Romantic Era

The **Romantic Era** was part of Modern Times. Beginning in 1789, when the Enlightenment culminated in the French Revolution, it lasted until 1836 and the start of the Victorian Era.

## Timeline

### 1789

Francisco Goya (1746-1828) becomes court painter to the King of Spain.

**July 14:** Storming of the Bastille, which frees the Marquis de Sade and kicks off the French Revolution.

**October 10:** Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposes the use of the device that now bears his name.

**April 28:** Fletcher Christian (1764-1793) leads a mutiny against Captain William Bligh (1754-1817) on the *HMS Bounty*.

Rip Van Winkle wakes after a sleep of 20 years, finding himself in the new Republic.

### 1790

Headless Horseman terrifies Ichabod Crane, rival of Brom Bones for the hand of Katrina Van Tassel--Sleepy Hollow, New York

### 1791

Lestat de Lioncourt turns Louis de Pointe du Lac (b. 1766) into a vampire--New Orleans

**August 14:** A Voodoo ceremony marks the beginning of the Haitian Revolution--Bois Caiman

**August:** Sir Percy Blakeney (b. 1760) forms the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel to protect victims of the French Revolution.

**September 11:** Whiskey Rebellion breaks out in opposition to a liquor tax--Washington County, Pennsylvania

**December 5:** Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies, poisoned by his rival Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)--Vienna

### 1792

Mike Fink (1780-1823) establishes himself as the best shooter and scrapper on the Ohio River. He becomes the King of the Riverboats.

**May 17:** The New York Stock Exchange is formed under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street.

**November:** Victor Frankenstein (1770-1799) creates his Monster--Geneva

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-97) vindicates the rights of women.

## 1793

 Execution of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

**April:** The Committee of Public Safety is formed.

**June 2:** Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) launches the Reign of Terror.

**July 13:** Charlotte Corday (1768-93) stabs Jean-Paul Marat (b. 1743) to death in his bathtub--Paris

**December:** Sydney Carton executed in place of Charles Darnay. Madame Dufarge dies trying to prevent Darnay's escape.

Eli Whitney invents the Cotton Gin.

## 1794

Toussaint L'Ouverture (1743-1803) wins freedom for the slaves of Haiti.

Chingachgook, the last of the Mohicans, dies, attended by Natty Bumppo, now known as Leatherstocking--Templeton, New York

**William Blake muses on the Tyger's fearful symmetry.**

## 1795

Louis XVII, the Lost Dauphin (b. 1785), smuggled out of France.

British dandy Beau Brummel popularizes the necktie.

Barnabas Collins transformed into a vampire by a witch's curse--Collinsport, Maine

**April:** Victor Frankenstein begins working on a Bride for his creation.

## 1796

**April 22:** Jean Valjean (1753-1833) sentenced to five years in the Toulon Penitentiary for stealing bread.

Napoleon Bonaparte marries Josephine.

**November 17:** Catherine the Great dies in an accident involving a horse--St. Petersburg

## 1797

The Dashwood sisters fall in love--the sensuous Marianne with dashing
 John Willoughby, the sensible Elinor with serious Edward Ferrars (b.
1774)--Barton Cottage, Devonshire

## 1798

Thomas Malthus predicts that population will outrun the food supply.

**March 16:** Catherine Morland (b. 1781) comes to Northanger Abbey.

## 1799

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) becomes first consul of the French Republic.

Davy Crockett (1786-1836) runs away from home to become King of the Wild Frontier.

**July 15:** Discovery of the Rosetta Stone unlocks the secrets of hieroglyphics--Rashid, Egypt

**September 13:** Victor Frankenstein dies pursuing his Monster to the North Pole.

## 1800

**April 18:** Lt. Jack Aubrey meets physician Stephen Maturin, whom he soon invites to serve as surgeon aboard his first command, the *Sophie*--Port Mahon, Minorca

**November 1:** John Adams becomes the first President to move into the White House, and shortly thereafter the first to move out.

Thomas Jefferson elected President.

## 1801

Johnny Appleseed (1776-1847) begins planting apple trees in the Ohio wilderness.

Fanny Price (b. 1791) comes to live with her cousins at Mansfield Park

**May 10:** Barbary Pirates declare war on the United States--Tripoli, Libya

## 1802

Walter Scott (1771-1832) begins publishing *The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border*.

**April:** Death of Heathcliff--Wuthering Heights, Yorkshire

## 1803

Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars.

**May 3:** Jefferson purchases Louisiana from Napoleon.

## 1804

World population reaches 1 billion.

**February 21:** Steam locomotive invented--Merthyr Tydfil, Wales

**April 27:** U.S. Marines storm the shores of Tripoli--Derne, Libya

**July 11:** Vice President Aaron Burr fatally shoots Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel--New Jersey

1804-1806 Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838), led by their Indian guide Sacagawea (1787-1812), explore the new Louisiana Purchase on a cross-continental expedition.

**December:** Morphine extracted from poppies--Paderborn, Germany

**December 2:** Napoleon becomes Emperor of France, with Josephine as his Empress.

## 1805

Natty Bumppo, now known only as The Trapper, dies in a Pawnee village on the prairie along the Upper Missouri, at the age of 88.

**October 21:** Admiral Nelson defeats the French in the Battle of Trafalgar.

**December 2:** Napoleon defeats the Russian and Austrian empires at the Battle of Austerlitz--the triumph that the Arc de Triomphe will later commemorate.

## 1806

Don Diego de la Vega (b. 1782) assumes the identity of Zorro to combat the tyrannical Spanish government of Alta California.

Jean Lafitte (d. 1826) begins his career as a pirate, operating out of Grand Terre island, south of New Orleans.

**August 6:** The Holy Roman Empire comes to an end.

**November:** Zebulon Pike reaches his Peak.

## 1807

**August 17:** Robert Fulton launches the first commercially successful steamboat--New York City

## 1808

James Madison elected president; Dolly Madison becomes first lady.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) publishes a play about Johann Faust. (See 1540.)

**December 22:** Beethoven's Fifth Symphony premieres--Vienna.

## 1809

By this year, Doctor Dolittle has learned to talk to the animals--Puddleby-by-the-Marsh, Shropshire

**January 19:** Birth of Edgar Allan Poe (d. 1849).

**February 12:** Abraham Lincoln born in a log cabin in Kentucky. Charles Darwin is born the same day on an estate in Shrewsbury, England.

**December 15:** Napoleon divorces Josephine in order to marry the Archduchess of Austria

Fanny Price and her cousin Edmund Bertram marry.

## 1811

Luddites, led by General Ned Ludd, begin campaign of sabotage--Nottingham, England

**October 21:** Elizabeth Bennet meets Fitzwilliam Darcy at a ball, where he snubs her.

**October:** Jane Austen (1775-1817) publishes her first book, which describes the courtship of the Dashwood sisters.

**November 7:** William Henry Harrison wins the Battle of Tippecanoe against Tecumseh's Confederacy--Indiana Territory

## 1812

Lord Byron (1788-1824) begins his poetic career.

**June 18:** The United States declares war on Britain, beginning the War of 1812.

**June 24:** Napoleon invades Russia.

**November:** Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy are wed.

**December 24:** The orphan Pip Pirrip aids the escaped convict Abel Magwitch.

## 1813

**September 10:** The enemy is met and they are Commodore Perry's--Lake Erie

**October 5:** The Shawnee warrior Tecumseh (b. 1768) killed by U.S. forces--Moraviantown, Ontario

**October 24:** A treaty between Russia and Persia kicks off the Great Game between Russia and the British Empire for control of Central Asia--Gulistan, Azerbaijan

## 1814

The British burn the White House; Dolly Madison flees with George Washington's portrait.

**May 4:** Napoleon forced to abdicate, exiled to Elba.

**September 13:** At the Battle of Fort McHenry,
 the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air gave proof through the
night to Francis Scott Key that the flag was still there.

**October:** Emma Woodhouse (b. 1793) weds George Knightly (b. 1776)--Highbury, Surrey

Pirate Jean Lafitte (1780-1826) helps Col. Andrew Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans.

Metternich (1773-1859) orchestrates the Congress of Vienna.

## 1815

* **February 28:** Edmond Dantes falsely imprisoned in the Chateau d'If--Marseilles, France
* **March 1:** Napoleon escapes from Elba
* **June 18:** Napoleon defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.
* **September 26:** The Prussian, Austrian and Russian Empires form the Holy Alliance.
* **October 16:** Napoleon exiled to St. Helena.
* **October:** Jean Valjean released from Toulon, having served 14 extra years for escape attempts.
* Mike Fink leaves the Ohio River when it becomes too civilized.

## 1816

* The Year Without a Summer, caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815
* Shaka Zulu (1787-1828) becomes Chief of the Zulu Nation.
* **July 2:** One hundred forty-seven shipwreck survivors cast adrift on the raft of *The Medusa*.

## 1817

Jean Valjean starts a factory in Montreuil-sur-Mer under an assumed name.

## 1819

**February 6:** Singapore is founded by the British East India Company.

**December 17:** Simon Bolivar proclaims the Republic of Gran Colombia.

The vampire Lord Ruthven appears in London society.

## 1820

Javert (b. 1780) becomes the Police Inspector in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Doctor Dolittle travels to Africa to treat a monkey epidemic.

**January 27:** Antarctica discovered.

**March 3:** The Missouri Compromise maintains the balance between freedom and slavery in the United States.

## 1821

**March 5:** Napoleon dies on St. Helena.

## 1823

**August 10:** Stephen\_Austin founds the Texas Rangers.

Mike Fink dies on the Yellowstone River.

President James Monroe declares his Doctrine.

**April 19:** Lord Byron dies fighting for Greek Independence--Missolonghi

**July:** Having been recognized by Inspector Javert, Jean Valjean is arrested and sent back to Toulon. On November 16, he escapes again.

## 1825

**December:** The Decemberists revolt--Russia

## 1827

Joseph Smith receives golden plates from the angel Moroni.

## 1828

Andrew Jackson elected president; mobs enter White House.

Davy Crockett elected to Congress.

First prisoners sent up the river to Sing Sing in upstate New York.

Noah Webster (1758-1843) publishes his dictionary.

**May 26:** A teenage boy called Kaspar Hauser (b. April 30, 1812?) appears in Nuremberg, Germany, with a story of having been raised in total isolation in a darkened cell.

**October:** Jane Eyre becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall--Derbyshire, England

## 1829

Birth of Abraham van Helsing--Amsterdam

**February 27:** Dantes escapes from d'If, obtains the treasure of Monte Cristo.

## 1830

**June:** Reader, Jane Eyre marries Edward Rochester--Thornfield Hall, Derbyshire

## 1831

Nat Turner's rebellion.

Alexis de Tocqueville tours America.

Charles Darwin sets off in *The Beagle*, which reaches the Galapagos in 1835 and returns to England in 1836.

## 1833

**December 17:** Kaspar Hauser dies from a mysterious stab wound.

## 1835

Oliver Twist is educated by Fagin and the Artful Dodger--London

**July 8:** The Liberty Bell cracks--Philadelphia
August 25: *The New York Sun* reports the discovery of life on the Moon, including bison, goats, unicorns, bipedal beavers and bat-like humanoids.

**November 15:** Halley's Comet at perihelion.

## 1836

**March 2:** Republic of Texas declares its independence from Mexico.

**March 6:** Davy Crockett (b. 1786) and Jim Bowie (b. 1796) killed at the Battle of the Alamo.

**April 21:** Sam Houston defeats Antonio López de Santa Anna to secure the independence of the Lone Star Republic--San Jacinto, Texas

Abraham Lincoln becomes a lawyer.

Samuel Colt patents his revolver.

Friedrich von Junzt (1795-1840) writes *Unaussprechlichen Kulten*.