1820


Events

   * January 1 - Constitutionalist military insurrection at Cadiz leads to
     summoning of Spanish parliament (March 7) and restoration of 1812
     Constitution (March 8) by king Ferdinand VII.
   * January 29 - George the Prince Regent becomes king George IV of the
     United Kingdom, ending the period known as the English Regency.
   * January 30 - Edward Bransfield discovers Antarctica.
   * February 6 - 86 free African American colonists sail from New York City
     to Freetown, Sierra Leone.
   * February 23 - The Cato Street conspiracy is exposed. The principals are
     executed on May 1
   * March 3 & March 6 - The Missouri Compromise becomes law in the United
     States.
   * March 15 - Maine is admitted as the 23rd U.S. state.
   * Spring - Joseph Smith, Jr. at age 14 claims to be visited in a vision
     by God and Jesus Christ
   * July Constitutionalist revolution in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
   * August 24 - Constitutionalist insurrection at Oporto, Portugal;
     revolution in Lisbon, September 15
   * October 9 - Guayaquil declare independence from Ecuador.
   * October 25-November 20 - Congress of Troppau (Opava) between rulers of
     Russia, Austria and Prussia
   * November - James Monroe is re-elected, virtually unopposed.

   * 6th Edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica begins appearing.
   * Republic of Buenos Aires (Argentina) establishes penal colony in
     Falkland Islands.
   * Venus de Milo found on island of Melos.
   * Hans Christian Orsted discovers relationship between electricity and
     magnetism.

Births

   * January 17 - Anne Bronte, author
   * February 8 - William Tecumseh Sherman, soldier (+ 1891)
   * February 15 - Susan B. Anthony, US suffragist
   * February 28 - John Tenniel, illustrator
   * March 14 - Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
   * March 22 - Stephen Decatur, naval officer
   * May 12 - Florence Nightingale, nurse (+ 1910)
   * May 27 - Mathilde Bonaparte, hostess and socialite
   * September 27 - Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel, classical scholar
   * September 29 - Henry, Duke of Bordeaux, posthumous son of the Duke of
     Berry, future Comte de Chambord and claimant to the French throne
   * Harriet Tubman, anti-slavery resistance movement leader

Deaths

   * January 29 - King George III of the United Kingdom
   * February 14 - Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, stabbed on February 13
   * March 22 - Stephen Decatur, sailor
   * June 19 - Sir Joseph Banks, British naturalist and botanist
   * September 3 - Benjamin Latrobe, architect

Heads of states

   * Ottoman Empire - Mahmud II Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1808-1839)
   * Prussia - Frederick William III King of Prussia (1797-1840)
   * Russia - Alexander I Tsar of Russia (1801-1825)