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The Sicilians declared the Bourbon dynasty reigning in Naples to have fallen.

Paris. The army, without orders, opened fire on the crowd, provoking a violent reaction. This marked the beginning of the Revolutionary Uprisings of ’48 throughout Europe: Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bohemia.

Paris. The insurrection breaks out. In just two days, it will lead to the abdication of King Louis-Philippe.

Milan. Pierrot’s Faust, starring Fanny Essler, is being performed at La Scala. Flyers have been distributed urging the Austrian representative to stay away. Only Austrian officials and officials show up en masse. But the very few Milanese present boo Essler’s first appearance, causing her to

Modena, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, was governed by Luigi Carlo Farini on several occasions.

72 Mormon wagons settle in present-day Utah

Adams & Le Verrier: discovery of Neptune. This is a spectacular application of Laplace’s 1814 vision, in the Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, in which he declares that “We can consider the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause

Tehran. The Russian embassy in Tehran, Iran, is attacked by an enraged mob following the loss of Yerevan to Armenia. Alexander Griboyedov, a representative of the tsarist government, and his Cossacks are massacred and mutilated.

Charles Babbage suffers a nervous breakdown, overwhelmed by a series of personal tragedies.

The Dutch possessions in India pass to the English East India Company.

Englishman Joseph Aspdin invents cement (Portland cement: a mixture of limestone and clay marl)

Baron Jons Jakob Berzelius isolates Silicon (Si)

Emperor Francis I of Austria elevated the five children of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the banking dynasty, to the rank of baron, as well as their legitimate male and female descendants with the surname Rothschild, regardless of nationality. It was a dynasty of

Augustin Cauchy demonstrates that the deformation of a material is a function of the stress F/S (analogous to pressure)

David Ricardo develops the idea of Comparative Advantage, which holds that countries should produce and sell what they are relatively better at.

2:00 PM: French infantry marches toward Wellington’s front line, trampling through the rye fields; 3,000 muskets from the Scottish Rifle Brigade open fire; then 6,000-7,000 men engage each other with melee weapons; from behind La Haie Sainte Farm, 1,200 men of Lord Uxbridge’s heavy cavalry

1:30 PM: 78 French guns open fire on Allied positions.

Murat and his Neapolitan army, after his colonel Guglielmo Pepe had unsuccessfully held off the Austrians at Carpi, now found themselves facing them on their own soil. On May 2nd, they attacked Tolentino, in central Italy. It was a massacre: the Neapolitan squares were practically

The Second American War of Independence formally ends with the Treaty of Ghent (in East Flanders, Belgium) between the Americans and the British. The peace terms were partially favorable to Jackson’s Americans thanks to the British abandonment of Louisiana. In reality, the hawkish American administration’s

Milan. Battle of the Umbrellas. In the morning, a furious mob entered the Senate and ransacked the chamber, searching everywhere for the hated Prina. Failing to find him, the rioters went to his home. After ransacking the house and finding him in a closet, the

Milan. Eugène de Beauharnais, viceroy of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy, resigns due to a popular uprising sparked by heavy government interference and high taxes. During the uprising, Count Giuseppe Prina, an honest but inflexible finance minister, is brutally lynched by the crowd.

France. Suburbs of Paris. 5:00 PM. Marmont and Mortier finally manage to disengage from the Russians, but after losing a third of their men.

Napoleon called up another 300,000 men to join the army, in addition to the 280,000 already conscripted and the 85,000 veterans of the Battle of Leipzig. The Allies, mindful of previous years, did not want to give him the opportunity to launch a new military

Vienna, Austria. Austrian Foreign Minister Count Clemens von Metternich admits to being astonished by the incredible speed with which Napoleon rebuilt his army. For a master diplomat, the speed and violence with which Napoleon waged wars left him completely astonished.

Battle of Bautzen. 3:00 PM. The village of Preititz falls to the French. Ney has the opportunity to cut off the Allies’ retreat to the southeast, but he gets carried away by the heated atmosphere caused by the fighting on his right, and attacks Blucher

Studjanka, Russia. The Russians under Stakhov attempt to thwart Napoleon’s Grande Armée’s crossing of the Berezina, but they have no chance whatsoever of taking control of the river and blocking its retreat.

Maloyaroslavets, Russia. Kutuzov decides to retreat toward Kaluga, thus leaving Maloyaroslavets to the Italians of Eugene de Beauharnais.

Maloyaroslavets, Russia. Napoleon’s vanguard consisted of Italians commanded by his stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais. On the evening of October 23, in the streets of Maloyaroslavets, not far from Moscow, 32,000 Russians clashed with 24,000 Italians. Beauharnais’s Italians entrenched themselves in the city and fought with

Russia. As soon as the Russians began pursuing Napoleon’s army, supply problems became evident for both sides in a devastated territory, with temperatures plummeting daily. It took 850 wagons to transport food and fodder to feed an army of 120,000 men and 40,000 horses for

Belarus. Reinforcements arrive for Napoleon: another 36,000 French troops enter Belarus from the West under the command of Marshal Victor. They arrive in Minsk on September 15th and in Smolensk on the 27th.

England. British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is shot and killed by John Bellingham, dissatisfied with his policies. It is the first and only assassination of a British Prime Minister in history. Perceval had recently refused to carry out the order of “mad” King George, who

England. William Herschel discovers the first two satellites of Uranus: Titania and Oberon. Twenty-five more will be discovered. Their names, at least initially, were based on the fairy characters in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, later becoming names of characters in the works of

Charleston, South Carolina. Sir Henry Clinton and his army of 8,500 soldiers begin landing operations.

Turks retake Belgrade

The Duke of Monmouth lands at Lyme in England, determined to seize the throne. He gathers 4,000 men and proclaims himself king. But the royal troops easily defeat the rebels, and the duke is imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek discovers microorganisms. Leeuwenhoek is a linen merchant in Delft, Holland, and sends proof of his findings to Hooke and other members of the Royal Society. Although he has no scientific background, he is a keen observer and a technical genius.

The Statute of Monopolies of 1624 was enacted in England: an English parliamentary act that significantly limited the Crown’s ability to grant exclusive monopolies, except for patents for new inventions, for a limited period. It established a legal basis for the patent system, allowing patents

China introduces serialized paper money; counterfeiters are beheaded.

Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent dies of a heart attack; his third son, Selim the Drunkard, ascends the throne (he had strangled his first two sons and their six children a couple of years earlier in a conspiracy).