1839

Events 
January 19 – British East India Company captures Aden
January 20 – In the Battle of Yungay, Peruvian and Bolivian soldiers lose to Chilean soldiers.
February 24 – William Otis patents for the steam shovel
March 23 – First known use of "OK" oll korrect in the Boston Morning Post
March 26 – The first Henley Royal Regatta
April 9 – The world's first commercial electric telegraph line is built, next to the Great Western Railway line from Paddington station to West Drayton.
April 19 – The Treaty of London makes the kingdom of Belgium
June 22 – Louis Daguerre receives patent for his Daguerrotype camera. By September a company sells copies of the camera for 400 French Francs.
July 1 – Slaves fight their masters on the Amistad
November 11 – The Virginia Military Institute starts in Lexington, Virginia, USA
November 17 – Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan.

 Undated 
Abd-ul-Mejid becomes emperor of the Ottoman Empire.
Mississippi passes the first state law in the U.S. letting women own property.
The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is found by Thomas Henderson.
Excavation on Copan begins
Half of the Limburg province of Belgium was added to the Netherlands, making a Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg.
Abd al-Kader makes a jihad against the French.

 Births 
January 19 – Paul Cézanne, French painter (died 1906)
February 11 – Josiah Willard Gibbs American physicist and chemist (died 1903)
February 22 – Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher (died 1906)
March 9 – Phoebe Knapp, American hymnwriter (died 1908)
March 21 – Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (died 1881)
April 12 – Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian explorer (died 1888)
July 8 – John Davison Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist (died 1937)
July 17 – Ephraim Shay, Inventor (died 1916, see Shay locomotive)
December 5 – George Armstrong Custer, American cavalry officer (died 1876)

 Deaths 
April 1 – Benjamin Pierce, U.S. politician (born 1757)
April 2 – Hezekiah Niles, American editor and publisher (born 1777)
April 11 – John Galt, Scottish novelist (born 1779)
May 17 – Archibald Alison, Scottish writer (born 1757)
August 10 – John St Aubyn, British fossil collector (born 1758)
August 22 – Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist (born 1789)
August 28 – William Smith, English geologist and cartographer (born 1769)
November 15 – William Murdoch, Scottish inventor (born 1754)
December 3 – Frederick VI, King of Denmark, ex-King of Norway (born 1768)