January–March •
January 4 – The first issue of the Swedish-languaged
Saima newspaper founded by
J. V. Snellman is published in
Kuopio, Finland. •
January 15 – The
University of Notre Dame, based in
the city of the same name, receives its charter from
Indiana. •
February 27 – The
Dominican Republic gains independence from
Haiti. •
February 28 – A gun on the
USS Princeton explodes while the boat is on a
Potomac River cruise, killing U.S. Secretary of State
Abel Upshur, U.S. Secretary of the Navy
Thomas Walker Gilmer and four other people. President
John Tyler is below decks and is uninjured. •
March 8 • King
Oscar I ascends to the throne of
Sweden–Norway upon the death of his father,
Charles XIV/III John. • The
Althing, the parliament of
Iceland, is reopened after 45 years of closure. •
March 9 –
Giuseppe Verdi's opera
Ernani debuts at Teatro
La Fenice, Venice. •
March 12 – The
Columbus and Xenia Railroad, the first railroad planned to be built in
Ohio, is chartered. •
March 13 – The dictator
Carlos Antonio López becomes first President of
Paraguay. •
March 21 – The
Baháʼí calendar begins. •
March 23 – The
Edict of Toleration is passed in the
Ottoman Empire.
April–June •
May 1 – The
Hong Kong Police Force, the world's second and Asia's first modern, police force is established. •
May 23 –
Persian prophet The
Báb privately announces his revelation to
Mullá Husayn, just after sunset, founding the
Bábí faith (later evolving into the Baháʼí Faith as the Báb
intended) in Shiraz, Persia (modern-day Iran). Contemporaneously, on this day in nearby Tehran, is the birth of
`Abdu'l-Bahá; the eldest Son of
Bahá'u'lláh, Prophet-Founder of the
Baháʼí Faith. The Báb's mission is to proclaim
He whom God shall make manifest. `Abdu'l-Bahá Himself is later proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh to be His own successor, thus being the third "central figure" of the Baháʼí Faith. •
May 24 – The first
electrical telegram is sent by
Samuel Morse from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad "outer depot" in
Baltimore, saying "What hath God wrought". •
June 3 – The last definitely recorded pair of
great auks are killed on the
Icelandic island of
Eldey. •
June 4 – Start of the
Silesian weavers' uprising. It is crushed by Prussian military on June 6, with 11 weavers killed and numerous arrested. •
June 6 –
George Williams sets up (in London) what is often cited as the first youth organisation in the world – "The Young Men's Christian Association", commonly known as
YMCA. It will grow to a worldwide organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 57 million beneficiaries from 125 national associations. George Williams aims to put Christian principles into practice by developing a healthy "body, mind, and spirit." These three angles are reflected by the different sides of the (red) triangle – part of all YMCA logos. •
June 12 –In the United States, after nine days of heavy rains, the
Missouri River and the
Mississippi River overflow their banks as the
Great Flood of 1844 begins. The water begins to recede by
June 28 and the rivers return to their normal level by mid-July. •
June 15 –
Charles Goodyear receives a United States
patent for
vulcanization, a process to strengthen
rubber. •
June 17 –
Søren Kierkegaard's
The Concept of Anxiety is published in Denmark (as
Begrebet Angest by 'Vigilius Haufniensis'). •
June 22 – The
Delta Kappa Epsilon student fraternity is founded at
Yale College in the United States. ΔΚΕ will be home to many well known figures, such as U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford and Theodore Roosevelt. •
June 27 –
Killing of Joseph Smith:
Joseph Smith, founder of the
Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother
Hyrum, are murdered in
Carthage Jail,
Carthage, Illinois by an armed mob, leading to a
succession crisis in the movement.
John Taylor, future president of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is severely injured but survives, while the fourth man inside the upper room, then-apostle
Willard Richards, escapes with only a graze to his upper ear.
July–September •
July 3 – The United States signs the
Treaty of Wanghia with the Qing Empire. The treaty establishes five U.S.
treaty ports in China with
extraterritoriality and is the first
unequal treaty that the United States imposed on the dynasty. •
July 19 – The
Bank Charter Act 1844 is approved, which restricts the powers of British banks, limiting note-issuing powers outside the central Bank of England. •
August 8 – During a meeting held in
Nauvoo, Illinois, the
Quorum of the Twelve, headed by
Brigham Young, is chosen as the leading body of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. •
August 10 – German astronomer
Friedrich Bessel deduces from the motion of the
bright stars Sirius and
Procyon that they have dark companions. •
August 14 –
Abdelkader El Djezairi is defeated at the
Battle of Isly in
Morocco; sultan
Abd al-Rahman of Morocco soon repudiates his ally. •
August 16 –
Narciso Claveria,
Governor-General of the Philippines, makes a decree announcing that Monday, December 30, 1844, will be immediately followed by Wednesday, January 1, 1845. (Tuesday, December 31, 1844, is removed from the Philippine calendar because since 1521 the country has been one day behind its
Asian neighbors.) •
August 28 –
Friedrich Engels and
Karl Marx meet in Paris, France. •
September 25–
27 – The first ever
international cricket match is played in New York City,
United States v Canadian Provinces.
October–December •
October 18 –
1844 Salta earthquake. A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hits
Argentina's
Salta Province. •
October 22 – This second date predicted by the
Millerites for the
Second Coming of
Jesus (and said to be 6,000 years from creation, relating them to the 6 days of creation, using a day-for-a-year bible principle, with which they proved that the 1,000 years of rest in heaven with God would total to 7,000 years, indicating the completion of creation in the beginning, which make 7 days, but the 7th day is for rest, same as the 7,000th year is for rest in heaven), leads to the
Great Disappointment. The
Seventh-day Adventist Church believes this date to be the starting point of the
Investigative judgment, just prior to the Second Coming of Jesus, as declared in the 26th of 28 fundamental doctrines of Seventh-day Adventists. •
October 23 – The
Báb is publicly proclaimed to be the promised one of Islam (the
Qá'im, or
Mahdi). He is also considered to be simultaneously the return of
Elijah,
John the Baptist and the "
Ushídar-Máh" referred to in the
Zoroastrian scriptures. He announces to the world the coming of "
He whom God shall make manifest". He is considered the forerunner of
Bahá'u'lláh – the founder of the
Baháʼí Faith – whose claims include being the return of
Jesus. •
November 3 –
Giuseppe Verdi's opera
I due Foscari debuts at
Teatro Argentina, Rome. •
November 6 – The
Dominican Republic drafts its first
Constitution. •
December 4 –
1844 United States presidential election:
James K. Polk defeats
Henry Clay. •
December 13 –
Hungarian becomes the official language of
Hungary. •
December 21 – The
Rochdale Pioneers commence business at their
cooperative in
Rochdale, England. •
December 31 – This date is omitted from the calendar in the
Philippines in order to align it with the calendar elsewhere in East Asia, essentially moving the
International Date Line to the east of the archipelago.
Date unknown •
Swedish chemistry professor
Gustaf Erik Pasch is granted a privilege for his invention of a
safety match. •
Robert Chambers' anonymous
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which paves the way for acceptance of
Charles Darwin's
The Origin of Species, is published in Britain. • The Free Church Institution is established by Reverend
Alexander Duff in
Calcutta, India. This is later merged with the General Assembly's Institution to form the
Scottish Church College, one of the pioneering institutions that ushers in the
Bengali Renaissance. • In
Munich, the
Feldherrnhalle is completed. • In
Tibet, the Temple of Guardians burns down. •
Flags of the Ottoman Empire: a national flag is adopted for the Empire. == Births ==