ON THIS DAY--MARCH

(Copyright 2004, Literary Liaisons, Ltd.  DO NOT REPRODUCE or distribute without permission.) 

For a more comprehensive list, including a Year by Year timeline, see our Research Guide.

Mar 1st. . .

1803--Ohio became the 17th State of the Union.

1810--Frederic Chopin, composer and pianist, born in Poland to a French father and Polish mother.

1845--The United States annexed Texas.

1847--Sir Thomas Brock, English sculptor, born.

1848--Augustus Saint-Gaudens, American sculptor, born.

1867--Nebraska became the 37th State of the Union.

1872--The Yellowstone region was made a national reserve by U.S. Congress.

1880--Lytton Strachey, English biographer, author of Eminent Victorians, and a member of the Bloomsbury Set, born.

1880--Pennsylvania became the first U.S. state to abolish slavery.

1881--All States in the U.S. ratified the Articles of Confederation.

 

Mar 2nd. . .

1545--Sir Thomas Bodley, English statesman and bibliophile who gave his name to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, born.

1717--The first ballet was performed in England by dancing master, John Weaver, at Drury Lane.

1725--A night watchman found a human head by the Thames.  It was later identified as belonging to the husband of Catherine Hayes, who was accused of murder along with her two lodgers.

1791--John Wesley, founder of English Methodism, died.

1793--Sam Houston, American soldier who became the first President of the Republic of Texas, born.

1797--Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford, novelist and historian, died.

1824--Bedrich Smetana, Czechoslovakian composer, born.

1835--Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, died.

1855--Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, died.

1882--Robert Maclean tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Queen Victoria at Windsor.

 

Mar 3rd. . .

1606--Edmund Waller, Royalist poet, born.

1756--William Godwin, English political writer and novelist and father-in-law of the poet Shelley, born.

1792--Robert Adam, Scottish architect and interior designer, died.

1802--Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' was published.

1804--Domenico Tiepolo, Italian painter and engraver, died.

1831--George Mortimer Pullman, U.S. industrialist and inventor who designed deluxe railway carriages, born.

1845--Florida became the 27th State of the Union.

1847--Alexander Graham Bell, American inventor, born in Scotland.

1869--Sir Henry Wood, English conductor, born.

1875--The first performance of Bizet's Carmen was staged at the Opera Comique, Paris.

1895--In Munich, bicyclists had to pass a test and display license plates.

 

Mar 4th. . .

1193--Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, died.

1394--Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese explorer, born.

1678--Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, Italian composer and violinist, born.

1789--The first Congress of the U.S. was held in New York.

1791--Vermont became the 14th State of the Union.

1824--The Royal National Lifeboat Institution was founded.

1832--Jean Francois Champollion, French Egyptologist, died.

1873--The New York Daily Graphic became the first illustrated daily newspaper.

1877--The first performance of Swan Lake was staged by the Russian Imperial Ballet in Moscow.

1882--The first electric trams in Britain ran from Leytonstone, east London.

1890--The Prince of Wales opened the longest bridge in Britain, the 1710-ft. Forth railway bridge in Scotland.

 

Mar 5th. . .

1133--King Henry II, first Plantagenet king of England, born in France.

1461--Henry VI of England was deposed and succeeded by Edward IV.

1534--Antonio da Correggio, Italian renaissance painter, born.

1512--Gerhardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer, born.

1751--James Madison, 4th U.S. president, born.

1770--British troops opened fire on a crowd in Boston, Massachusetts, killing five in what was called 'The Boston Massacre'.

1778--Thomas Arne, English composer of 'Rule Britannia', born.

1790--Flora Macdonald, Scottish heroine who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie after the Battle of Culloden, died.

1815--Franz Mesmer, French physician who developed the theory of animal magnetism or 'mesmerism', born.

1827--Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, born.

1852--Lady Augusta Gregory, Irish playwright who founded the Abbey Theatre, Dublin with Yeats, born.

1856--Covent Garden Theatre was destroyed by fire.

 

Mar 6th. . .

1619--Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac, French novelist and playwright, born.

1806--Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet, born.

1831--Philip Henry Sheridan, American Civil War general, born.

1834--George du Maurier, English novelist of Trilby, born in Paris. ALSO--York in Upper Canada was incorporated as a city under the name Toronto.

1836--The Battle of the Alamo ended.  Only six Texans survived out of the original 155.  Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were both killed in the 12-day battle.

1853--Verdi's opera La Traviata, was performed for the first time, in Venice.

1870--Oscar Straus, composer, born in Vienna.

1888--Louisa May Alcott, U.S. novelist and author of Little Women, died.

1899--Felix Hoffman discovered the pharmacological properties of acetylsalicylic acid and formulated aspirin, which he patented this day.

 

Mar 7th. . .

1765--Joseph Nicephore Niepce, French doctor who produced the first photograph from nature on pewter plates, born.

1785--Alessandro Manzoni, Italian poet and novelist, born.

1792--Sir John Frederick Herschel, English astronomer and chemist, born.

1802--Sir Edwin Landseer, English painter best known for his animal portraits, and sculptor of the Trafalgar Square lions, born.

1804--The Royal Horticultural Society was founded by John Wedgwood, son of pottery manufacturer, Josiah.

1838--Jenny Lind, the 'Swedish Nightingale', made her debut at the Stockholm Opera in Der Freischutz.

1850--Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, Czech patriot, scholar and philosopher, born.

1876--Alexander Graham Bell patented the first telephone capable of sustained articulate speech.

 

Mar 8th. . .

1702--Queen Anne acceded to the British throne following the death of William III who fell from his horse.

1714--Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, German composer and son of Johann Sebastian Bach, born.

1717--Abraham Darby, English ironmaster, the first to use coke for iron smelting, died.

1787--Karl Ferdinand von Graefe, German pioneer plastic surgeon, born in Warsaw.

1841--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., American jurist and U.S. Supreme Court justice, born.

1859--Kenneth Grahame, Scottish author of The Wind on the Willows, born.

1869--Hector Berlioz, French composer, died.

1874--Millard Fillmore, 13th U.S. president, died.

1889--John Ericsson, Swedish-born U.S. ship designer who invented the first successful screw propeller, died.

 

Mar 9th. . .

1454--Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer of the New World, born.

1562--Kissing in public was banned in Naples, contravention being punishable by death.

1763--William Cobbett, English political journalist, born.

1796--Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais, widow of a former French officer guillotined during the Revolution.

1824--Leland Stanford, American railroad builder and founder of Leland Stanford University, born.

1831--The French Foreign Legion was founded with headquarters in Algeria.

1864--General Ulysses Grant was appointed General-in-Chief of the Union Forces in the U.S. Civil War.

1888--Wilhelm I, Emperor of Germany, died.

1891--Four days of storms began off England's south coast, sinking 14 ships.

1892--Victoria Mary 'Vita' Sackville-West, English poet and novelist of All Passion Spent, born.

 

Mar 10th. . .

512BC--The rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem was allegedly completed this day.

1628--Marcello Malpighi, Italian anatomist, born.

1629--England's King Charles I dissolved Parliament.  He would not call it back for eleven years.

1749--Lorenzo da Ponte, Italian poet, born.

1785--Thomas Jefferson was named U.S. minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

1788--Edward Hodges Bailey, sculptor of the statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square, born.

1848--Wyatt Earp, marshal of Tombstone, Arizona, born.

1858--Henry Watson Fowler, English lexicographer, who with his brother edited the first Concise Oxford Dictionary, born.

1867--Alexander Graham Bell made his historic telephone call to his assistant Thomas Watson.

1880--A contingent of the Salvation Army landed in America.

 

Mar 11th. . .

1682--The Chelsea hospital for soldiers and venue for the Chelsea Flower show, was founded.

1702--The first successful English newspaper, a single broadsheet called the Daily Courant was published.

1794--The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opened.

1819--Marius Petipa, French choreographer who created ballets for the Ballets Russes, born.  ALSO--Sir Henry Tate, English sugar refiner who endowed the Tate Gallery in London, born.

1820--Benjamin West, U.S. painter who became President of the Royal Academy, London, died.  ALSO--Sir Alexander McKenzie, Scottish explorer of Canada, died.

1845--A Maori uprising against the British in New Zealand began.  ALSO--Henry Jones invented self-raising flour.

1847--Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman), U.S. frontier hero, born.

1864--A reservoir near Sheffield burst its banks, killing 250 people.

1888--A blizzard hit the New England states and would last until March 14, 1888.

 

Mar 12th. . .

604--St. Gregory, son of a Roman senator who became a pope, died.

1507--Cesare Borgia, soldier and politician, died.

1563--John Bull, English composer of 'God Save the King', died in Antwerp after escaping Catholic prosecution.

1609--Bermuda became a British colony.

1626--John Aubrey, English antiquarian and folklorist, born.

1664--New Jersey became a British colony as King Charles II of England made a land grant to his brother, James, Duke of York.

1710--Thomas Augustine Arne, English composer of 'Rule Britannia', born.

1832--Charles Cunningham Boycott, English estate manager in Ireland, born.

1838--Sir Henry Perkin, English chemist who, in 1856, discovered the mauve dye which made possible the aniline dye industry, born.

1849--An ice flood in the Chicago River tore ships from their moorings and hurled them, along with blocks of ice, against bridges, sweeping away the Madison, Randolph and Wells Street bridges.

 

Mar 13th. . .

1619--Richard Burbage, English actor who built the Globe Theatre, died.

1733--Dr. Joseph Priestley, English chemist and Unitarian minister who discovered oxygen, born.

1770--Daniel Lambert, English man who weighed 739 pounds at his death, born.

1781--Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus, originally named Georgius Sidus after George III.

1855--Percy Lowell, U.S. astronomer who predicted the discovery of Pluto, born.

1873--Eight clubs met to form the Scottish Football Association.

1881--Tsar Alexander II, was assassinated by anti-monarchists who threw a bomb at him near his palace.

1884--Standard Time was established in the United States.

1894--The first professional strip-tease performance took place at the Divan Fayonau Music Hall, Paris.

 

Mar 14th. . .

1743--The first town meeting in Faneuil Hall was held.

1757--John Byng, British admiral who bungled the relief of Minorca, was shot on board the Monarque at Portsmouth for neglecting his duty.

1804--Johann Strauss the elder, Austrian composer, born.

1805--Master Betty played Hamlet on the London stage aged just 14 years.  .

1820--Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy, born.

1835--Giovanni Schiaparelli, Italian astronomer, born.

1836--Isabella Beeton, English author of Household Management, born.

1879--Albert Einstein, Swiss physicist and mathematician, born in Germany.

1885--The first performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado was at the Savoy Theatre, London.

1891--Telephone cable was laid along the English Channel bed by the submarine Monarch.

 

Mar 15th. . .

44BC--Julius Caesar was assassinated.

1767--Andrew Jackson, 7th U.S. president, born.

1779--William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, British Prime Minister, born.

1813--John Snow, English physician who discovered cholera is spread by contaminated water, born.

1820--Maine became the 23rd State of the Union.

1835--Eduard Strauss, conductor and composer and youngest son of Johann Strauss the elder, born.

1854--Emil von Behring, German scientist and first recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine, born.

1869--The Cincinnati Red Stockings became the first all-pro baseball team.

1877--The first cricket test between England and Australia was played at Melbourne with victory going to the home team.

1898--Sir Henry Bessemer, English metallurgist and pioneer of mass-produced steel, died.

 

Mar 16th. . .

1751--James Madison, fourth U.S. president, born.

1774--Matthew Flinders, English explorer who circumnavigated Australia, born.

1787--Georg Simon Ohm, German physicist who researched electricity, born.

1802--The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, was established.

1815--William of Orange was proclaimed King of the Netherlands and became William I.

1823--William Henry Monk, English organist and first editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern, born.

1839--Rene Francois Prudhomme, French poet and recipient of the first Nobel Prize in literature, born.

1872--The first Football Association Cup Final was played at Kennington Oval, London.

1888--The first recorded sale of a manufactured motor car was to Emile Roger of Paris who bought a petrol-driven car from Karl Benz's new factory.

 

Mar 17th. . .

c. 389--St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, born.

1337--The Duchy of Cornwll was created when Edward the Black Prince was made the first Duke.

1497--A cave in County Donegal, known as St. Patrick's Purgatory, was sealed by order of Pope Alexander VI.

1777--Patrick Bronte, curate of Haworth and father of the Bronte sisters, born.

1782--Daniel Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician, died.

1787--Edmund Kean leading English actor, born.

1834--Gottlieb Daimler, German inventor and motor car manufacturer, born

1845--Elastic bands were patented by Stephen Perry of a London rubber company.

1846--Kate Greenaway, English illustrator of children's books, born.

1853--Christian Doppler, Austrian physicist who described the Doppler effect, the apparent change in the frequency of a wave, born.

 

Mar 18th. . .

978--Edward the Martyr, King of England, murdered at Corfe Castle, Dorset at the instigation of his stepmother.

1455--Fra Angelico, Italian painter, died.

1584--Ivan IV, (the 'Terrible'), first Tsar of Russia, died.

1609--Frederick III, King of Denmark and Norway, born.

1662--The first public buses ran in Paris.

1745--Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford and Britain's first Prime Minister, died.

1768--Laurence Sterne, Irish-born clergyman and author of Tristram Shandy, died.

1834--The 'Tolpuddle Martyrs', six Dorset farm laborers, were sentenced to transportation to a penal colony for forming a union.

1837--Stephen Grover Cleveland, 22nd president of the U.S., born.

1850--The American Express Company was set up in Buffalo, New York.

1858--Rudolf Diesel, German engineer, born.

 

Mar 19th. . .

721BC--The first eclipse ever recorded was observed by the Babylonians, according to Ptolomy.

1563--The Peace of Amboise ended the first War of Religion in France, with the Huguenots granted limited rights to exercise their religion.

1593--George de la Tour, French painter, born.

1687--French explorer Robert Cavalier de la Salle was assassinated by his own men in what is now Texas.

1721--Tobias George Smollett, Scottish physician-turned-author of satirical novels, born.

1808--Spain's King Charles IV abdicated.

1813--Dr. David Livingstone, Scottish missionary and explorer who was the first European to discover the Victoria Falls, born.

1821--Sir Richard Francis Burton, English scholar and explorer who discovered the source of the Nile, born.

1831--America's first bank robbery occurred when $245,000 was taken from New York's City Bank.

1848--Wyatt Earp, U.S. lawman who was involved in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, born.

 

Mar 20th. . .

43BC--Ovid, Latin poet of "Medea," born.

1413--King Henry IV of England died in Westminster Abbey.

1549--Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England who planned to marry Princess Elizabeth after his wife, Catherine Parr died, was tried and executed for treason.

1602--The Netherlands government formed the Dutch East India Company.

1727--Sir Isaac Newton, English scientist, was buried at Westminster Abbey.

1780--James Watt began manufacturing the first duplicator.

1806--The foundation stone of Dartmoor Prison in Devon was laid.

1815--After his banishment to Elba, Napoleon returned to take power once more in France.

1819--The exclusive Burlington Arcade opened in London.

1823--Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian poet and playwright of A Doll's House, born.

1852--Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was published.

 

Mar 21st. . .

c.480--St. Benedict, Italian monk and creator of the rule which became the basis of the Benedictine order, born.

1556--Thomas Cranmer, first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, condemned for treason, and burned at the stake as a heretic.

1685--Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer, born.

1806--Benito Jaurez, Mexican liberal statesman and national hero, born.

1829--The Duke of Wellington, aged 60, fought a bloodless duel with the Earl of Winchelsea over the Duke's support of Catholic emancipation.

1839--Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Russian composer of Boris Godunov, born.

1843--Robert Southey, English poet laureate, died.

1862--Albert Chevalier, English composer and singer of cockney songs, born.

1869--Florenz Ziegfeld, U.S. impresario, born.

 

Mar 22nd. . .

1459--Maximilian I, German Emperor, born.

1599--Sir Anthony van Dyke, Flemish artist who became the court portrait painter in England, born.

1687--Jean Baptiste Lully, French composer who made French opera popular, died of a gangrenous abscess on his foot caused by striking it with a stick he used to conduct.

1772--John Carlton, English physicist, died.

1774--Tommy Thumb's Song Book, a collection of English nursery rhymes, was published.

1824--The British Parliament voted to purchase 38 pictures to establish a British national collection. The existing building in Trafalgar Square opened in 1838.

1842--Carl August Rosa, German impresario and violinist, born.

1895--The first celluloid film presented publicly on a screen was a short film by Auguste and Louis Lumiere in Paris.

1896--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, novelist and playwright, died. ALSO--Thomas Hughes, English reformer, died.

 

Mar 23rd. . .

1369--Apedro the Cruel, King of Castile and Leon, who murdered one brother, was slain by Henry, his other brother.

1699--John Bartram, first American botanist, born.

1743--At the first performance in London of Handel's oratorio Messiah, George II rose at the beginning of the 'Hallelujah Chorus', followed by everyone else in the Covent Garden audience, thus establishing the traditional ceremony.

1752--The Halifax Gazette, the first Canadian newspaper, was published.

1765--The Stamp Act came into force requiring the taxing of all publications and legal documents in British colonies.

1769--William Smith, the father of English geology, born.

1842--Stendhal (Marie Henri Beyle), French novelist, died.

1861--London's first tram cars began operating from Bayswater. The cars were designed by a Mr. Train from New York.

 

Mar 24th. . .

1603--Elizabeth I of England died at Richmond Palace.  James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, united the English and Scottish thrones when he acceded to the throne.

1644--The Rhode Island Colony is established.

1776--John Harrison, English watchmaker and inventor of the marine chronometer, died.

1801--Paul I, demented Tsar of Russia, was strangled by the officers in a scuffle.

1834--William Morris, English craftsman, poet and socialist, born.

1874--Harry Houdini, magician and escape artist, born.

1877--The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race ended in a dead heat for the first and only time.

1882--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, U.S. poet of 'The Song of Hiawatha', died.

 

Mar 25th. . .

1133--Henry II, King of England, born.

1306--Robert the Bruce was crowned King of the Scots.  His reign would last until 7 June 1329.

1609--English navigator, Henry Hudson, undertook his third voyage of exploration trying to find the North West Passage.  Instead he discovered the bay which bears his name.

1634--The first colonists land at St. Clement's Island on Maryland's western shore, and the town of St. Mary's is founded.

1769--Joachim Murat, French field marshal who was made 'King of Naples' by Napoleon, born.

1867--Arturo Toscanini, Italian conductor, born.

1876--The first Scotland versus Wales football match took place at Glasgow.  The home team won 4-0.

1881--Bella Bartok, Hungarian composer, born.

 

Mar 26th. . .

1726--Sir John Vanbrugh, English playwright and architect, died.

1780--The first Sunday newspaper in Britain, The British Gazette and Sunday Monitor, was published.

1827--Ludwig von Beethoven, German composer, died in Vienna.

1840--George Smith, English Assyriologist who studied cuneiform inscription in the British Museum, born.

1859--Alfred Edward Houseman, English scholar and poet of 'A Shropshire Lad', born.

1863--The first steeplechase under National Hunt rules was run at Market Harborough.  Mr. Goodman on Socks was the winner.

1874--Robert Frost, U.S. poet and Pulitzer Prize winner, born.

1885--'A lady well-known in literary and scientific circles' was the only clue The Times gave to the identity of the woman who was the first person to be officially cremated in Britain.

1892--Walt Whitman, U.S. poet, died.

1898--The Sabi Game Reserve was officially designated in South Africa to become the world's first game reserve.

 

Mar 27th. . .

1770--Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Venetian painter, died.

1785--Louis XVII, King of France, born.

1794--The U.S. Navy was officially created.

1809--Baron Georges Eugene Hausmann, French financier and town planner, born.

1845--Wilhelm Konrad von Rontgen, German physicist who discovered electric-magnetic rays (X-rays), born.

1863--Sir Henry Royce, English engineer who founded Royce Limited to make mechanical and electrical engines, born.

1871--The first international rugby match between Scotland and England took place at Edinburgh with a victory for Scotland.

1878--Sir George Gilbert Scott, English architect who designed the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, died.

1880--The Salvation Army uniform was authorized, but the distinctive bonnets for women did not appear until June.

 

Mar 28th. . .

1472--Fra Bartolommeo di Pagholo, Florentine painter mainly of religious subjects, born.

1483--Raphael, Florentine painter of the papal chambers at the Vatican, born.

1515--St. Teresa of Avila, Spanish founder of the reformed Carmelites, born.

1660--George I, King of England, born in Hanover.

1820--Sir William Howard Russell, British war correspondent who coined the phrase 'the thin red line', born.

1849--Maxim Gorky, Russian novelist and playwright, born.

1854--The Crimean War began.

1862--Aristide Briand, French statesman and Nobel Peace prize winner, born.

1868--The Earl of Cardigan, who led the charge of the Light Brigade to disaster at Balaclava in the Crimean War, died.

1881--Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Russian composer, died from alcoholism.

 

Mar 29th. . .

1461--Edward VI secured the crown of England by a victory over the Lancastrians in the War of the Roses at Towton, North Yorkshire.

1751--Thomas Coram, English philanthropist who established a home for foundling children, died.

1772--Emanuel Swedenborg, Swedish religious philosopher, died.

1788--Charles Wesley, English evangelist and writer of over 5,500 hymns, died.

1790--John Tyler, 10th U.S. president, born.

1853--Elihu Thomson, U.S. inventor who joined with Edison to form the General Electric Company, born in England.

1871--The Royal Albert Hall was opened by Queen Victoria.

1886--Coca-Cola, invented by Dr. John Pemberton of Atlanta, Georgia, was launched as an 'Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.'

1891--George-Pierre Seurat, French painter, died. ALSO--Robert Falcon Scott, Antarctic explorer, died returning from the South Pole.

 

Mar 30th. . .

1135--Maimonides, Jewish philosopher, born in Cordoba, Spain.

1746--Francisco de Goya, Spanish painter who was First Court Painter to Charles IV, born.

1820--Anna Sewell, English author of Black Beauty, born.

1840--George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell, English dandy, died as a pauper in a lunatic asylum.

1842--Ether was used as an anesthetic for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long in Georgia to remove a cyst.

1844--Paul Verlaine, French poet, born.

1853--Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, born.

1858--Hyman Lipman of Philadelphia patented a pencil with an eraser attached to one end.

1867--U.S. Senator William H. Seward bought Alaska from the Russians for $7.2 million, or approximately two cents an acre.

1882--Melanie Klein, child psychologist who settled in London, born in Austria.

1884--Sean O'Casey, Irish playwright of Shadow of a Gunman, born.

 

Mar 31st. . .

1596--Rene Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician, born.

1631--John Donne, English poet, died.

1732--Franz Joseph Haydn, Austrian composer, born.

1809--Edward Fitzgerald, English translator, born.  ALSO--Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Russian novelist and playwright, born.

1811--Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, German physicist and chemist who invented the Bunsen burner, born.

1836--Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers first appeared as a monthly-part work.

1837--Charlotte Bronte, author of Jane Eyre, died in pregnancy.  ALSO--John Constable, English landscape painter, died.

1854--Japan opened its ports to U.S. traders.

1889--The Eiffel Tower was officially opened by French Premier Tirard after two years of construction.

1892--The world's first fingerprinting bureau was formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police.