1843

1843 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

• February 6 - The first minstrel show in the United States The Virginia Minstrels opens (Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City).
• 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.
• 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.
• December 17 - First publication of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
• James Joule quantifies the conversion of work into heat
• In Barbados, the first colored man, Samuel Jackson Prescod, is elected to House of Assembly
• Danish government re-establishes althing in Iceland as an advisory body
• First tunnel under 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

• January 10 - Frank James, American outlaw (d. 1915)
• January 29 - William McKinley, 25th President of the United States (d. 1901)
• April 4 - William Jackson, photographer
• April 15 - Henry James, American writer (d. 1916)
• June 3 - King Frederick VIII of Denmark (d. 1912)
• June 9 - Bertha von Suttner, Austrian pacificst, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1914)
• June 15 - Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer (d. 1907)
• June 30 - Sir Ernest Satow, British diplomat and scholar (d. 1928)
• July 29 - Johannes Schmidt, German linguist (d. 1901)
• August 1 - Robert Todd Lincoln, American statesman and businessman (d. 1926)
• November 27 - Cornelius Vanderbilt II, American railway magnate (d. 1899)
• December 11 - Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch, German bacteriologist (d. 1910)
• Jang Seung-eop, Korean painter (d. 1897)

Deaths

• January 11 - Francis Scott Key, American lawyer and lyricist (b. 1779)
• March 21 - Robert Southey, English poet (b. 1774)
• March 25 - Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Scottish clergyman (b. 1813)
• March 27 - Karl Salomo Zachariae Von Lingenthal, German jurist (b. 1769)
• April 15 - Noah Webster, American lexicographer (b. 1758)
• April 17 - Samuel Morey, American inventor (b. 1762)
• June 6 - Friedrich Hölderlin, German writer (b. 1770)
• July 7 - John Holmes, American politician (b. 1773)
• William Abbot, English actor (b. 1798)