1845 - Definition and Overview

Events

• January 29 - The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time (New York Evening Mirror).
• March 1 - President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
• March 3 - Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.
• March 3 - For the first time the U.S. Congress passes legislation overriding a presidential veto.
• March 11 - First Maori War: Chiefs Kawiti and Hone Heke lead 700 Maoris in the burning of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka, now known as Russell.
• March 17 - The rubber band is invented in England
• May 20 - The HMS Erebus and Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sail from the River Thames beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
• July 4 - Near Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau embarks on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond (see Walden).
• July 20 - Charles Sturt enters the Simpson Desert in central Australia
• August 28 - Scientific American begins publication
• October 10 - In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors.
• October 13 - A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution, that if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.
• December 2 - Manifest Destiny: US President James Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
• December 27 - Anesthesia is used for childbirth for the first time (Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia).
• December 29 - Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• December 30 - Queen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork and Galway are incorporated in Ireland.

• Second separation of Republic of Yucatan from Mexico
• Beginning of the Irish potato famine.
• James Knox Polk succeeds John Tyler as President of the United States of America

Births

• February 25 - George Reid, fourth Prime Minister of Australia, († 1918)
• March 3 - Georg Cantor, German mathematician († 1918)
• March 10 - Emperor Alexander III of Russia
• March 27 - Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in physics 1901 († 1923)
• May 12 - Gabriel Fauré, composer († 1924)
• May 17 - Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet
• May 25 - Eugène Grasset, Swiss/French artist (d. 1917)
• May 25 - Lip Pike, baseball player († 1893)
• May 30 - King Amadeus I of Spain
• June 9 - Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto († 1914)
• July 19 - Horatio Nelson Young, American naval hero († 1913)
• August 10 - Abai Kunanbaev, Kazak poet († 1904)
• August 19 - Edmond James de Rothschild, philantropist († 1934)
• August 25 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria († 1886)
• August 26 - Mary Ann Nicholls, first confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper († 1888)
• November 10 - John Sparrow David Thompson, Canadian prime minister.

Deaths

• May 12 - Janos Bacsanyi, Hungarian poet
• June 8 - Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the United States of America

1845 is also the name of a song on One Minute Silence's album Buy Now... Saved Later.