page_title: 1840s
section_title: Steam power
hierarchical_section_title: 1840s / Science and technology / Transportation / Steam power
caption_attribution_description: Awful conflagration of the steam boat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday eveg., Jany. 13th 1840, by which melancholy occurence; over 100 persons perished. Courier lithograph documenting a news event, published three days after the disaster.
context_page_description: The 1840s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1840, and ended on December 31, 1849.
  Throughout the decade, many countries worldwide saw many revolts and uprisings, with the most prominent ones happening in 1848. Aside from uprisings, the United States began to see a shifting population that migrated to the West Coast, as the California Gold Rush ensued in the latter half of the decade.
context_section_description: July 4, 1840 – The Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddlewheel steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the first steam transatlantic passenger mail service.
  July 19, 1843 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain is launched from Bristol; it will be the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
  1843 – The steam powered rotary printing press is invented by Richard March Hoe in the United States.
  July 26 – August 10, 1845 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s iron steamship Great Britain makes the Transatlantic Crossing from Liverpool to New York, the first screw propelled vessel to make the passage.
caption: January 13: Steamship Lexington sinks.
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