1839

Events in 1839 14

• 1566 – 1839 Wars & Stagnation (1566–1839) The period from Suleiman's death to the Tanzimat reforms spans 273 years of gradual but accelerating decline punctuated by moments of recovery. The failed siege of Vienna (1683) marks the definitive end of Ottoman expansion in Europe; the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) begins the long territorial retreat. Russia emerges as the empire's most dangerous enemy, fighting six wars and pushing the Ottoman frontier steadily south. The Janissaries -- once the empire's elite force -- become a conservative political force that murders reforming sultans. The empire earns its 19th-century epithet: 'the sick man of Europe.'
• 1838 – 1839 Schleiden and Schwann — cell theory All living things are made of cells In 1838-1839, Matthias Schleiden (plants) and Theodor Schwann (animals) independently proposed that all living organisms are composed of cells and that the cell is the fundamental unit of life. Virchow added in 1855 that all cells come from pre-existing cells. Cell theory is one of the three pillars of modern biology alongside evolution and genetics.
• 1839 – 1899 Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) Died 29 January 1899, aged 59 British-born painter and leading figure of French Impressionism, known for landscapes along the Seine and Loing rivers. He spent most of his career in France but never obtained French citizenship. He died in Moret-sur-Loing in poverty, only gaining wide recognition after his death.
• 1839 – 1914 Carol I of Romania (1839-1914) Died 10 October 1914, aged 75 A German prince installed as ruler of Romania in 1866, Carol I became the country's first king in 1881 and oversaw its modernization and independence from Ottoman suzerainty. His nearly five-decade reign was the longest in Romanian history. He died weeks into the war, having clashed with his government over Romania's neutrality.
• 1839 – 1914 Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) Died 19 April 1914, aged 74 An American philosopher, logician, and scientist, Peirce founded the philosophical school of pragmatism and made lasting contributions to semiotics and logic. He worked much of his life in poverty and obscurity, gaining wider recognition only after his death. He is now regarded as one of America's most original thinkers.
• 1839 – 1842 First Opium War Britain forces China to open — the century of humiliation begins Britain went to war with China to force it to continue accepting opium imports from British India, which China had banned. The technologically superior British fleet defeated China decisively. The 1842 Treaty of Nanking ceded Hong Kong to Britain, opened five treaty ports, and paid a massive indemnity. It was the first of the "unequal treaties" that humiliated China and began what Chinese call the "century of humiliation" lasting until 1949.
• 1839 – 1876 George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) Died 25 June 1876, aged 36 George Armstrong Custer was a US Army officer who rose to fame as a cavalry commander in the Civil War. He was killed with his command at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.
• 1839 – 1922 Reform & Collapse (1839–1922) The final 83 years of Ottoman history are the most dramatic -- a race between modernisation and disintegration that the empire ultimately loses. The Tanzimat reforms (1839-1876) attempt to create a modern centralised state with equal rights for all subjects. The Constitutional period (1876, 1908) produces two parliaments. But the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) strip the empire of nearly all its European territory; the First World War (1914-1918) destroys it; the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) kills over a million people; and Ataturk's War of Independence (1919-1922) produces the Turkish Republic from the ruins. The sultanate is abolished on 1 November 1922.
• 1839 Stephens and Catherwood reach Copán Copán, Honduras An American lawyer and an English architect hacked through forest to find carved monuments nobody outside the region knew existed. Stephens bought the site for fifty dollars.
• 1839 – 1907 Sully Prudhomme (1839-1907) Died 6 September 1907, aged 68 French poet who became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901, honored for his combination of poetic feeling and intellectual rigor. He was a founding figure of the Parnassian movement in French poetry. He died in Chatenay-Malabry near Paris.
• 1839 – 1894 Walter Pater (1839-1894) Died 30 July 1894, aged 54 Pater was an English essayist and critic whose writing on aesthetics, notably Studies in the History of the Renaissance, influenced the Aestheticism and Decadent movements. His prose style shaped younger writers including Oscar Wilde. He died suddenly of heart failure in Oxford.
• 1839 – 1906 Paul Cézanne Post-Impressionism · France Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French Post-Impressionist whose geometric approach to form and colour became the bridge between 19th-century Impressionism and 20th-century Cubism. Picasso called him the father of us all.
• 1839 – 1881 Modest Mussorgsky Russian nationalist composer Russian composer of the nationalist school, known for Pictures at an Exhibition and Night on Bald Mountain, often orchestrated by Ravel.
• 1839 – present Patek Philippe High Horology One of the oldest and most prestigious watch manufacturers in the world, based in Geneva.