Historical Archives & Public Figures

Frédéric François Chopin (Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin)

Fryderyk Chopin

Poland

1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849 (39 years old)

Polish musical genius and 'Poet of the Piano' whose nocturnes, ballades, polonaises, and études revolutionized piano technique and embodied the heroic yearning (*żal*) of Polish national identity.

Paris, France

43 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

45

🕯️ 998

Edgar Allan Poe

United States

19 January 1809 – 7 October 1849 (40 years old)

American literary icon who invented the modern detective fiction genre with C. Auguste Dupin, revolutionized the psychological horror story in The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher, and enchanted world poetry with The Raven ('Nevermore').

Baltimore (Maryland), United States

45 Full Record →

Music

2

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Johann Strauss I

Johann Baptist Strauss

Austria

1804-03-14 – 1849-09-25 (45 years old)

Pioneering nineteenth-century composer and violinist who popularized the Viennese waltz worldwide and composed the immortal patriotic 'Radetzky March'.

Vienna, Austria

2 Full Record →

Statesmanship & Statesmen

42

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Muhammad Ali of Egypt

محمد علي باشا

Greece

1769 – 1849 (80 years old)

Visionary Ottoman commander acclaimed as the 'Founder of Modern Egypt', who eliminated Mamluk hegemony, introduced long-staple cotton, built state industries, and founded the dynasty that governed Egypt until 1952.

Cairo, Egypt

42 Full Record →

Arts & Music

47

🕯️ 998

Katsushika Hokusai

葛飾北斎

Japan

31 October 1760 – 10 May 1849 (~89 years old)

Supreme master of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock printing whose iconic series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji—above all The Great Wave off Kanagawa—captivated the world and inspired European Impressionism and Japonisme.

Edo (Tokyo), Japan

47 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

43

🕯️ 985

Emily Jane Brontë (Ellis Bell)

Emily Brontë

Great Britain

30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848 (30 years old)

Reclusive Victorian visionary and poet who authored Wuthering Heights (1847)—a ferocious, elemental masterpiece of stormy passion, vengeance, and spiritual transcendence set on the Yorkshire moors between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.

Haworth (West Yorkshire), Great Britain

43 Full Record →

Military Leaders & Strategists

30

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Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt

إبراهيم باشا

Greece

1789 – 1848 (59 years old)

Eldest son of Muhammad Ali and Egypt's greatest military commander of the modern era, who created the modern Egyptian conscript army and conquered Syria, marching to the gates of Istanbul.

Cairo, Egypt

30 Full Record →

Military Leaders & Strategists

36

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Ibrahim Pasha

إبراهيم باشا

Greece

1789 – 1848 (59 years old)

Egyptian military genius, eldest son of Muhammad Ali Pasha, who revolutionized the Egyptian army, crushed the Wahhabi rebellion in Arabia, and routed Ottoman imperial armies across Syria and Anatolia to the gates of Istanbul.

Cairo, Egypt

36 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

3,560

🕯️ 79

Jöns Jacob Berzelius

Sweden

1779 – 1848 (68 years old)

Swedish chemist revered as a founder of modern chemistry who created modern chemical notation and discovered cerium, selenium, and silicon.

Solna, Stockholm, Sweden

3,560 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

8

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François-René de Chateaubriand

France

1768 – 1848 (79 years old)

Foremost French Romantic pioneer, politician, and stylist whose novella René ignited European romantic melancholia ('le mal du siècle') and whose monumental Mémoires d'outre-tombe is an autobiographical masterpiece.

Saint-Malo (Brittany), France

8 Full Record →

Art

4

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Johan Thomas Lundbye

Denmark

1818-09-01 – 1848-04-26 (29 years old)

Romantic landscape painter of the Danish Golden Age who captured the rolling hills, ancient burial mounds (dolmens), and cattle pastures of Zealand with tender nationalist devotion.

Bedsted, Denmark

4 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

4

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Khachatur Abovian

Խաչատուր Աբովյան

Armenia

1809-10-15 – 1848-04-14 (38 years old)

Visionary nineteenth-century writer and educator who established modern vernacular Armenian literature through his patriotic novel 'Verk Hayastani' ('Wounds of Armenia').

Yerevan, Armenia

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

3,945

🕯️ 102

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti

Italy

1797 – 1848 (50 years old)

Leading Italian bel canto composer renowned for his dramatic tragedy Lucia di Lammermoor and comic gem L'elisir d'amore.

Bergamo, Italy

3,945 Full Record →

Literature & Poetry

7

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Steen Steensen Blicher

Denmark

1782-10-11 – 1848-03-26 (65 years old)

Master Danish writer and country parson who pioneered the Danish novella with Trækfuglene and The Diary of a Parish Clerk, celebrating the bleak beauty of Jutland's moors.

Spentrup, Denmark

7 Full Record →

Statesmanship & Statesmen

44

🕯️ 980

John Quincy Adams

United States

1767-07-11 – 1848-02-23 (80 years old)

Renowned as one of the greatest diplomats in American history and an uncompromising champion of abolitionism in Congress.

Washington, D.C., United States

44 Full Record →

Monarchy

0

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King Glass

R'Ogouarowe

Historical Gabon

c. 1790 – 1848 (58 years old)

Formidable commercial sovereign of the Mpongwe people who established Glass Town as a bustling Atlantic port and fiercely defended Gabonese trading sovereignty against French colonial naval gunboats in 1845.

Libreville, Gabon

0 Full Record →

Sciences & Discovery

40

🕯️ 880

Caroline Herschel

Caroline Lucretia Herschel

Germany

16 March 1750 – 9 January 1848 (97 years old)

First woman to receive a salary as a professional scientist, who discovered eight comets (including periodic comet 35P/Herschel-Rigollet) and compiled the definitive NGC nebula catalogs.

Hanover, Germany

40 Full Record →

Politics

0

🕯️ 0

Manuel José Arce

Manuel José de Arce y Fagoaga

Guatemala

1787 – 1847 (60 years old)

Pioneering military strategist and founding statesman who fought in the 1811 and 1814 insurrections, resisted Mexican imperial annexation, and was elected the inaugural President of the Federal Republic of Central America in 1825.

San Salvador, El Salvador

0 Full Record →

Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries