1807

Born in 1807:

• American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
• American poet John Greenleaf Whittier.
• Swiss-American paleontologist Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, who first theorized the Ice Age.
• Icelandic poet Jónas Hallgrímsson.
• Virginia general Robert E. Lee.
• Italian military leader Giuseppe Garibaldi.
• French chemist Auguste Laurent.
• German mathematician Moritz Stern.
• American inventor and engineer Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University.
• Children's book author, Count Franz von Pocci.
• German feminist writer and 1848 radical Louise Dittmar.

• English hymn writer John Newton.
• Early Canadian explorer Peter Pond.
• German chemist Jeremias Richter.
• 25,000 from the Grande Armee and 20,000 Russian troops at Eylau.
• 9,000 from the Grande Armee and 19,000 Russian troops at Friedland.
•  Comte Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau, commander of French troops during the American Revolutionary War.

• Hegel publishes The Phenomenology of Mind.
• Charles and Mary Lamb publish Tales from Shakespeare, a set of prose adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays for children.
• Robert Fulton launches his first steamboat, Claremont. Between August 11 and August 17, "Fulton's Folly paddle-wheels her way from New York City to Albany, NY, New York.
• (March 2) The United States Congress passes an act banning the slave trade, effective January 1, 1808.  The law call for the seizure of all ships fitted out for carrying slaves.
• (March 25) The British Parliament passes an act abolishing the slave trade starting in 1808.   This act levies a fine of £100 per slave found on board a captured ships.  Captains about to be boarded simply throw the slaves overboard.
• President Thomas Jefferson forms the "Survey of the Coast" to chart American waters.
• The Burr Conspiracy has a bizarre ending.
• (January 10) Aaron Burr reads in the newspaper that he is wanted for treason.
• (February 2) Burr turns himself in at Natchez, MS and is arraigned. He jumps bail.
• (February 20) Burr is recaptured.
• In the Circuit Court in Richmond Virginia, before Chief Justice John Marshall, General James Wilkinson testifies against his co-conspirator Aaron Burr and is released. Burr's defense attorney is none other than Andrew Jackson, who takes the opportunity to vilify his hated rival, Wilkinson.
• (September 1) Burr is acquitted of treason. Marshall rules that his building of a private army is not an "overt act", and that his other acts didn't have the required two witnesses.
• Zebulon Pike's expedition is in sorry shape, about to starve.
• (February) Fortunately, Spanish troops arrive. Unfortunately, they arrest Pike and his men and throw them into prison in Santa Fe.
• (July 1) The Spanish release Pike and his men at Natchitoches (on the border between New Spain and the United States).
• Serb rebels, with Russian help, take control of Serbia; however, according to a Croatian website, they also ethnically cleanse Belgrade of Moslems and Jews.
• Napoleon Bonaparte has much success against the Fourth Coalition on the Continent, but Britain controls the sea (much to the consternation of Napoleon, as well as the United States:
• (January 1) The British take Curaçao, also giving them control over Aruba and Bonaire.
• (January 19) A British fleet forces the Dardanelles but Turkish shore batteries (with French artillery experts advising them) keep them from reaching Constantinople.
• the British capture Copenhagen
• The British occupying force in Buenos Aires surrenders. Unaware of this, 10,000 British troops are sent to reinforce them.
• (February 3) The British take Montevideo.
• (February 8) Battle of Eylau.Two of Napoleon's corps are cut to pieces by cannon near Eylau, but the French cavalry under Murat and more infantry under Davout  hold. Russian General Bennigsen eventually withdraws.
• (March 1) The British fleet near Constantinople sails back to the Mediterranean.
• (March 22) The British troops in Sicily are sent to Egypt, after some idiot suggests that they help the Mamelukes retake Egypt from the Albanian Muhammad Ali.
• (April) Alexandria surrenders to the British, but Muhammad Ali's Albanian troops trap them inside the walls after several regiments are destroyed while trying to take Rosetta.  The Mamelukes are no help at all.
• (May 25) Meanwhile, in Constantinople, the Janissaries feel their power threatened by Sultan Selim III's western-style reforms, and humiliated by their losses in Serbia. The Janissaries revolt and imprison Selim, putting their leader on the throne as Sultan Mustafa IV.
• (June 14) Battle of Friedland Napoleon takes advantage of bad Russian positioning at this town near Königsberg in East Prussia, smashing the Russian army.
• (June 15) The Prussian Army (allied to Russia) abandons Königsberg.
• (June 23) The USF Chesapeake refuses the demand of the captain of the HMS Leopard to board and search for British deserters. Leopard opens fire, Chesapeake is forced to submit.  The British impress four American sailors (previously-pressed Americans who had escaped from the Leopard while in Hampton Roads).
• (July 5) The British attack Buenos Aires.  This is so poorly planned that Spanish and Creole troops ut down most of the force.
• (July 7) France and Russia make peace with the first Treaty of Tilsit.
• Russia is allowed to take Finland away from Sweden.
• The Grand Duchy of Warsaw is set up. Polish nationalists are ecstatic, but it is another another Napoleonic puppet state.
• France will help Russia capture the Balkans from Turkey.
• (July 9) With the Second Treaty of Tilsit, Prussia faces the consequences of defeat.
• All territory west of the Elbe River is ceded to France (nominally, the Confederation of the Rhine).
• Did I forget to mention that the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was the part of Poland occupied by Prussia?
• Danzig (aka Gdansk) becomes a "free city".
• Prussia's army is limited to 42,000 men.
• (August) Napoleon negotiates an armistice (!) between Turkey and Russia.  Serbia is left to the Janissaries.
• (September 19) Muhammad Ali allows the British to evacuate Alexandria.
• (November 11) Parliament passes an Order in Council denationalizing any ship trading with France, making is subject to (search and seizure] on the high seas.
• (November 17) French and Spanish armies invade Portugal.
• (November 27) The French army occupies Lisbon.  King João IV and his family flee to Brazil.  The British occupy Madeira and The Azores to keep the French from having them.
• (December 17) Napoleon issues the Milan Decree stating that all ships complying with British regulations are to be seized.
• (December 21) The British caputre St. Croix and the rest of the Danish West Indies (Virgin Islands).
• (December 22) In response to British and French restrictions on trade with neutral countries, the United States Congress passes the Embargo Act forbidding all trade to and from American ports.   This Act does not have the intended effect.
• According to legend, an English ship (the "Canton"?) wrecks off the coast of Maryland.  There is some confusion as to how many people survive, but two Newfoundland puppies reportedly survive: the beginning of the Chesapeake Bay Retriever breed.

1806 - 1807 - 1808

How they Were Made - 19th Century