What Happened in February 1840

Historical Events

Feb 1 Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, 1st in US, incorporated

Treaty of Waitangi

Feb 6 The Treaty of Waitangi is signed between 40 Māori Chiefs (later signed by 500) and representatives of the British crown in Waitangi, New Zealand. The treaty was designed to share sovereignty between the two groups.

Feb 11 Gaetano Donizetti's opéra comique "La Fille du Regiment" (The Daughter of the Regiment) premieres at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris, France
Feb 12 Housatonic Railroad opens, running from Bridgeport, Connecticut, north to the Massachusetts state line

Shackleton Ice Shelf

Feb 16 American Charles Wilkes discovers the Shackleton Ice Shelf in Antarctica

Naval Officer and Explorer Charles Wilkes

Events in 1840

Famous Birthdays

Feb 2 Louis Bourgault-Ducoudray, French Breton composer, born in Nantes, Frances (d. 1910)
Feb 3 Georges Jacobi, German violinist, composer (The Black Crook), and conductor (Alhambra Theatre, London, 1872-98), born in Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia (d. 1906)
Feb 5 Hiram Maxim, American-British inventor (Maxim gun, 1st automatic machine gun), born in Sangerville, Maine (d. 1916)
Feb 5 John Boyd Dunlop, Scottish vet and inventor (pneumatic rubber tire), born in Dreghorn, Scotland (d. 1888)
Feb 11 Sanuel Dana Greene, Lt Cmdr (Union Navy), (d. 1884)
Feb 22 August Bebel, German socialist politician (one of the founders of the Social Democratic Worker's Party of Germany), born in Deutz (d. 1913)
Feb 23 Carl Menger, Austrian economist (marginal utility theory, subjective theory of value), born in Neu-Sandez in Galicia, Austrian Empire (d. 1921)
Feb 25 Alexis Hollander, German composer, born in Ratibor, Silesia (now Racibórz, Poland) (d. 1924)
Feb 25 Otto Liebmann, German philosopher (Climax of Theories), born in Löwenberg, Silesia (d. 1912)
Feb 28 Henri Duveyrier, French explorer of the Sahara, born in Paris, France (d. 1892)

John Philip Holland (1840-1914)

Feb 29 Irish engineer and father of the modern submarine, born in Liscannor, Ireland

Feb 29 William Harvey Carney, American Civil War soldier (first African-American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor), born in Norfolk, Virginia (d. 1908)

Born in 1840