Victorian Era

The **Victorian Era** is a period in history, part of modern times. It began in 1837, when Queen Victoria became Empress of Britain. Although she remained on the throne until 1901, we cut her era short in 1860, with the beginning of the Slaveholders' Rebellion.

## Timeline

### 1837

**June 20:** Queen Victoria becomes ruler of the British Empire.

Charles Daguerre invents the photograph.

First sighting of Spring-Heeled Jack, a mysterious superpowered character who will appear sporadically throughout the century--London.

### 1838

**May 21:** Edmund Dantes appears in Paris as the Count of Monte Cristo and begins to exact his revenge.

**September 3:** Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery--Baltimore, Maryland.

### 1839

**July 2:** The *Amistad* mutiny.

Baseball invented by Abner Doubleday--Cooperstown, New York.

### 1840

The Maltese Falcon reappears in Paris, now covered with black enamel. (See 1923.)

The Opium Wars begin in China. 1839-42, 1856-60

**May 1:** First adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, is issued.

### 1841

A series of murders on Paris' Rue Morgue are solved by the detective August Dupin.

**May:** Pioneers begin using the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City.

### 1842

Ada Byron helps Charles Babbage invent the computer.

**June 18:** P.T. Barnum acquires the Fiji mermaid.

### 1844

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn attend their own funerals.

**May 24:** Samuel Morse sends the first telegram from Washington to Baltimore: “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?”

**June 27:** Joseph Smith murdered.

**July 3:** Great auk extinct.

### 1845

**July 4:** Henry David Thoreau moves to Walden Pond.

**July:** Birth of Albus Dumbledore--Godric’s Hollow, England.

Huckleberry Finn and the escaped slave Jim take off down the Mississippi on a raft.

### 1846

**June 14:** California Republic proclaimed.

**May 3:** Mexican-American War begins.

### 1847

**March 10:** Deseret founded as Mormon homeland by Brigham Young.

The Irish potato famine begins.

### 1848

**January 24:** Gold discovered at Sutter’s Mill, sparking the California Gold Rush.

Revolutions across Europe

Karl Marx and Frederich Engels publish *The Communist Manifesto*.

## 1849

Forty-Niners flock to California. Death of Darling Clementine.

Harriet Tubman begins leading slaves to freedom--Maryland.

## 1850

Allan Pinkerton (1819-84) establishes his detective agency.

**December:** Beginning of Taiping Rebellion--Guangxi, China.

## 1851

**May 29:** Sojourner Truth demands, “Ain’t I a woman?”

**December 4:** Erik, later known as the Phantom of the Opera, born, during the Boulevard Massacre in Paris.

## 1852

Devil's Island opens as a French penal colony, closing in 1946.

**December 2:** Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, formerly President of France, becomes Emperor.

The Rock Island Line begins running between Chicago and Rock Island, Illinois. It's a mighty fine line.

## 1853

**October 23:** The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia, beginning the Crimean War.

## 1854

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) nurses British troops during the Crimean War.

**October 25:** The Light Brigade does and dies.

**March 11:** Chief Seattle declares that all things are connected--Seattle, Washington.

**March 31:** Commodore Matthew Perry (1794-1858) forces Japan to accept trade with the United States.

## 1857

**May 10:** Indian troops rebel against their British officers in the Sepoy Mutiny,

## 1858

**May 31:** Big Ben built--London.

Geronimo (1829-1909) goes on the warpath to avenge his wife’s death; captured 1886.

Sir Richard Burton discovers the Mountains of the Moon.

**July 8:** With the defeat of the Sepoy Mutiny by the British, one of its leaders, Prince Dakkar, relocates to the Mysterious Island, changes his name to Captain Nemo where he builds the submarine Nautilus.

**August 16:** First trans-Atlantic telegraph message.

**August 21:** Lincoln debates Douglas in the first of seven meetings--Ottawa, Illinois.

## 1859

**February 11:** Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad chartered.

**September 17:** Norton I proclaims himself Emperor of These United States and Protector of Mexico.

**October 16:** John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry

**November 24:** Charles Darwin publishes *The Origin of Species*--London.

## 1860

**April 3:** Pony Express established, carrying mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco in ten days. Bill Cody (not yet nicknamed “Buffalo) is one of its first riders.