Riots sprout in Philadelphia. John Jacob Astor sells off his fur interests and as the richest man in America, will now invest in New York Real Estate. Cornelius Vanderbuilt building fortune in steamboat trade. Jacob Perkins experiments with gas refrigeration. Spanish Inquisition is abolished.
Braille develops reading system for the blind.
Fiction by Honore de Balzac, the Last Days of pompeii by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, painting by Delacroix. A large fire in London forces large scale reconstruction of official buildings. In Paris the Pontalba name has been sullied by the separation of the young Baron Joseph Xavier Celestine and his wife, Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba. Michaela had asked Celestin to separate from his family years ago. It had been apparent soon after they arrived in France that the young baron preferred the country life and the baroness was entranced by the city.