1823

Events

January–March

• January 22 - By secret treaty signed at the Congress of Verona, the Quintuple Alliance gives France a mandate to invade Spain for the purpose of restoring Ferdinand VII as absolute monarch of the country.
• January 23 - In Paviland Cave on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric human burial.
• February 3
• * Jackson Male Academy, precursor of Union University, opens in Tennessee.
• * Gioachino Rossini's opera Semiramide is first performed, at La Fenice in Venice.
• February 10 - The first worldwide carnival parade takes place in Cologne, Prussia.
• February 11 - Carnival tragedy of 1823: About 110 boys are killed during a stampede at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta, Malta.
• February 15 - The first officially recognised gold is found in Australia, by surveyor James McBrien at Fish River, near Bathurst, New South Wales, predating the Australian gold rushes.
• February 20 - Explorer James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W: the southernmost position any ship has reached at this time, a record that will hold for more than 80 years.
• March 19 - Emperor Agustín de Iturbide of Mexico abdicates, thus ending the short-lived First Mexican Empire.

  April–June

• April 7 - French forces, the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis", cross the Spanish border.
• April 13 - Franz Liszt, 11, gives a concert in Vienna, after which he is personally congratulated by Ludwig van Beethoven.
• May 5 - Emperor Pedro I of Brazil inaugurates Brazil's first Assembleia Geral, with 50 Senators and 102 Deputies.
• May 7 - Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov in appointed as Governor-General of Novorossiya, the portion of Russian Empire bordering the Black Sea.
• May 9 - Russian author Alexander Pushkin begins work on his verse novel Eugene Onegin.
• May 23 - The rebel Spanish government withdraws from Madrid to Seville following French attacks.
• May 25 - The Catholic Association begins in Ireland at a meeting of 13 people at a bookseller's house on Capel Street in Dublin.
• June 5 - Raffles Institution is established by the founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles.

  July–September

• July 1 - The Congress of Central America declares absolute independence from Spain, Mexico and any other foreign nation, including North America, and a republican system of government is established.
• July - Robert Peel ensures the passage of five Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, effectively abolishing the death penalty for over one hundred offences; in particular, the Judgement of Death Act allows judges to commute sentences for capital offences to imprisonment or transportation. The Transportation Act of July 4 allows convicts transported to the colonies to be employed on public works.
• July 10 - The Gaols Act is passed by Parliament of the United Kingdom, based on the prison reform campaign of Elizabeth Fry.
• July 15 - The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome is almost completely destroyed by fire.
• August 1 - William Pitt Amherst arrives in Calcutta with Lady Amherst, to become the new Governor-General of India.
• August 4 - Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an 11-man police force, that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division.
• August 5 - The Royal Hibernian Academy is founded in Dublin.
• August 16 - Tsar Alexander I of Russia draws up a secret "manifesto", designating his second younger brother Nikolai to succeed him, bypassing Nikolai's older brother, Grand Duke Konstantin. The existence of the manifesto is revealed on Alexander's death in 1825.
• August 18 - Demerara rebellion of 1823: In British Guiana, an insurrection of 10,000 black slaves begins; it is suppressed after three days, but hundreds of suspects are executed in the reprisals that follow.
• August 20 - Pope Pius VII dies after a reign of more than 23 years that began on March 14, 1800; he is remembered for crowning Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France.
• August 24 - Hugh Glass gets mauled by a sow grizzly while on a fur trapping expedition in the Missouri Territory.
• August 31 - Battle of Trocadero: French infantry of the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis" capture the fort of Trocadero and turn its guns on Cádiz.
• September 10 - Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru.
• September 22 - Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel.
• September 23 - First Anglo-Burmese War: Burmese forces attack the British on Shapura, an island close to Chittagong.
• September 28 - Roman Catholic Cardinal Annibale della Genga is elected Pope Leo XII.
• September 30 - Cádiz surrenders to the French and Ferdinand VII of Spain is restored to his throne, immediately repealing the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812.

  October–December

• October 5 - Medical journal The Lancet is founded by Thomas Wakley in London.
• November 3 - An explosion at the Rainton Colliery Company's Plain Pit mine at Chilton Moor in the north of England, kills 57 coal miners.
• November - According to tradition, William Webb Ellis invents the sport of rugby football at Rugby School in England.
• December 2 - James Monroe first introduces the Monroe Doctrine in the State of the Union address, declaring that any European attempts to recolonize the Americas would be considered a hostile act towards the United States.

  Undated

• The first Anglo-Ashanti War begins.
• Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers.
• Work begins on the British Museum in London, designed by Robert Smirke, and the Altes Museum in Berlin, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
• The Oxford Union is founded as a student debating society in England.

  Births

January–June

• January 1 - Sándor Petőfi, Hungarian poet, revolutionary
• January 3 - Robert Whitehead, English engineer, inventor
• January 8 - Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist, biologist
• January 11 - Pierre Philippe Denfert-Rochereau, French military officer and politician
• January 27 - Édouard Lalo, French composer
• February 15 - Li Hongzhang, Chinese politician, general and diplomat
• February 28
• *Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
• *Ernest Renan, French philosopher, philologist, historian and writer
• March 8 - Gyula Andrássy, 4th Prime Minister of Hungary
• March 14 - Théodore de Banville, French writer
• March 18 - Antoine Chanzy, French general and colonial governor
• March 23 - Schuyler Colfax, 17th Vice President of the United States from 1869 to 1873
• April 1 - Simon Bolivar Buckner, American soldier, politician and Confederate soldier
• April 3 - William M. Tweed, American political boss
• April 4 - Carl Wilhelm Siemens, German engineer
• April 24 - Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, 27th President of Mexico
• April 25 - Abdülmecid I, Ottoman Sultan
• May 2 - Emma Hardinge Britten, English-born spiritualist
• May 9 - Sir Frederick Weld, 6th Prime Minister of New Zealand
• May 15
• *Youssef Bey Karam, Lebanese nationalist leader
• * Thomas Lake Harris, American poet
• May 17 - Henry Eckford, British horticulturist
• May 22 - Solomon Bundy, American politician
• May 26 - William Pryor Letchworth, American businessman, philanthropist, founder of Letchworth State Park, New York
• July 6 - Sophie Adlersparre, Swedish feminist
• June 21 - Jean Chacornac, French astronomer

  July–December

• July 9 - Phineas Gage, improbable American head injury survivor
• July 18
• * Félix du Temple de la Croix, French Army Captain, aviation pioneer
• * Leonard Fulton Ross, American Civil War general
• July 23 - Coventry Patmore, English poet
• August 3 - Thomas Francis Meagher, American Civil War general
• August 4 - Oliver P. Morton, American politician
• August 5 - Eliza Tibbets, mother of the California orange industry
• August 10
• * Hugh Stowell Brown, Manx preacher
• * Charles Keene, English artist, illustrator
• August 11 - Charlotte Mary Yonge, English author
• August 13 - Goldwin Smith, English historian
• August 14 - Karel Miry, Belgian composer
• August 15 - Orris S. Ferry, American Civil War general and politician
• August 23 - Nil Izvorov, Bulgarian Orthodox priest and venerable
• September 16 - Ludwik Teichmann, Polish anatomist
• November 1 - Lascăr Catargiu, 4-time Prime Minister of Romania
• November 8 - Joseph Monier, French inventor
• November 16 - Henry G. Davis, American politician
• November 18 - Charles H. Bell, American politician
• November 21 - Andrzej Jerzy Mniszech, Polish painter
• November 25 - Henry Wirz, Swiss-born American Confederate military officer, prisoner-of-war camp commander
• December 6 - Friedrich Max Müller, German Orientalist
• December 9 - Rosalie Olivecrona, Swedish women's rights activist
• December 13 - Ferdinand Büchner, German composer
• December 22 - Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American Unitarian minister, abolitionist
• December 27 - Sir Mackenzie Bowell, 5th Prime Minister of Canada

  Undated

• Manolache Costache Epureanu, 2-time Prime Minister of Romania
• Julian Gutowski, Polish politician

  Deaths

January–June

• January 21 - Gideon Olin, American politician
• January 26 - Edward Jenner, English physician, medical researcher
• January 27 - Charles Hutton, English mathematician
• February - Agnes Ibbetson, English plant physiologist
• February 7 - Ann Radcliffe, English writer
• February 21 - Charles Wolfe, Irish poet
• March 1 - Pierre-Jean Garat, French Basque opera singer
• March 5 - Magdalena Rudenschöld, Swedish conspirator
• March 14
• * Charles François Dumouriez, French general
• * John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, British Royal Navy admiral
• March 18
• * Jean-Baptiste Bréval, French cellist
• * Henry Brockholst Livingston, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
• March 19 - Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, Polish aristocrat and patron of the arts
• April 18 - George Cabot, American politician
• June 1 - Louis-Nicolas Davout, French marshal
• June 19 - William Combe, English writer, poet and adventurer

  July–December

• July 8 - Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter
• August 1 - Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier of Great Britain
• August 7 - Mátyás Laáb, Croatian writer, translator
• August 18 - John Treadwell, the fourth Governor of Connecticut
• August 20 - Pope Pius VII, Italian Benedictine
• August 22 - Lazare Carnot, French general, politician and mathematician
• August 30 - Pierre Prévost, French panorama painter
• September 11 - David Ricardo, English economist
• September 17 - Abraham-Louis Breguet, Swiss horologist, inventor
• September 23 - Matthew Baillie, Scottish physician, pathologist
• September 28 - Charlotte Melmoth, English-born American actress
• November 9 - Vasily Kapnist, Ukrainian-Russian poet, dramatist
• November 11 - Richard Richards, British judge and politician
• December 3 - Giovanni Battista Belzoni, Italian explorer, pioneer archaeologist of Egypt