1844 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 15 - University of Notre Dame receives its charter from Indiana.
• February 27 - The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti.
• February 28 - A gun on USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others.
• May 23 - Persian Prophet The Báb announces His revelation, founding Bábism.
• May 24 - First electrical telegram sent by Samuel Morse from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., saying "What hath God wrought?".
• June 6 - George Williams founds the Young Men's Christian Association in London.
• June 15 - Charles Goodyear receives a patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.
• June 27 - Joseph Smith, Jr. is murdered with his brother Hyrum in Carthage Jail, Carthage, Illinois.
• July 3 - The last pair of Great Auks are killed.
• August 8 - During a meeting held in Nauvoo, the Quorum of Twelve, headed by Brigham Young, is created as the leading body of the Mormon Church.
• October 22 - Date predicted by the Millerites for the Second Coming of Jesus; leads to the Great Disappointment.
• November - James K. Polk defeats Henry Clay in the U.S. presidential election
• November 6 - The Dominican Republic gains its independence from Spain.

• First ever international cricket match is played in New York City between Canada and the United States.
• Swedish chemistry professor Gustaf Erik Pasch invents the safety match
• Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx meet in Paris
• Alexander Dumas Jr meets Marie Duplessis
• Locksmith Alexander Fichet invents the first safe
• Carlos Antonio Lopez becomes dictator of Paraguay
• Abd al-Kader is defeated at Isly in Morocco. The sultan of Morocco soon repudiates his ally.

Births

• February 17 - Aaron Montgomery Ward, department store founder (d. 1913)
• February 20 - Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist
• February 20 - Joshua Slocum, seaman and adventurer (d. 1909)
• February 21 - Charles-Marie Widor, organist and composer
• March 10 - Pablo de Sarasate, violinist (d. 1908)
• March 18 - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer (d. 1908)
• March 30 - Paul Verlaine, lyric poet (d. 1896)
• May 17 - Julius Wellhausen, German biblical scholar (d. 1918)
• May 19 - Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1818)
• May 21 - Henri Rousseau, artist (d. 1910)
• May 22 - Mary Cassatt, artist
• May 23 - `Abdu'l-Bahá, Persian religious leader
• July 11 - King Peter I of Serbia
• July 22 - William Archibald Spooner, British scholar and Anglican priest
• August 6 - Prince Alfred of the United Kingdom, later Duke of Edinburgh and Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second son of Queen Victoria
• August 17 - Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia
• August 22 - George Washington De Long, American naval officer/ill-fated explorer (d. 1881)
• October 15 - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher
• October 22 - Louis Riel, Metis leader
• October 22 - Sarah Bernhardt, French actress
• November 2 - Mehmed V, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1918)
• November 23 - Karl Benz, German automotive pioneer
• December 1 - Alexandra of Denmark, later Queen Consort of King Edward VII
• December 8 - Émile Reynaud, French science teacher, responsible for the first animation films.
• Abd ar-Rahman Khan, emir of Afghanistan.

Deaths

• January 27 - Charles Nodier, French writer
• February 27 - Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States
• June 27 - Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement
• July 27 - John Dalton, English chemist and physicist
• July 29 - Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, composer
• November 14 - Flora Tristan, French feminist

• Amadou Lobbo, Fulani Muslim leader in West Africa