1837 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 10 - DePauw University founded in Greencastle, Indiana
• January 26 - Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state
• February 8 - Richard Johnson becomes the first Vice President of the United States chosen by the United States Senate
• February 11 - American Physiological Society organizes in Boston
• February 13 - Rowland Hill at a UK government inquiry into postal reform discloses the idea of carrying letters in a separate sheet which folded to become an envelope and the idea of "a bit of paper" which could be affixed to a letter to flag that postage had been paid.
• February 25 - First US electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport
• March 4 - Martin Van Buren succeeds Andrew Jackson as the President of the United States of America.
• March 4 - Chicago, Illinois is granted a city charter by Illinois.
• May 10 - Panic of 1837 (Global economic crisis): New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.
• June 3 - The London Hippodrome opens in Bayswater
• June 5 - The city of Houston, Texas is granted a city charter.
• June 20 - Queen Victoria, monarch of the United Kingdom ascends to the throne
• July 20 - Euston Station, London's first railway stations, is opened
• August 16 - Dutch sack of the fortress of Bonjol, ending the Padri War
• October 21 - General Thomas Jessup captures Osceola in pretext of negotiations
• November 7 - In Alton, Illinois, abolitionist printer Elijah P. Lovejoy is shot to death by a mob (supporters of slavery) while he was attempting to protect his printing shop from being destroyed a third time.
• November 8 - Formation of Mount Holyoke Seminary, first US college founded for women
• Financial and economic panic in US (wildcat banking, paper speculation and inflated land values)
• In the Canadas, William Lyon Mackenzie leads the Upper Canada Rebellion and Louis-Joseph Papineau leads the Patriotes Rebellion.
• Samuel Morse patents telegraph
• New York Sun Hoax – New York Sun claims that astronomer John Herschel has found life in the Moon
• British Piracy Act

Births

• February 5 - Dwight L. Moody, evangelist (d. 1899)
• March 1 - William Dean Howells, writer, historian, editor, politician. (d. 1920)
• March 7 - Henry Draper, doctor, astronomer (d. 1882)
• March 18 - Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (d. 1908)
• March 23 - Charles Wyndham - English Actor and Theatrical Manager (d. 1919)
• April 5 - Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (d. 1909)
• April 17 - John Pierpont Morgan - US financier and banker (d. 1913)
• May 9 - Adam Opel, German engineer and industrialist (d. 1895)
• May 27 - Wild Bill Hickok, gunfighter (d. 1876)
• June 7 - Aloys Schicklgruber, later changed name to Alois Hitler, Austrian civil servant
• June 22 - Paul Morphy, US chess player (d. 1884)
• June 22 - Paul Bachmann, mathematician (d. 1920)
• July 4 - Carolus-Duran, French portrait painter (d. 1917)
• August 24 - Théodore Dubois, composer and teacher (d. 1924)
• October 11 - Joseph Burton Sumner, later founder and first mayor of Sumner, Mississippi, USA (d. 1920)
• November 14 - Lucas Barrett, English naturalist (d. 1862)
• December 26 - George Dewey, naval officer (d. 1917)
• Osman Pasha - Turkish General & Statesman (d. 1900)
• Sarah Lockwood Pardee, later known as Sarah Winchester, American eccentric and builder of the Winchester Mystery House (d. 1922).

Deaths

• January 20 - John Soane, British architect (b. 1753)
• January 23 - John Field, composer (b. 1782)
• February 7 - Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (b. 1778)
• February 10 - Alexander Pushkin, author (b. 1799)
• March 31 - John Constable, painter (b. 1776)
• June 20 - King William IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1765)
• October 5 - Hortense de Beauharnais Queen of Holland and mother of the Emperor Napoleon III of France (b. 1783)
• November 7 - Elijah P. Lovejoy, American abolitionist (b. 1809)
• December 13 - Saint Herman of Alaska (b. c1756)