Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Sam Slick

Canada

17 December 1796 – 27 August 1865 (68 years old)

Nova Scotia judge and internationally famous satirist whose Sam Slick stories popularized phrases like "barking up the wrong tree" and "quick as a wink."

Isleworth, United Kingdom

9 Full Record →

Arts & Music

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller

Austria

1793-01-15 – 1865-08-23 (72 years old)

Preeminent Austrian painter of the Biedermeier period whose dazzling portraits and sunlit landscapes pioneered open-air naturalism and rebelled against academic rigidity.

Vienna, Austria

4 Full Record →

Humanitarian & Peace

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Statesmanship & Statesmen

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis

Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp

Hungary

1818 – 1865 (47 years old)

Médecin obstétricien hongrois surnommé le « Sauveur des mères », pionnier de l'antisepsie hospitalière par le lavage des mains au chlorure de chaux.

Budapest, Hungary

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Abraham Lincoln

United States

1809-02-12 – 1865-04-15 (56 years old)

Preserved the American democratic experiment against dissolution and ended chattel slavery through the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment.

Washington, D.C., United States

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Joseph Lebeau

Jean-Louis Joseph Lebeau

Belgium

1794 – 1865 (71 years old)

Founding Belgian statesman and two-time Prime Minister (1831, 1840–1841) whose diplomatic brilliance secured the election of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as King and the adoption of the Treaty of the XVIII Articles.

Huy (Province of Liège), Belgium

2 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

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George Boole

Great Britain

1815 – 1864 (49 years old)

Self-taught English mathematician and philosopher who created Boolean algebra, the mathematical foundation of all digital computers.

Blackrock, Cork, Ireland

4,576 Full Record →

Military

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Ramón Matías Mella

Ramón Matías Mella Castillo

Dominican Republic

1816-02-25 – 1864-06-04 (48 years old)

Founding Father of the Dominican Republic whose legendary blunderbuss shot (el trabucazo) at the Puerta de la Misericordia on February 27, 1844, signaled the birth of the Republic, later drafting guerrilla tactics.

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

1 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

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Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Hathorne)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

United States

4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864 (59 years old)

Preeminent figure of American Dark Romanticism haunted by his Puritan ancestors' role in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, who explored guilt, sin, and moral hypocrisy in The Scarlet Letter (Hester Prynne) and The House of the Seven Gables.

Plymouth (New Hampshire), United States

48 Full Record →

Science

Abraham Gesner

Father of Kerosene

Canada

2 May 1797 – 29 April 1864 (66 years old)

Nova Scotia physician and provincial geologist whose 1846 distillation of liquid fuel from asphalt created kerosene, saving the sperm whale from extinction.

Halifax, Canada

4 Full Record →

Rebellion

Kastus Kalinouski

Вінцэнт Канстанцін Каліноўскі

Belarus

1838-02-02 – 1864-03-22 (26 years old)

National hero and revolutionary democrat who led the 1863 January Uprising in Belarus against Tsarist Russian despotism and published the first underground Belarusian newspaper 'Muzhytskaya Prauda'.

Vilnius, Lithuania

2 Full Record →

Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine

Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, 1st Baronet

Canada

1807 – 1864 (56 years old)

Co-leader of the Great Ministry of 1848 alongside Robert Baldwin, who secured the restoration of French language rights in Parliament, municipal democracy, and judicial independence.

Montreal, Canada

4 Full Record →

Public service

Rose Fortune

United States

c. 1774 – 1864 (89 years old)

African Nova Scotian entrepreneur and trailblazer who established Annapolis Royal's leading baggage transport service and maintained civic order along the waterfront, widely recognized as Canada's first female police officer.

Annapolis Royal (Nova Scotia), Canada

4 Full Record →

Al-Hajj Umar Tall

Umar Saidou Tall

Senegal

1794-01-01 – 1864-02-12 (70 years old)

Visionary 19th-century West African scholar, Tijaniyya Sufi leader, and empire builder who established the vast Toucouleur Empire across Guinea, Senegal, and Mali and resisted French expansion.

Bandiagara, Mali

2 Full Record →

Education

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Nana Asma'u

Asma'u bint Uthman ibn Fudi

Nigeria

1793-01-01 – 1864-01-01 (71 years old)

Visionary Islamic scholar, poet, and educational reformer of the Sokoto Caliphate who established the Yan Taru, a revolutionary mass educational movement for women.

Sokoto, Nigeria

3 Full Record →

Lord Elgin

Great Britain

20 July 1811 – 20 November 1863 (52 years old)

Governor General of British North America whose courageous assent to the 1849 Rebellion Losses Bill established parliamentary responsible government in Canada.

Dharamsala, India

2 Full Record →

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Resistance & Human Rights

Lord Elgin (James Bruce)

James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin

Great Britain

1811 – 1863 (52 years old)

Governor General of Canada who established the principle of Responsible Government in 1849 by signing the Rebellion Losses Bill despite violent rioting and the burning of Parliament in Montreal.

Dharamsala, India

3 Full Record →

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