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Victoria becomes queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britian and Ireland
Victoria turned 18 on 24 May 1837, and a regency was avoided. On 20 June 1837, William IV died at the age of 71, and Victoria became Queen of the United Kingdom. In her diary she wrote, "I was awoke at 6 o'clock by Mamma, I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen. -
William Wordsworth becomes poet laureate
Wordsworth received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in 1838 from Durham University, and the same honour from Oxford University the next year.[7] In 1842 the government awarded him a civil list pension amounting to £300 a year. With the death in 1843 of Robert Southey, Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honour, saying he was too old, but accepted when Prime Minister Robert Peel assured him "you shall have nothing required of you" (he became the only laureate to w -
Alfred, Lord Tennyson becomes a poet laureate.
After Wordsworth's death in 1850, and Samuel Rogers' refusal, Tennyson was appointed to the position of Poet Laureate, which he held until his own death in 1892, by far the longest tenure of any laureate before or since. He fulfilled the requirements of this position by turning out appropriate but often uninspired verse, such as a poem of greeting to Princess Alexandra of Denmark when she arrived in Britain to marry the future King Edward VII. In 1855, Tennyson produced one of his best known wor -
Japan opens trade to the West
The opening of Japan to the West by Commodore Matthew C. Perry, U.S.N., profoundly affected the American imagination. In the summer of 1853, Perry presented Japanese ministers with a letter from President Fillmore seeking friendly relations; in 1854 the Treaty of Kanagawa confirmed the gesture. -
The U.S Civil War begins
In the presidential election of 1860, Republicans led by Abraham Lincoln opposed expanding slavery into United States' territories. Lincoln won but before his inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven cotton-based slave states formed the Confederacy. Outgoing Democrat James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected the legality of secession. Lincoln's inaugural address insisted his administration would not initiate civil war, leading eight remaining slave states to reject immediate calls for sec -
In France, Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables
Examining the nature of law and grace, the novel elaborates upon the history of France, the architecture and urban design of Paris, politics, moral philosophy, antimonarchism, justice, religion, and the types and nature of romantic and familial love. Les Misérables has been popularized through numerous adaptations for the stage, television, and film, including a musical and a film adaptation of that musical. -
Mohandas K. Gandhi is born in India.
He was born in his ancestral home, now known as Kirti Mandir. His father, Karamchand Gandhi (1822–1885), who belonged to the Hindu Modh community, served as the diwan (chief minister) of Porbander state, a small princely salute state in the Kathiawar Agency of British India. His grandfather was Uttamchand Gandhi, also called Utta Gandhi. His mother, Putlibai, who came from the Pranami Vaishnava community, was Karamchand's fourth wife, the first three wives having apparently died -
Mark Twain's Adventure of Huckleberry Finn appears
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. -
L.Frank Baum publishes The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The book was published by George M. Hill Company. Its first edition had a printing of 10,000 copies and was sold in advance of the publication date of September 1, 1900. On May 17, 1900 the first copy of the book came off the press; Baum assembled it by hand and presented it to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster. -
Queen Victoria Dies
This ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign, the longest in British history, saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution
