19th century

Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical)

(18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries)

The 19th century lasted from 1801 to 1900 in the Gregorian calendar (using the Common Era system of year numbering). Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1800 to 1899, but this is considered incorrect due to the nonexistence of a "Year Zero" before AD 1. The 19th century is also sometimes known as the eighteen hundreds (1800s), referring to the latter usage. Decades are almost always considered as starting with the "0" year and named accordingly ("1890s", etc.), so the first decade of a century technically overlaps back into the preceding one.

Historians sometime use "Nineteenth Century" as a label for the era stretching from 1815 (The Congress of Vienna) to 1914 (The outbreak of the First World War).

Overview

The 19th century continued and expanded the industrial revolution which had begun in the preceding century. It was a century of widespread invention and discovery, and one in which social, cultural, and economic systems were heavily affected by science and technology and the business models built on them, such as a shift from independent artisans and craftspersons to wage laborers employed by large factories as the primary means of production. It was the heyday of capitalism, but it was also the century in which the major opposing ideologies, socialism and communism, arose. The successes up to that time in building mechanical devices and in discovering the natural laws of the universe led to a widespread belief by the end of the century that the world ran predictably as by clockwork and that all of its mysteries would soon be solved by modern science; and, similarly, all of the social problems of human society could be solved too by application of scientific principles. These beliefs were soon dashed by 20th century developments such as relativity and quantum physics, and by the wars and genocides of that century.

The supposed statement of a patent official during the 19th century, that his office should be disbanded because everything useful had already been invented, is an urban legend, however.

Events

1803: The United States buys out France's territorial claims in North America via the Louisiana Purchase.
The Little Ice Age ended.
Napoleon, who conquers much of Europe, is ultimately defeated in 1815; some old European regimes are restored, others not.
The modern city of Singapore is established when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles of the British East India Company acquires land on the island from the Sultan of Johore in 1819.
The Libertadores lead most of Latin America to independence.
The Industrial Revolution continues and spreads. Developments include Rail Transport, the telegraph, and the telephone.
The rebellion of Greece begins in 1821 which ultimately leads to its independence
Belgium becomes independent in 1830 after a massive uprising against the Dutch. Leopold becomes the first king of Belgium. Belgium will be the second industrial power in the world by the middle of the 19th century.
The European Revolutions of 1848 happen as an escalation of various problems due to changes in the societies of European countries. The Spring of Nations involves France, the German states, Habsburg Monarchy and the Italian states.
Leopold II, son of Leopold, becomes the second king of Belgium. He buys the gigantic territory of Congo in Africa with his own fortune and will later (1908) offer it to Belgium.
Discovery of the relationships between magnetism and electricity and light by Hans Christian Ørsted and James Clerk Maxwell. (See:electromagnetism)
Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary is formed in 1867.
The fall of the Ottoman Empire continues with numerous rebellions and wars with liberated countries in the Balkans, as well as four more Russo-Turkish Wars. The Great Powers get involved in the Crimean War (1854-1856) where the United Kingdom and France aid the Ottomans against the Russians, as well as in the Congress of Berlin that produces the Treaty of Berlin, 1878.
Mass migration from Europe to the United States and British colonies.
During the reign of Queen Victoria, the United Kingdom is the leading economic power in the world giving the term Victorian Age to much of the century.
Political revolution and constitutional reform across Europe severely limits powers of monarchs, advances democracy.
The religious revival of the Second Great Awakening in the eastern United States and Canada gives rise to unique, American, Christian religions during the era of Restorationism
Gold is discovered in several places in Australia and New Zealand and throughout the west of the United States, leading to huge increases in national wealth and encouraging mass migration of free settlers there.
Slavery is ended in British colonies and in America. See American Civil War, 1861 to 1865. End of global slave trade is enforced by the British navy.
Charles Darwin revolutionizes biology with his theories of evolution, 1858.
Europeans conquer and colonize most of Africa and parts of Asia.
Karl Marx writes the Communist Manifesto, encouraging workers to revolt against owners.
Meiji Restoration in 1868 opens Japan to modern influences and returns the emperor to power.
Germany and Italy are formed as nations, uniting from groups of small kingdoms and city states.
Railroads make fast mass transit available to many. Transcontinental railroads built, including the Panama Railway in 1855, the US Transcontinental Railroad finished in 1869 linking to west in the United States, and the Canadian National Railway in 1885.
The Suez Canal is opened, connecting Europe and the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean and Asia in 1869.
The British begin their so-called "forward movement" to extend control over the Malay States with the signing of the Pangkor Treaty in 1874.
The quick defeat of Spain by the United States in 1898, in the Spanish-American War, removes Spain from the list of major world powers for good and gives rise to the United States as a major world military power.
The electric telegraph and undersea cables make instant global communication possible for the first time.
Postage Stamps and diamond-shaped paper sheets which folded to form envelopes for carrying letters devised and introduced in the United Kingdom, and soon thereafter in many other countries, leading to establishment of the Universal Postal Union.
The Taiping Rebellion, from 1851 to 1864, a conflict between Imperial China and the followers of a Hakka self-proclaimed mystic and Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, took the lives of about 20 million people.
Manufactured goods become widely available by mail order

Significant people

Báb, Persian prophet and founder of Bábísm
Bahá'u'lláh, Persian religious leader and founder of Bahá'í Faith
Charles Baudelaire, poet
Henri Becquerel, physicist
Ludwig van Beethoven, composer
Napoleon Bonaparte, French first consul and emperor
Johannes Brahms, composer
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, thinker
Charles Darwin, biologist
Charles Dickens, author
Emily Dickinson, poet
Benjamin Disraeli, novelist and politician
Fyodor Dostoevsky, novelist, philosopher/theologian
Antonin Dvorak, composer
Thomas Alva Edison, inventor
Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer
Michael Faraday, scientist
Gottlob Frege, mathematician, logician and philosopher
Antonio de La Gandara, artist
Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician, physicist, astronomer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, author, thinker
Vincent van Gogh, painter
Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, philosopher
Hong Xiuquan, revolutionary, self-proclaimed Son of God
Victor Hugo, poet, politician/theologian, and author
Søren Kierkegaard, philosopher
Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president
Fitz Hugh Ludlow, writer and explorer
Karl Marx, political philosopher and economist
James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist
Gregor Mendel, biologist
Florence Nightingale, nursing pioneer
John Stuart Mill, philosopher
William Morris, social reformer
Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher
Nikolai of Japan, religious leader who introduced Eastern Orthodoxy into Japan.
Louis Pasteur, biologist
Edgar Allan Poe, poet, short-story writer
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Hindu mystic
Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
Joseph Smith, Jr., religious leader, founder of Mormonism
Dr. John Snow, the founder of epidemiology
Leo Tolstoy, novelist, philosopher/theologian, social reformer
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), author
Giuseppe Verdi, composer
Jules Verne, writer
Richard Wagner, composer
Walt Whitman, poet
Oscar Wilde, poet, writer, playwright
Brigham Young, Mormon religious leader

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

Decades and years