Kutuzov found a favorable position to entrench himself, near the village of Borodino, 124 kilometers from Moscow. Unlike his predecessor, Barclay, he had no intention of surrendering Moscow.

The eve of the Russian Campaign. The Russians have 600,000 men, but 80,000 are in Crimea, the Caucasus, and Finland. Those on the front lines number 242,000, about half the French forces they face. It is clear to the Russians that the first part of the war will be fought on Russian soil.

North America. The British Royal Navy manages to sail up the Chesapeake Peninsula and set fire to Washington. It quickly becomes clear to the Americans that maintaining control of the seas is crucial.

Venezuela. Bolivar drafts the Cartagena Manifesto, in which he expresses his contempt for democracy and for that “fatal system of tolerance inadequate to any man of common sense,” and for the “criminal clemency of benevolent visionaries who seek to achieve political perfection by taking human perfectibility for granted.” Bolivar argues that the United States Constitution requires a republic of saints to function, and that it would never work in South America. He says that “as effective as this system may be for North America, I have never for a moment considered comparing the character of two states as different from each other as the English-American and the Spanish-American. Thus, Bolivar moves toward dictatorship, not federalism, but the centralization of power.

Venezuela. A devastating earthquake hits Caracas, killing 10,000 people.

Sicily. Lord Bentick, Sicilian Foreign Minister, imposes a constitution modeled on the English parliamentary system on Sicily, a British protectorate.

Napoleon’s campaign in Russia.

An 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck along the New Madrid Fault, between Missouri and Tennessee. Six hours later, another tremor of the same magnitude, 8.2, followed. On January 23rd, there will be another tremendous 8.1 tremor, and on February 7th, another 8.3!

United States. Battle of Tippecanoe. American Governor Harrison (the “Long Knives Governor,” in Shawnee terminology) sends 250 infantry, several hundred militia, and 50 Kentucky volunteers against Tecumseh’s Shawnee tribe. The Americans win a tactical victory. He will cite it several years later to win the presidency. At the Battle of Tippencanoe, the British are considered the true instigators, with the Indians merely the perpetrators.

The passage of Flaugergues’ Comet, also mentioned by Tolstoy in “War and Peace.” It is expected to pass again in the year 4800.

Independence of Paraguay and Venezuela from Spain.

Napoleonic Empire extends from Spain to Italy to Germany

Earthquake magnitude 5.2 on the Richter scale in Montebranzone (Modena)

Venezuela. Upon Simon Bolivar’s return home, he and veteran Francisco de Miranda proclaimed the First Venezuelan Republic. Bolivar and Miranda had fled Spain due to Napoleon’s occupation.

East Coast of the United States, between Norfolk and New York. The American battleships USS President and the British Little Belt engage in a fierce exchange of cannon fire. The small British ship comes out on top, losing nine sailors. The USS President, in reality, expected to face the mighty HMS Guerriere, but realizes it has overreacted, sending an emissary to the British ship to apologize for the unfortunate incident. This would be the trigger for the War of 1812, in addition to various causes of friction between the Americans and the British, such as the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, the British naval embargo and blockade, and the British arms supplied to the Native Americans.

Avogadro’s molecular theory of gases

The appearance of a comet in the sky provides, according to the beliefs of the time, the explanation of a series of peculiar phenomena such as the birth ofdifferent twins (which isdifferent from the twinsdifferent) or the very curious fact that flies appear to be blind (…)

Earthquake magnitude 5.2 on the Richter scale in Novellara (Reggio Emilia)

London’s streets are lit by gas

As Franco-Russian relations once again head towards war, the French ambassador in St. Petersburg tries to warn Napoleon that Tsar Alexander is not as weak as he is said and believed: he is stubbornly obstinate.

Turin. Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Cellarengo, and Isolabella, known simply as Count Cavour or Cavour, is born.

The Royal Navy implements a total blockade of European ports, to embargo Napoleonic Europe.

Clear evidence is beginning to mount on the Russian side that Napoleon is preparing a massive invasion of the Tsar’s empire.

270,000 French soldiers are bogged down in the Iberian Peninsula: they want to invade Portugal, the last English bastion on the continent.

Vienna. Peace of Schonbrunn. Napoleon takes revenge on Tsar Alexander’s declaration of war and cedes a large portion of Galicia to the Poles. Shortly thereafter, he divorces his wife Josephine and asks for the hand of Alexander’s sister.

6:00 a.m.: British Foreign Secretary Lord Canning and War Secretary Sir Castlereagh challenge each other to a duel. Both fire a first shot but miss; with the second shot (a mutually agreed upon shot), Castlereagh is saved by a metal button on his jacket, while Canning is hit in the left buttock and, more embarrassed than in pain, withdraws from the duel. After the duel, both resign, and Castlereagh later becomes Foreign Secretary and signs the Ghent Peace Treaty. Castlereagh commits suicide on August 12, 1922, suffering from a severe manic-depressive episode. Lord Castlereagh’s sister was the mother of Robert Fitz-Roy, captain of Her Majesty’s ship, the Beagle, which later carries Charles Darwin. Fitz-Roy chose to bring the erudite Charles Darwin with him for long conversations, fearing loneliness, which had already killed another member of the family… Lord Castlereagh, precisely (what would have happened if Lord Canning’s bullet had not hit Castlereagh’s button?) (For the record, Fitz-Roy committed suicide anyway on April 20, 1865).

Schrewsbury, Shroshire, England. Birth of Charles Darwin.

British Empire. The British, stung by the American War of Independence and the loss of the United States, learned their lesson and granted broad autonomy to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, so much so that from 1809 to 1819, Australia didn’t even bother notifying London of new laws enacted locally. In 1850, the British wrote a constitution for their colonies, subject to local amendment, and in 1870, British troops were withdrawn from Australian soil, while maintaining the protection of the Royal Navy, which lasted until World War II (and ended with the fall of Singapore).

Finland passes from Swedish to Russian rule.

Napoleonic Italy reached its final form and was divided into three states: the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Naples, and the territories directly annexed to the French Empire: Piedmont, Liguria, Parma, Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio. The laws and administrations, however, remained essentially the same, precisely Napoleonic in nature. For the first time in many centuries, Italy was effectively united.

Wilhelm von Humboldt, the new Prussian Minister of Education, sharply shifted the emphasis of education to the needs of the individual rather than the state. Thus, the grammar schools were born.

The Portuguese monarchs and the entire court, having miraculously escaped the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal, arrive in Rio de Janeiro

Dalton formulates an atomic theory of matter

Salmon Portland Chase, who would go on to be a key figure in President Abraham Lincoln’s government team during the American Civil War, was born in Cornish, New Hampshire.

Russia. General Alexei Arakcheev is appointed Minister of War.

Tilsit. After the signing of the treaties, Napoleon and Tsar Alexander attend a parade of the Russian and French guards. Napoleon insists that Alexander award the Legion of Honor to the bravest soldier of the Preobrazhensky. Caught off guard, Russian commander Mikhail Kozlovsky simply forces the right-wing leader, grenadier Alexei Lazarev, out of line. Lazarev, stunned, finds himself in Napoleon’s arms, entitled to a lifelong pension of 1,200 francs! His fortunes will then turn against him: he will be expelled from the army for insolent behavior, arrested, faced prejudice due to his non-aristocratic background, and finally committed suicide.

Modena. Napoleonic soldiers smashed the Belleardi marble monument with hammers. They reduced it to fine fragments so that the layer they formed on the ground would “drain the horses’ urine.” This historical testimony was later confirmed by excavations conducted during renovations in 2007, when 440 fragments were found.

Peace of Tilsit. On a raft on the Neman River in France, the victorious Napoleon and Tsar Alexander meet. Both expert flatterers, they argue for over two hours.

Norfolk, Virginia. The British battleship HMS Leopard approaches the American USS Chesapeake, searching for deserters. It is denied boarding permission. Tensions quickly escalate. An American sailor accidentally rolls his drum and is silenced by the captain. The British ship, armed with 50 guns, fires first a shot, then a series of broadsides with all available guns on that side. The American ship is heavily damaged in its masts, sails, and hull. Three are killed and nine are wounded. The sailors, as is customary, spread sand on the deck to soak up the blood from the numerous shrapnel wounds and prevent slipping. The incident threatens to spark a new conflict between the United States and Great Britain, and it will take all of Thomas Jefferson’s skill to prevent it.

Murat’s cavalry, Napoleon’s general, reaches the Niemen River, the Russian border, over 1,600 km from Paris; on a raft on the river, Napoleon meets the Tsar’s envoys who have a request for an armistice; that, Napoleon writes, will be my finest moment; but he lets slip the opportunity to consolidate his conquests.

Istanbul. The Janissary barracks are attacked by cannon fire. Hundreds of men are killed. The Janissary corps is disbanded.

The Chesapeake Affair: The American ship USS Chesapeake is attacked by the British ship HMS Leopard off Norfolk, Virginia.

Battle of Friedland. Present-day Kaliningrad. Napoleon heavily defeats the Russian army and pushes it back to the borders of the Empire. Russian casualties number 20,000, and the defeat is serious, but not on the scale of Austerlitz and certainly not of Jena.

Istanbul. 20,000 Janissaries protest the reform of the system.

Istanbul. In a vast parade ground, near the Janissary barracks, 200 soldiers wearing new European-style uniforms are marched. This will trigger a reaction from the Janissaries.

Astronomer J. Huth, Olbers’s rival (who has discovered several new asteroids in recent years), claims that the bodies in the Main Asteroid Belt are remnants of planetary formation that never ended up inside a true planet, due to the gravitational disturbances of the mighty nearby Jupiter. Another version sees the asteroids as the leftovers from the formation of a planet that did form: tiny Mars (small compared to Earth and Venus).

Astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers first observed the asteroid Vesta. The name was actually given to it by Gauss, who in just 10 hours calculated (by hand, of course) the orbit of the new (gigantic) asteroid. Vesta is the daughter of Saturn, sister to Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Ceres, and Juno (Juno, an asteroid discovered three years earlier). It was indeed a golden age for asteroid discovery: three years earlier, Karl Ludwig Harding had discovered the asteroid Juno, five years earlier, Olbers had discovered Pallas (or Pallas), and six years earlier, Ceres (or Ceres).

Jean-Louis Pons discovers 30 comets.

England. It becomes illegal to trade slaves throughout the British Empire. And in 1838, it also becomes illegal to own slaves.

Sir John Duckworth’s squadron forces the Dardanelles Strait. The Turks still use ancient bombards that hurl enormous stone balls in the general direction of enemy ships. The English employ the new scientific principles of artillery, enunciated and studied by the Quaker Benjamin Robins.

Battle of Eylau. In the area of present-day Kaliningrad, the French won a narrow victory over the Russians (the Prussians were almost nonexistent). Napoleon now controlled much of Western Europe, almost unchallenged.

Robert Morrison, of the London Missionary Society, arrives in Canton as a missionary. His first move, even before setting sail, is to study Mandarin and transcribe the Bible into Chinese.

Fur trappers are the vanguard of the rush west along the Missouri