1811

Events in 1811 14

• 1811 – 1874 Chang and Eng Bunker (1811-1874) Died 17 January 1874, aged 62 Born conjoined in Siam, the Bunker twins toured internationally as performers before settling as farmers in North Carolina, marrying two sisters and fathering twenty-one children between them. Their fame gave rise to the term Siamese twins for conjoined twins generally. Chang died first, from a blood clot, and Eng died a few hours later.
• 1811 – 1874 Charles Sumner (1811-1874) Died 11 March 1874, aged 63 Sumner was a leading Radical Republican senator from Massachusetts and a lifelong opponent of slavery. He was infamously beaten nearly to death on the Senate floor in 1856 by a pro-slavery congressman. He later championed civil rights legislation for freed slaves during Reconstruction.
• 1811 – 1861 Elisha Otis (1811-1861) Died 8 April 1861, aged 49 Elisha Otis, the American inventor who devised the safety elevator brake that made tall buildings practical, died in Yonkers, New York. His invention underpinned the later rise of skyscrapers. The company he founded continued to bear his name.
• 1811 – 1887 François Achille Bazaine (1811-1887) Died 23 September 1887, aged 76 François Achille Bazaine was a French Marshal who commanded French forces besieged at Metz during the Franco-Prussian War, surrendering with over 170,000 troops in 1870. He was later court-martialed and convicted of treason for the surrender, though he escaped from prison and lived out his life in exile in Spain. His case remains one of the most controversial in French military history.
• 1811 – 1896 Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) Died 1 July 1896, aged 85 Harriet Beecher Stowe was the American author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel that galvanized abolitionist sentiment before the Civil War and became one of the best-selling books of the 19th century. She died in Hartford, Connecticut, on 1 July 1896. Her writing is widely credited with shaping American public opinion on slavery.
• 1811 – 1872 Horace Greeley (1811-1872) Died 29 November 1872, aged 61 Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor who founded the New York Tribune and used it to campaign against slavery and for social reform. He ran for president in 1872 as a Liberal Republican against Ulysses S. Grant and died shortly after his defeat.
• 1811 – 1875 Isaac Singer (1811-1875) Died 23 July 1875, aged 63 Singer was an American inventor and businessman who patented improvements to the sewing machine and founded the Singer Manufacturing Company. His company became the world's leading sewing machine manufacturer through aggressive marketing and installment financing.
• 1811 – 1889 John Bright (1811-1889) Died 27 March 1889, aged 77 Bright was a British Radical and Liberal statesman who campaigned for free trade and electoral reform, co-founding the Anti-Corn Law League. He served in several Liberal cabinets under William Gladstone.
• 1811 – 1882 Louis Blanc (1811-1882) Died 6 December 1882, aged 71 Blanc was a French politician and historian who advocated for socialist reforms and workers' cooperatives before and during the Second Republic. He served briefly in the provisional government of 1848 before fleeing into exile after its collapse. He returned to France in 1870 and continued to serve as a deputy until his death in Paris.
• 1811 – 1899 Robert Bunsen (1811-1899) Died 16 August 1899, aged 88 German chemist who pioneered spectroscopy and co-discovered the elements caesium and rubidium. The gas burner used in laboratories worldwide bears his name, though he did not invent it himself. He spent most of his career at the University of Heidelberg.
• 1811 – 1872 Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) Died 23 October 1872, aged 61 Théophile Gautier was a French poet, novelist, and critic known for championing the doctrine of "art for art's sake." His works, including the novel Mademoiselle de Maupin, influenced later French literary movements.
• 1811 – 1848 Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848) Died 7 June 1848, aged 36 Russian literary critic who championed Gogol and the realist school and shaped the Westernizer movement. His Letter to Gogol of 1847 became a key text of the Russian intelligentsia. He died of tuberculosis in St Petersburg.
• 1811 – 1863 William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) Died 24 December 1863, aged 52 Thackeray was an English novelist best known for the satirical novel Vanity Fair. He was a leading figure of Victorian literature alongside Charles Dickens.
• 1811 – 1886 Franz Liszt Romantic piano virtuoso Hungarian composer and pianist who invented the symphonic poem and pushed piano technique to its limits. His transcriptions brought orchestral music to the concert hall.