1804 - Definition and Overview

1804 is a leap year starting on Sunday.

Events

January

• January 1 - End of French rule in Haiti

February

• February 14 - First Serbian Uprising began.
• February 15 - New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery
• February 16 - First Barbary War: Stephen Decatur leads a raid to burn the pirate-held frigate Philadelphia.
• February 21 - The first self-propelling steam engine or steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales. Designed by Richard Trevithick, a Cornishman.

March

• March 7 - John Wedgwood founds The Royal Horticultural Society
• March 10 - Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.
• March 20 - Execution of the Duc d’Enghien for plotting against Napoleon
• March 21 - Code Napoleon adopted as French civil law

April

• April 26 - Henry Addington resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

May

• May 10 - William Pitt the younger begins his second term as a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• May 14 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begin their historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
• May 18 - Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate.

June

• June 15 - The Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified by New Hampshire, and arguably becomes effective (subsequently vetoed by the Governor of New Hampshire)

July

• July 27 - The Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ratified by Tennessee, removing doubt surrounding adoption.

August

• August 20 - Lewis and Clark Expedition: The "Corps of Discovery", whose purpose is to explore the Louisiana Purchase, suffers it first and last death when Sergeant Charles Floyd dies, apparently from acute appendicitis.

September

• September 1 - German astronomer K. L. Harding discovers the asteroid Juno

November

• Thomas Jefferson defeats Charles C. Pinckney in U.S. presidential election
• November 30 - The Jeffersonian Republican-controlled United States Senate begin an impeachment trial against Federalist-partisan Supreme Court of the United States Justice Samuel Chase (he was charged with political bias but was acquitted by the Senate of all charges on March 1, 1805).

December

• December 2 - At Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself as the first Emperor of France in a thousand years (the Napoleonic Code is adopted).
• December 12 - Spain declares war on Britain

Unknown date

• Père Lachaise Cemetery a 118 acre (0.5 km²) cemetery in Paris, France was founded.
• Nicolas-François Appert (1750-1841) develops a method to preserve food by means of canning.

Ongoing events

• Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

Births

January

• January 1 - James Fannin, Texas Revolutionary (d. 1836)

March

• March 14 - Johann Strauss I, Austrian composer
• March 17 - Jim Bridger, pioneer (d. 1881)

July

• July 1 - George Sand (Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin), writer
• July 4 - Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer
• July 28 - Ludwig Feuerbach, German Philosopher

November

• November 23 - Franklin Pierce, 14th president of the United States

December

• December 21 - Benjamin Disraeli, British politician, writer

Deaths

January

• January 4 - Charlotte Ramsey Lennox, English author and poet (b. 1727)

February

• February 12 - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher

September

• September 4 - Richard Somers, American naval officer