1834 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 1 - Abolition of customs charges at borders within Germany.
• January 3 - The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City
• March 6 - York, Upper Canada is incorporated as Toronto.
• March 18 - The Tolpuddle Martyrs, six Dorset farm labourers, are sentenced to be transported to a penal colony for forming a trade union
• March 28 - The United States Senate censures President Andrew Jackson for his actions in defunding the Second Bank of the United States
• June 14 - Isaac Fischer, Jr. patents sandpaper
• July 16 - William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne succeeds Earl Grey as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• July 24 - End of the Liberal Wars in Portugal
• August 1 - Slavery abolished in the British Empire
• August 14 - Poor Law Amendment Act states that no able-bodied British man can receive assistance unless he enters a workhouse
• August 15 - South Australia Act allows for the creation of an colony there
• October 16 - Much of the Palace of Westminster is destroyed by fire
• November 11 - The rare 1804 silver dollar coin is struck by the United States Mint
• November 24 - George Sand begins her journal to Alfred de Musset.
• December 10 - Sir Robert Peel succeeds Lord Melbourne as Prime Minister of the U.K.
• Abolition of slavery comes into effect in British Empire
• Failed pro-republic uprising in Piedmont – one of the activists is Giuseppe Garibaldi
• New Poor Law in England
• Last hanging in chains upon a gibbet in England - James Cook for murder
• Spanish Inquisition, which began in the 13th century, was suppressed.
• British East India Company monopoly on China trade ended
• Sixth Kaffir War; severe clashes between white settlers and Bantu peoples in Cape Colony. Dutch speaking settlers colonize area north of Orange River
• The Hansom cab is patented
• Louis Braille perfects his Braille system
• The Exchequer was abolished as a revenue collecting department of the British government.

Births

• January 7 - Johann Philipp Reis, physicist, inventor († 1874)
• February 7 - Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev, chemist and inventor of the Periodic table of the chemical elements († 1907)
• February 9 - Felix Dahn, author († 1912)
• February 16 - Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist and philosopher († 1919)
• March 16 - James Hector, Scottish geologist († 1907)
• March 17 - Gottlieb Daimler, engineer and inventor († 1900)
• March 20 - Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard University († 1926)
• March 23 - Julius Reubke, composer († 1858).
• March 24 - William Morris, English poet and artist († 1896)
• March 24 - John Wesley Powell, explorer, environmentalist († 1902)
• April 1 - James Fisk, entrepreneur († 1872)
• April 2 - Frédéric Bartholdi, sculptor († 1904)
• June 19 - Charles Spurgeon, English Baptist preacher († 1892)
• July 10 - James McNeill Whistler, painter and etcher († 1903)
• July 19 - Edgar Degas, painter († 1917)
• August 22 - Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer, physicist and aeronautics pioneer († 1906)
• August 31 - Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer († 1886)
• October 8 - Walter Kittredge, American musician and composer during the Civil War. († 1905)

Deaths

• January 17 - Giovanni Aldini, physicist (* 1762)
• February 2 - Lorenzo Dow, US minister (* 1777)
• February 12 - Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian (* 1768)
• March 2 - José Cecilo del Valle, 1st President of Central America (* 1780)
• April 10 - John 'Merino' MacArthur, Australian farmer (* 1767)
• April 11 - John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, philanthropist and patron of the arts and sciences (* 1757)
• May 20 - Marquis de la Fayette, nobleman and soldier (* 1757)
• July 12 - David Douglas, botanist (* 1799)
• July 25 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English Romantic poet, literary critic, philosopher, newspaper writer, teacher (* 1772)
• August 7 – Joseph Marie Jacquard, inventor (* 1752)
• September 2 - Thomas Telford, Scottish engineer (* 1757)
• September 9 - James Weddell, Antarctic explorer (* 1787)
• September 16 - William Blackwood, English writer (* 1776)
• September 24 - Pedro I of Brazil (* 1798)
• October 11 - William John Napier, 9th Lord Napier, British Navy officer, politician and diplomat (* 1786)
• December 23 - Thomas Malthus, economist and political philosopher (* 1766)
• December 27 - Charles Lamb, English essayist (* 1775)