1836 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January - Book by Maria Monk claims that she was sexually exploited in a Canadian convent
• February 3 - United States Whig Party holds its first convention in Albany, New York.
• February 23 - The siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
• February 24 - Samuel Colt receives a patent for the Colt revolver
• March 1 - Convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convenes in Washington-on-the-Brazos to deliberate independence from Mexico
• March 1 - Antonio García Gutiérrez's play El Trovador played for the first time
• March 2 - Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.
• March 5 - Samuel Colt makes the first pistol (.34-caliber).
• March 6 - After a 13-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 189 Texas volunteers defending the Alamo are defeated and the fort taken.
• March 27 - Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Antonio López de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas
• March 31 - Marshall College, named for John Marshall, opens in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. It later merges with Franklin College to become Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
• April 20 - U.S. Congress passes act creating the Wisconsin Territory
• May 15 - Francis Baily, during an eclipse of the sun, observes the phenomenon named after him as Baily's beads
• June 15 - Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.
• July 11 - President Andrew Jackson issues the Specie Circular, beginning the failure of the land speculation economy that would lead to the Panic of 1837.
• September 1 - Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white woman to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.
• September 5 - Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
• September 8 - Transcendental Club founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts
• October 2 - Naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England aboard the HMS Beagle after a 5-year journey collecting biological data he will later use to develop his theory of evolution.
• November - Martin Van Buren defeats William Henry Harrison in the U.S. presidential election
• December 10 - Emory College, the forerunner of Emory University, is chartered in Oxford, Georgia.
• December 28 - Spain recognizes independence of Mexico.

unknown dates

• Chartists in Britain demand universal male suffrage
• Boers in South Africa begin the Great Trek across the Orange River
• Henry R. Campbell builds the first 4-4-0, a steam locomotive type that will soon become the most common on all railroads of the United States.

Births

• January 2 - Mendele Moykher Sforim, writer († 1917)
• January 14 - Henri Fantin-Latour, painter († 1904)
• January 27 - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, writer († 1895)
• February 18 - Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Bengali religious leader († 1886)
• February 24 - Winslow Homer, artist († 1910)
• May 27 - Jay Gould, American financier († 1892)
• May 28 - Alexander Mitscherlich, chemist († 1918)
• May 31 – Jules Chéret, printmaker (d. 1932)
• June 2 - Mily Balakirev, composer († 1910)
• July 8 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician († 1914)
• July 9 - Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• August 13 - Ioan Dimitrovich Kasatkin, later Bishop Nikolai of Japan.
• August 24 - Susan Agnes Bernard, future First Lady of Canada († 1920)

Deaths

• January 7 - John Molson, Canadian entrepreneur
• March 6 - Davy Crockett, frontiersman, soldier (b. 1786)
• March 27 - James Fannin, Texas Revolutionary (b. 1804)
• June 28 - James Madison, Fourth President of the United States
• September 5 - Ferdinand Raimund, Austrian playwright
• September 14 - Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States (b. 1756)
• September 17 - Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, botanist
• November 5 - Karel Hynek Mácha, poet
• November 6 - Charles X, king of France
• November 16 - Christian Hendrik Persoon, Dutch mycologist
• December 27 - Stephen F. Austin, American pioneer (b. 1793)