From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of events
Events from the year 1840 in the United States .
Incumbents
Events
January 13–14 – The steamship
Lexington burns and sinks in icy waters, 4 miles off the coast of
Long Island ; 139 die, only 4 survive.
January 19 – Captain
Charles Wilkes circumnavigates
Antarctica , claiming what becomes known as
Wilkes Land for the United States.
March 4 –
Alexander S. Wolcott and
John Johnson open their "Daguerreian Parlor" on
Broadway (Manhattan) , the world's first commercial photography portrait studio.
March 9 – The
Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is completed from
Wilmington ,
North Carolina to
Weldon , North Carolina. At 161.5 miles, it was the world's longest railroad at the time.
[1]
April – The
Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is completed from
Raleigh , North Carolina to near Weldon, North Carolina.
[2]
May 7 – The
Great Natchez Tornado : A massive tornado strikes
Natchez, Mississippi during the early afternoon hours. Before it is over, 317 people are killed and 109 injured. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
November 7 –
U.S. presidential election, 1840 :
William Henry Harrison defeats
Martin Van Buren .
Ongoing
Births
January 1 –
Patrick Walsh , Irish-born
U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1894 to 1895 (died
1899 )
January 29 –
Henry H. Rogers , financier (died
1909 )
February 4 –
Hiram Stevens Maxim , firearms inventor (died
1916 )
February 9 –
William T. Sampson , U.S. Navy admiral (died
1902 )
March 5 –
Constance Fenimore Woolson , fiction writer and poet (died
1894 )
April 28 –
Caroline Shawk Brooks , sculptor (died
1913 )
May 1 –
Cynthia S. Burnett , educator, temperance reformer, and newspaper editor (died
1932 )
May 4 –
George Gray , U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1885 to 1899 (died
1925 )
June 3 –
Michael O'Laughlen , conspirator in the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 (died
1867 )
June 6 –
William Dudley Chipley , railroad tycoon and statesman (died
1897 )
June 14 –
William F. Nast , attaché, railroad executive and inventor (died
1893 )
June 27 –
Alpheus Beede Stickney , railroad executive (died 1916)
July 10 –
Esther G. Frame , Quaker minister and evangelist (died
1920 )
July 21 –
Christian Abraham Fleetwood ,
Union Army 4th Colored Infantry Regiment soldier and
Medal of Honor recipient (died
1914 )
August 25 –
George C. Magoun , railroad executive (died
1893 )
August 28 –
Ira D. Sankey , gospel singer and composer (died
1908 )
September 10 –
William B. Avery ,
Union Army soldier and
Medal of Honor recipient (died
1894 )
September 22 –
D. M. Canright , Seventh-day Adventist minister and author, later one of the church's severest critics (died
1919 )
September 27 –
Alfred Thayer Mahan , U.S. Navy admiral, geostrategist and historian (died
1914 )
September 23 –
Simon B. Conover , U.S. Senator from Florida from 1873 to 1879 (died
1908 )
October 1 –
Anthony Higgins , U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1889 to 1895 (died
1912 )
October 24 –
Eliza Pollock , American archer (died
1919 )
November 24 –
John Brashear , astronomer (died
1920 )
Earliest probable date –
Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó), Chief of the
Oglala Lakota (killed
1877 )
Deaths
See also
References
External links