Events

• January 8 - Cape Colony becomes a British colony
• January 10 - Dutch in Cape Town surrender to the British
• January 19 - The United Kingdom occupies the Cape of Good Hope
• March 23 - After traveling through the Louisiana Purchase and reaching the Pacific Ocean, explorers Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" begin their journey home.
• March 29 - The Great National Pike, better known as the Cumberland Road, becomes the first United States federal highway.

• Holy Roman Empire dissolved by Emperor Francis II.

Births

• March 6 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet (+ 1861)
• March 12 - Jane Pierce[?], First Lady
• March 21 - Benito Juarez, Mexican statesman and folk hero (+ 1872)
• April 9 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer.
• May 20 - John Stuart Mill, British philosopher.

Deaths

• January 16 - William Pitt the Elder, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
• February 11 - Vicente Martin y Soler[?], composer.