by Sir Robert Peel.
• President Harrison dies; John Tyler is inaugurated as the 10th U.S. president
• Edgar Allan Poe writes an early detective story The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

1842

• German immigrants settle at Lobethal in SA
• A native police force is established in the Port Philip district
• Copper and gold discovered in Australia
• Four buildings destroyed by fire in Collins Street, Melbourne
• China is defeated in the first Opium War; Chinese ports are opened to British trade.
• China cedes Hong Kong to Britain.
• American showman P.T. Barnum discovers the 40-inch midget Tom Thumb.

1843

• Irrigation used to grow hops on the Derwent River in Van Diemen’s Land
• First coal mined in Van Diemen’s Land, at Colebrook

1844 

• Settlers in New South Wales force Britain to stop sending convicts to the colony.
• Charles Sturt attempts to reach Central Australia from Adelaide and fails.
• First permanent Hebrew synagogue is established in Sydney
• Butter and cheese are exported to the Californian goldfields from Sydney
• First Catholic school is established in Perth
• French author Alexandre Dumas (Dumas pere) publishes The Three Musketeers.
• Samuel F.B. Morse establishes the first U.S. telegraph link.
• The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in England.

1845 

• Charles Sturt is Colonial Treasurer.
• Whaling industry off the southern coast brings the Right whale near to extinction
• Victoria’s first Fire Brigade was organized
• Australia’s worst maritime disaster occurred when the emigrant sailing ship Cataraqui hits the coast of King Island-406 people die
• The Sikh Wars begin in British India.
• Failure of the potato crop leads to a famine in Ireland.
• Sir John Franklin leads an ill-fated expedition in search of the Northwest Passage.
• The first clipper ship the Rainbow is built in New York.
• German composer Robert Schumann writes his Piano Concerto in A minor.
• American author Margaret Fuller publishes Women in the Nineteenth Century.

1846 

• Copper ore is discovered in SA
• Benedictine monks establish a mission for Aborigines in WA
• First bridge over the Yarra River is completed
• The border between the U.S. and Canada is established, settling the Oregon Question.
• The Mexican War begins over the U.S. annexation of Texas.
• The Mexican government collapses; Santa Anna is reelected as president.
• U.S. forces under Stephen Watts Kearny occupy New Mexico.
• American dentist William Morton extracts a tooth using ether as an anesthetic.
• Writer and artist Edward Lear publishes A Book of Nonsense.

1847

• The Mormons under Brigham Young found Salt Lake City.
• The U.S. post office begins using adhesive postage stamps.
• English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray begins Vanity Fair.
• Charlotte Bronte publishes Jane Eyre
• Emily Bronte publishes Wuthering Heights.

1848 

• Ludwig Leichardt disappears while exploring Central Australia.
• The Revolutions of 1848 break out in Europe.
• Risorgimento leader Garibaldi returns to Italy to fight in the war of independence.
• Louis Philippe abdicates; a Second Republic is declared in France.
• Uprisings in Berlin force Frederick William IV to summon a constitutional assembly.
• A Czech uprising under Frantisek Palacky is suppressed by Austria.
• The Austrian revolution begins in Vienna; chancellor Metternich resigns.
• Ferdinand I abdicates; Francis Joseph becomes Emperor of Austria.
• The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill begins the California gold rush.
• American engineer James Bogardus begins using cast-iron for building construction.

1849

• Austrian forces crush the Italian revolution; Mazzini and Garibaldi flee from Italy.
• Lajos Kossuth declares Hungarian independence from Austria.
• Austrian premier Felix Schwarzenberg uses the Russian army to defeat the Hungarians.
• Black slave Harriet Tubman escapes and begins her Underground Railway work.
• Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to obtain a medical degree.
• Amelia Bloomer publicizes bloomers (baggy trousers for women) in the Lily magazine.
• French physicist Armand Fizeau measures the velocity of light.