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Charles Dickens publishes Oliver Twist in periodical form
Oliver Twist is one of the most famous novels Charles Dickens ever wrote, which is impressive, given that he wrote fifteen very popular novels during his life. It’s a classic rags-to-riches story about an orphan who has to find his way through a city full of criminals, and avoid being corrupted. People read Oliver Twist in Dickens's day, and are still reading it now, for the gritty realism with which Dickens portrays working class people and the horrible living conditions of the London slums. -
Victoria becomes queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
She was the only daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. Her father died shortly after her birth and she became heir to the throne because the three uncles who were ahead of her in succession - George IV, Frederick Duke of York, and William IV - had no legitimate children who survived. -
William Wordsworth becomes poet laureate.
Wordsworth finally settled with his family and sister in Grasmere, England. He became widely successful and was named poet laureate in 1843, succeeding Robert Southey. William Wordsworth died on April 23, 1850 of pleurisy. He is buried at St. Oswald's Church, in Grasmere. -
Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning elope she writes Songs from the Portuguese.
while her family was away, Barrett sneaked out of the house and met Browning at St. Marylebone Parish Church, where they were married. She returned home for a week, keeping the marriage a secret, then fled with Browning to Italy. She never saw her father again. Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning elope, 1846MusicBarry White is born, 1944Old WestHopalong Cassidy rides off into his last sunset, 1972PresidentialJohn F. Kennedy marries Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island, 1953SportsSugar -
Charlotte Bronte publishes Jane Eyre; Emily Bronte publishes Wuthering Heights.
The academic industry that feeds on the Brontë sisters is enormous. Especially tasty are Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which until the rise of feminist criticism in the last fifteen to twenty years has in this century taken second place to Emily's one powerful novel. (In the nineteenth century, the situation was generally reversed.) -
Alfred, Lord Tennyson becomes a poet laureate.
Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had. -
Japan opens trade to the West.
Commodore Matthew Perry of the United States Navy, commanding a squadron of two steamers and two sailing vessels, sailed into Tôkyô harbor aboard the frigate Susquehanna. Perry, on behalf of the U.S. government, forced Japan to enter into trade with the United States and demanded a treaty permitting trade and the opening of Japanese ports to U.S. merchant ships. This was the era when all Western powers were seeking to open new markets for their manufactured goods abroad, as well as new countries -
The U.S. Civil War begins.
The bloodiest four years in American history begin when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard open fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Bay. During the next 34 hours, 50 Confederate guns and mortars launched more than 4,000 rounds at the poorly supplied fort. On April 13, U.S. Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort. Two days later, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to quell the Southern " -
Queen Victoria Dies
ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign, the longest in British history, saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.
