Major Events
- Feb 1 Oldest continuous writer of insurance in America - The Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (MONY) opens
- May 22 1st wagon train with 700 - 1000 migrants, departs Independence, Missouri for Oregon
- Jul 19 The steamship SS Great Britain is launched, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and the largest vessel afloat in the world
- More 1843 Events
1843 in Music
- Jan 2 Richard Wagner's opera "The Flying Dutchman" premieres in Dresden, Germany
Did You Know?
"A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is published, 6,000 copies sold
Frank James
William McKinley
Susan Blow
Camillo Golgi
Robert KochMore People Born in 1843
Fun Fact About 1843
An alligator falls from sky during a thunderstorm in Charleston, South Carolina
Guadalupe Victoria
Samuel Morey
Noah WebsterMore 1843 Deaths
Articles About 1843
The General, The Schoolgirl, And The Famous One-Word Despatch
A magazine hailed General Charles Napier’s battlefield despatch as the finest since Roman times, but it was in fact the work of a clever schoolgirl.February 17
The Day an Alligator Fell from the Sky
Newspaper cutting fom the Times-Picayune on the day an alligator fell from the skyJuly 2
SS Great Britain
A painting of the launch of SS Great Britain, by Joseph WalterJuly 19
Famous Weddings in 1843
- Feb 6 American Frontiersman Kit Carson (33) weds Mexican socialite Josefa Jaramillo (14) at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, in Taos, Mexico
- Apr 23 Samuel Gridley Howe, American physician and educator, marries Julia Ward, American poet and author
- Jun 19 Philosopher Karl Marx (25) weds Jenny von Westphalen in Germany
More Weddings in 1843
Charles Dickens
Giuseppe Verdi
John Tyler
Robert Peel