1803 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 30 - Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to discuss, and possibly buy, New Orleans. They end completing the Louisiana Purchase.
• February 24 - The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, establishes the principle of judicial review.
• March 1 - Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state, retroactive from August 7, 1953.
• April 30 - Louisiana Purchase made by the United States from France.
• May 18 - The United Kingdom redeclares war on France after France refused to withdraw from Dutch territory.
• July 4 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
• July 5 - The convention of Artlenburg leads to the French occupation of Hanover (which had been ruled by the British king).
• July 23 - Robert Emmet's uprising in Ireland begins
• July 26 - The wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon is opened, being the first public railway line of the world.
• August 3 – British begin Second Anglo-Maratha War against Sindhia of Gwalior
• September 20 - Irish rebel Robert Emmet is executed
• September 23 - The Battle of Assaye in India – British-lead troops defeat Maratha forces
• November 30 - At the Cabildo building in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marqués de Casa Calvo, officially transfer Louisiana Territory to French representative Prefect Pierre Clément de Laussat (just 20 days later, France had transferred the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase).

• Aargau, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, the Ticino, Vaud become Swiss cantons.
• France - the Livre Tournois (Tours Pound) is replaced by the Franc.
• William Osgoode, Chief Justice of Lower Canada, rules that slavery is inconsistent with British Law.

Ongoing events

• Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

Births

• February 2 - Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate general (d. 1862)
• February 15 - John Sutter, California pioneer (d. 1880)
• April 7 - Flora Tristan, French feminist (d. 1844)
• May 12 - Justus von Liebig, German chemist
• May 24 - Charles Lucien Bonaparte
• May 25 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist (d. 1882)
• May 25 - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, novelist and playwright (d. 1873)
• June 24 - George James Webb, composer
• July 31 - John Ericsson - Swedish inventor and engineer (d. 1889)
• September 4 - Sarah Childress Polk, later First Lady of the United States.
• November 14 - Jacob Abbott, writer
• November 29 - Christian Doppler (Doppler effect)
• December 11 - Hector Berlioz, French composer

Deaths

• Jacques-Donatien Le Ray -- a "Father of the American Revolution"
• April 7 - Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary.
• September 5 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (b. 1741)
• September 27 - Samuel Adams, American patriot