A Regency Era Timeline 1812 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1812:

Year

Month Day

Event



1812

Jan 23

A 2nd major earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri.



1812

January

January: Wellington captures Ciudad Rodrigo.



1812

Feb 5

Franz Schneider (74), composer, died.



1812

Feb 7

A 3rd major earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri, and for a few hours reversed the course of the Mississippi River. [see Dec 15-16, 1811, Jan 23, 1912]



1812

Feb 7

Charles Dickens, English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, England. His stories reflected life in Victorian England. In his novel “Dombey & Son,” Dickens confronted the subject of money, and its use as a measure of success. His work also included “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” published in installments like most of his novels. The closing line of A Christmas Carol: “And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!” Some of his more famous novels include “Oliver Twist” and “A Tale of Two Cities.”



1812

Feb 7

Lord Byron made his maiden speech in House of Lords.



1812

Feb 9

Franz Anton Hoffmeister (57), composer, died.



1812

Feb 11

Alexander Hamilton Stephens (d.1883), Vice Pres (Confederacy), was born near Crawfordville, Georgia. Stephens, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 to 1859, was a delegate at the Montgomery meeting that formed a new union of the seceded states. He was elected vice president to Jefferson Davis on February 9, 1861. Stephens was later elected governor of Georgia in 1882 but died after serving just a few months.



1812

Feb 11

Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry signed a re-districting law  that favored his party, giving rise to the term “gerrymandering.” His district was shaped like a salamander.



1812

Feb 16

Henry Wilson, 18th U.S. Vice President (Grant 1873-1875), was born. 



1812

February

February: Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire. Despite his eloquence, Parliament passes the Frame Breaking Act, which permits the death sentence for anyone convicted of destroying machinery.



1812

February

February: Viscount Wellington is made Earl of Wellington for his service in the Peninsula.



1812

Mar 6

Aaron Lufkin Dennison, father of American watch making, was born.



1812

Mar 9

Swedish Pomerania was seized by Napoleon.



1812

Mar 11

Citizenship was granted to Prussian Jews.



1812

Mar 14

The US Congress authorized war bonds to finance War of 1812.



1812

Mar 19

Spanish Cortes passed a liberal constitution under a hereditary monarch.



1812

Mar 25

Alexander Herzen (d.1870), Russian author, was born. “Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me how to live.”



1812

Mar 26

Earthquake destroyed 90% of Caracas; about 20,000 died.



1812

March

March: The first two cantos of Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage are published.



1812

Apr 4

The territory of Orleans became the 18th state and later became known as Louisiana.



1812

Apr 15

Pierre-Etienne-Theodore Rousseau, painter, was born.



1812

Apr 20

George Clinton (73), the 4th vice president of the United States, died in Washington, becoming the first vice president to die while in office.



1812

Apr 26

Alfred Krupp, German arms merchant, was born.



1812

Apr 27

Friedrich von Flotow, composer (Martha), was born.



1812

Apr 30

Louisiana became the 18th state.



1812

April

April: Gas Light and Coke Company is granted a charter to operate the first gas works in London (and the world).



1812

April

April: Lord Byron begins his notorious affair with Lady Caroline Lamb.



1812

April

April: Wellington captures Badajoz in one of the bloodiest battles of the Peninsular wars. Afterwards, the British Army participates in some of the worst atrocities of the war — looting, vandalizing, raping, and murdering civilians of the town for 3 days before order was restored. Wellington is outraged by the solders’ conduct, and a gallows is erected to punish offenders. A few men are flogged, but no one is hanged.



1812

May 7

Poet Robert Browning was born in London. His works include “The Piper of Hamelin” and “The Ring and the Book.”



1812

May 11

The Waltz was introduced into English ballrooms. Most observers considered it disgusting and immoral.



1812

May 11

British PM Spencer Perceval was shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons. Lord Liverpool (1770-1828) was asked to serve as PM of Britain and he served until 1827.



1812

May 13

Johann Matthias Sperger (62), composer, died.



1812

May 25

A series of coal mine explosions took place around the Felling Colliery in Durhamshire, England. 92 miners were killed. This prompted local clergymen to organize the Society for Preventing Accidents in Coal Mines.



1812

May

May: British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval is assassinated.



1812

May

May: The Treaty of Bucharest ends a 6-year war between Russia and the Ottoman Turks, who cede Bessarabia to Russia.



1812

May

William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, departed for Tibet in search of horses to improve his stock.



1812

12-Jun

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool



1812

Jun 4

The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory.



1812

Jun 18

The War of 1812 began as the United States declared war against Great Britain and Ireland. The term “war hawk” was first used by John Randolph in reference to those Republicans who were pro-war in the years leading up to the War of 1812. These new types of Republicans, who espoused nationalism and expansionism, included Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Most of them came from the agrarian areas of the South and West. In 2004 Walter R. Borneman authored “1812: The War That Forged a Nation.”



1812

Jun 18

Ivan Goncharov, Russian novelist of the Russian realism school of thought, was born. He is best known for his book “Oblomov.”



1812

Jun 22

A pro-war mob destroyed Hanson’s newspaper office, four days after America’s declaration of war against Great Britain. Revered American Revolutionary cavalry hero Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee was nearly beaten to death by a mob in Baltimore. Lee came to the aide of an anti-war newspaper publisher in Baltimore, Alexander Contee Hanson, defending his right to freedom of speech. When Hanson returned to Baltimore five weeks later to resume publication, his office was again besieged by vigilantes. After a tense standoff through the night of July 27, Hanson and his supporters, including Lee, were taken to a local jail. Later the mob stormed the jail, severely beating those being held. Lee, father of Robert E. Lee, never fully recovered from injuries sustained in the beating and died in 1818.



1812

Jun 23

The church at Mission San Juan Bautista in California was dedicated.



1812

Jun 24

Napoleon crossed the Nieman River [in Lithuania] and invaded Russia. The French army under Napoleon crossed the Nemunas River near Kaunas. Prior to his march into Russia, Napoleon had taken land from Russia and returned it to Polish control in Warsaw. This assured him safe passage through Poland and Lithuania on his way to Russia. In 1824 the book “History of the Expedition to Russia, Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812” by Count de Segur, a general in Napoleon’s army, was first published. An English translation edited by Gerard Shelley was published in 1928.



1812

Jun 30

William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, arrived in Tibet. He found no horses to improve his stock but learned of Russian presence.



1812

June

June: Lord Liverpool becomes Britain’s new Prime Minister (a position he holds until 1827).



1812

June

June: Napoleon’s invasion of Russia begins.



1812

June

June: Sarah Siddons retires from the stage after her last performance as Lady Macbeth at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. She will continue to do occasional charity performances and private readings until her death in 1831.



1812

June

June: The United States declares war on Britain over trade restraints and territory disputes (ie the War of 1812).



1812

Jul 12

United States forces led by General William Hull entered Canada during the War of 1812 against Britain. However, Hull retreated shortly thereafter to Detroit. Madison had called for 50,000 volunteers to invade Canada but only 5,000 signed up.



1812

Jul 18

Great Britain signed the Treaty of Orebro, making peace with Russia and Sweden.



1812

Jul 22

English troops under the Duke of Wellington defeated the French at the Battle of Salamanca in Spain.



1812

Jul

British troops under the Duke of Wellington pillaged the Spanish town of Badajos. This prompted Wellington to call his troops “the scum of the earth.”



1812

July

July: Wellington defeats Marshall Marmont at the Battle of Salamanca.



1812

Aug 12

British commander the Duke of Wellington occupied Madrid, Spain, forcing out Joseph Bonaparte.



1812

Aug 16

American General William Hull surrendered Detroit without resistance to a smaller British and Indian forces under General Isaac Brock.



1812

Aug 17

Napoleon Bonaparte’s army defeated the Russians at the Battle of Smolensk during the Russian retreat to Moscow.



1812

Aug 18

Returning from a cruise into Canadian waters Captain Isaac Hull’s USS Constitution of the fledgling U.S. Navy encountered British Captain Richard Dacre’s HMS Guerriere about 750 miles out of Boston. After a frenzied 55-minute battle that left 101 dead, Guerriere rolled helplessly in the water, smashed beyond salvage. Dacre struck his colors and surrendered to Hull’s boarding party. In contrast, Constitution suffered little damage and only 14 casualties. The fight’s outcome shocked the British Admiralty while it heartened America through the dark days of the War of 1812. [see Aug 19]



1812

Aug 19

The USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, got its name when it defeated the British warship Guerriere off Nova Scotia in a slugfest of broadsides, when cannonballs were said to have bounced off her sides. The USS Constitution won more than 30 battles against the Barbary pirates off Africa’s coast in the War of 1812. [see Aug 18]



1812

Aug 20

Czar Alexander gave Gen. Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov (1745-1813) command of the Russian army.



1812

August

August: USS Constitution defeats the British frigate Guerrière off the coast of Nova Scotia. The British shot is said to have bounced off the Constitution’s sides, earning her the nickname “Old Ironsides”.



1812

Sep 7

On the road to Moscow, Napoleon won a costly victory over the Russians under Kutuzov at Borodino. This was the greatest mass slaughter in the history of warfare until the Battle of the Somme in 1916. In 2004 Adam Zamoyski authored “Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow.”



1812

Sep 12

Richard March Hoe was born in NYC. He built the first successful rotary printing press.



1812

Sep 14

The Russian army left Moscow. Napoleon’s invasion of Russia reached its climax as his Grande Armee entered Moscow, only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained. The fires were extinguished by Sep 19.



1812

Sep 18

A fire in Moscow (set by Napoleon’s troops) destroyed 90% of houses and 1,000 churches. [see Sep 14]



1812

Sep

In France as Napoleon’s army proceeded to invade Russia it numbered 442,000 troops. In Sept. it reached Moscow with 100,000 men. The remains of the Grandee Armee struggled out of Russia in 1813 with 10,000 men. A map drawn by Charles Joseph Minard plots six variables to depict the march over time: the size of the army, its location on a 2-dimensional surface, the direction of the army’s movement, and temperatures on various days during the retreat from Moscow. In 1970 Curtis Cate published the book: “The War of the Two Emperors.”



1812

Sep

William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, was arrested in Nepal while returning from Tibet to India. They were released after 17 days in captivity.



1812

Sep-Oct

Moscow was burned under the brief occupation by Napoleon. After the burning the Neglinnaya River was confined to an underground pipe.



1812

September

September: Napoleon enters Moscow, but most of the city’s 300,000 inhabitants have fled, and fires set by the Russians burn much of Moscow in the next 5 days.



1812

September

September: Napoleon leads his Grande Armée against the Imperial Russian army at the Battle of Borodino. It is largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 total casualties. Napoleon eventually captures the main positions on the battlefield, but fails to destroy the Russian army.



1812

Oct 9

American Lieutenant Jesse Duncan Elliot captured two British brigs, the Detroit and Caledonia on Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Elliot set the brig Detroit ablaze the next day in retaliation for the British capture seven weeks earlier of the city of Detroit.



1812

Oct 13

At the Battle of Queenston Heights, a Canadian and British army defeated the Americans who had tried to invade Canada. This was the 1st major land battle in the War of 1812.



1812

Oct 13

Isaac Brock, English general (conquered Detroit), died in battle.



1812

Oct 18

The Russian army attacked French forces on the outskirts of Moscow. Some 2,500-3,000 French soldiers were killed.



1812

Oct 19

French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte began their retreat from Moscow.



1812

Oct 22

The Duke of Wellington abandoned his 1st siege of Burgos, Spain.



1812

Oct 23

There was a failed coup against emperor Napoleon.



1812

Oct 25

The U.S. frigate United States captured the British vessel Macedonian during the War of 1812.



1812

October

October: American naval forces capture two British warships, HMS Detroit and HMS Caledonia.



1812

October

October: Earl of Wellington is made Marquess of Wellington for his victories in the Peninsula.



1812

October

October: Napoleon begins his retreat from Moscow. His army moves west through country that has been laid waste to deny it sustenance, and the retreat turns into a rout as the army runs out of provisions. French losses in the Russian campaign amount to 570,000 against about 400,000 Russian casualties and several hundred thousand civilian deaths.



1812

October

October: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (which burned down in 1809) re-opens in a new building designed by Benjamin Dean Wyatt with a production of Hamlet.



1812

Nov 9

Paul Abadie, French master builder (renovated Notre Dame), was born.



1812

Nov 14

As Napoleon Bonaparte’s army retreated form Moscow, temperatures dropped to 20 degrees below zero. Michel Ney defended the Napoleon‘s rear during the retreat from Moscow and was called by Napoleon “The bravest of the brave.” He rejoined Napoleon during the Hundred Days and the Waterloo campaign. After Napoleon‘s defeat, he was found guilty of treason and shot. It was later suggested that many soldiers died because their tin coat buttons deteriorated in the extreme cold.



1812

Nov 26

Napoleon Bonaparte’s army began crossing the Beresina River over two hastily constructed bridges.



1812

Nov 27

One of the two bridges being used by Napoleon Bonaparte’s army across the Beresina River in Russia collapsed during a Russian artillery barrage.



1812

Nov 29

The last elements of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armee retreated across the Beresina River in Russia. Tens of thousands of French troops and civilians perished when the Russians attacked Napoleon’s army as it crossed the Berezina River in Belarus on the punishing retreat from Moscow. The following Spring it was recorded that 32,000 bodies were rounded up and burned on the river banks near Studianka.



1812

Dec 2

James Madison was re-elected president of US; Elbridge Gerry was vice-pres.



1812

Dec 4

Peter Gaillard of Lancaster, Pa., patented a horse-drawn mower.



1812

Dec 6

The majority of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armeé staggered into Vilnius, Lithuania, ending the failed Russian campaign. An estimated 50,000 soldiers reached Lithuania and as many as 20,000 died there. As many as 450,000 soldiers from France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Germany and at least 15 other countries died in the Russian campaign.



1812

Dec 8

In California the Great Stone Church at Mission San Juan Capistrano crashed down after an earthquake just 6 years after being completed. Forty worshippers were killed. Half of the church under the work of architect Isidro Aguilar (d.1803) remained standing.



1812

Dec 13

The last remnants of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grand Armeé reached the safety of Kovno, Poland, after the failed Russian campaign.



1812

Dec 18

Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in Paris after his disastrous campaign in Russia.



1812

Dec 20

Achille Peri, composer, was born.



1812

Dec 20

Sacagawea, Shoshone interpreter for Lewis & Clark, died.



1812

Dec 23

Samuel Smiles (d.1904), doctor and writer, was born in Scotland.  He later authored “Self-Help” 1859), a classic work on self-improvement.



1812

Dec 24

Joel Barlow, aged 58, American poet and lawyer, died from exposure near Vilna, Poland [Lithuania], during Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. Barlow was on a diplomatic mission to the emperor for President Madison.



1812

Dec

14, The last French units of Napoleon’s Grand Armeé crossed the Nieman River of Lithuania, leaving Russia.



1812

Dec

Michael Faraday began working for Sir Humphrey Davy at the British Royal Society.



1812



 



1812



A three-way treaty is signed between Britain, Sweden and Russia known as the Treaty of Örebro.



1812



A treaty is signed between Sweden and Russia, known as the Treaty of St. Petersburg.



1812



Angelica Catalini performs in the first London production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro.



1812



Charles Dickens is born.



1812



German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel publishes the first volume of his Science of Logic, which will dominate metaphysical discourse for the next quarter century.



1812



J.M.W. Turner exhibits Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps at the Royal Academy.



1812



Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish their first collection of 86 German fairy tales in Folk Tales for Children and the Home.



1812



Lady Emma Hamilton, 47, is sent to an English debtor’s prison after squandering her late husband’s fortune within 9 years. (She was also the mistress of Admiral Lord Nelson.) A friend eventually helps her to escape to Calais and she dies there in 1815.



1812



Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee is published.



1812



Napoleon and his Grand Army invade Russia at the battle of Borodino. The French manage to capture Moscow but are forced to retreat. Out the original 600,000 strong French army, only 100,000 survive the retreat.



1812



Poet William Combe publishes his Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque by with illustrations by Thomas Rowlandson.



1812



Sarah Siddons, actress, at age 57 appears at Covent Garden on June 29 as Lady Macbeth and bids farewell to the stage. She does continue to make guest appearances and gives occasional reading recitals.



1812



Shipping and territory disputes spark a war between England and the United States.



1812



Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps by J.M.W. Turner, 1812. The painting was popular with contemporary viewers not only for its revolutionary atmospheric effects and its vision of the destructive power of nature, but also because it suggested a parallel between Hannibal and Napoleon, who had crossed the Alps to invade Italy in 1797 — thus giving hope that Napoleon, too, would eventually be defeated.



1812



The British gain a victory over Spain at the Battle of Salamanca.



1812



The final shipment of the Elgin Marbles arrives from Greece.



1812



The Russo-Turkish war ends with the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest.



1812



The third volume of Joanna Baillie’s Plays of the Passions is published



1812



The United States declares war on Britain.



1812



William Bullock’s museum of antiquities and curiosities opens in his newly built Egyption Hall on Piccadilly.



1812



The United States declares war after suffering under England’s naval blockade.



1812



Darkly handsome Lord Byron publishes Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which is an instant success.



1812



Spencer Perceval assassinated in the House of Commons. Final shipment of the Elgin Marbles arrives in England. Sarah Siddons retires from the stage. Shipping and territory disputes start the War of 1812 between England and the United States. The British are victorious over French armies at the Battle of Salamanca. The waltz is introduced from Europe into England. Gas company (Gas Light and Coke Company) founded.



1812



For the Ottoman empire, Muhammad Ali Pasha drives the Wahhabi and Saudis out of Medina and Mecca.



1812



n England, a few workers called Luddites in various cities in the spinning and cloth finishing industries have been destroying new machinery. They fear technological unemployment. Some are executed.



1812



 Priests in Caracas claim that an earthquake is God’s anger against the sins of the new government. Spain’s military is able to regain control of the city.



1812



 At sea, Britain has a counter-blockade against France. Britain’s new prime minister, Lord Liverpool, instructs the British navy to treat U.S. trading ships with new tact and to avoid clashes with Americans. This does not deter those in the U.S. who want war, and Congress declares war against Britain on June 18, 1812.



1812



Napoleon’s march into Russia exposes his recklessness and shallow strategic thinking. He returns to Paris without his army. 



1812



Jacques-Louis David, French artist, painted a portrait of Napoleon as a working ruler.



1812



Louis-Vincent-Leon Palliere, French painter, created his work “Ulysses and Telemachus Massacre Penelope’s Suitors.”



1812



Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823), French artist, painted “Venus and Adonis.”



1812



Georges Cuvier, French anatomist, published his 4 volume work “Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles” (Research on Fossil Bones).



1812



Nicodemus Havens authored his “Wonderful Vision of the City of New York,” wherein he was presented with a view of the Situation of the World, after the dreadful Fourth of June, 1812, and showing what part of New York is to be destroyed.



1812



Louisa d’Andelot du Pont Copeland spearheaded the founding of the Delaware Art Museum.



1812



Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first collection of “Folk Tales for Children and the Home.” It included “The Frog King, or Iron Henry.”



1812



The 1st American recipe for tomato ketchup was published.



1812



Madison proposed to France and England that if one would stop attacking American commerce at sea, then the US would break off commercial relations with the other. Napoleon quickly accepted Madison’s terms and under congressional pressure Madison declared war on England. He did not know that 24 hours prior to the declaration, England had voted to stop its abuses on American shipping.



1812



Mackinaw Island, Michigan, was recaptured by the British.



1812



The Cherokee Indians sided with the United States in the War of 1812.



1812



Gen. “Mad” Anthony Wayne established Fort Wayne, Indiana. He got his nickname because he was crazy enough to join his troops on the front lines.



1812



Maine separated from the state of Massachusetts.



1812



The 1st New England cotton mill was erected in Fall River, Mass.



1812



Du Pont was forced to give up a big piece of its explosives business due to government trust busting but kept its military line and became the chief supplier to the Allies in WW I. The Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington tracked the business history of the du Ponts.



1812



The small Bank of America was founded in NYC.



1812



Aaron Benedict started a button-making business in Waterbury, Conn. The name was changed to Benedict & Burnham in 1834, and to Benedict & Burnham Manufacturing in 1843.



1812



The steamboat New Orleans was built in Pittsburgh and steamed to New Orleans but lacked sufficient power to return upstream.



1812



Mason Weems made his sermon concerning gambling: “O gamblers!… You are engaged in the most horrible warfare that rational beings can ever undertake. A warfare most unnatural; even against the best and noblest part of your nature—your social affections and sympathies with your kind.



1812



Mary Anning of Lyme Regis in Dorcetshire, England, excavated a 17-foot-long skeleton and sold it to Henry Hoste Henley, Lord of the Manor of Colway for £23. The fossil was later named Icthyosaurus.



1812



Russia acquired Bessarabia, the north eastern part of the original principality of Moldavia, in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812).



1812



Dec, Vilnius, Lithuania, was recaptured by Russian forces.



1812



Swiss explorer Jean Louis Burckhardt rediscovered the ancient city of Petra in present-day Jordan.



1812-1840



Carl Ludvig Engel, a Prussian architect, redesigned and rebuilt Helsinki as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland-Russia.



1812-1841



Russian fur traders established the settlement of Fort Ross in northern California.



1812-1888



May 12, Edward Lear, English author of nonsense verse is born.