Events of 1837

January–June

• January 1 Galilee earthquake of 1837
• January 26 – Michigan is the 26th state admitted to the United States of America.
• February – Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist begins publication in serial form.
• February 4 – Seminoles attack Fort Foster.
• February 25 – In Philadelphia, The Institute for Colored Youth (ICY) is founded as the first institution for the higher education of Blacks.
• March 4
  • Martin Van Buren succeeds Andrew Jackson as President of the United States.
  • The city of Chicago is incorporated.
• May – Samuel Morse patents the telegraph.
• May 10 – The Panic of 1837 begins in New York City.
• June 5 – The city of Houston, Texas is incorporated by the Republic of Texas.
• June 11 – The Broad Street Riot occurs in Boston, Massachusetts, fueled by ethnic tensions between the Irish and the Yankees.
• June 20 – Queen Victoria accedes to the throne of the United Kingdom.

July–December

• July – Charles W. King sets sail on the American merchant ship Morrison. In the Morrison Incident, he is turned away from Japanese ports with cannon fire.
• July 29 – The Spanish government auctions the Catholic Church's property.
• August 16 – The Dutch sack the fortress of Bonjol, ending the Padri War.
• Battle of Aranzueque (September 1837) -Liberal victory for the forces loyal to Queen Isabel II of Spain, end of Carlist campaign known as the Expedición Real - The First Carlist War.
• November 7 – American abolitionist and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy is killed by a pro-slavery mob.
• November 8 – Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, later Mount Holyoke College, is founded in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
• November–December – In the Canadas, William Lyon Mackenzie leads the Upper Canada Rebellion and Louis-Joseph Papineau leads the Lower Canada Rebellion.
• December 17 – Fire in the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg.

Undated

• Queen Victoria announces she is officially moving from St. James's Palace to Buckingham Palace
• At Le Mans, France, Father Basil Moreau, CSC founds the Congregation of Holy Cross by joining the Brothers of St. Joseph and the Auxiliary Priests of Le Mans.
• Louis Daguerre develops the daguerreotype.
• The Berlin Foundry Cup acquired for the Antikensammlung at Berlin, Germany.

Births

January–June

• January 2 – Mily Balakirev, Russian composer (d. 1910)
• January 7 – Thomas Henry Ismay, known for acquiring the WSL flag
• February 5 – Dwight L. Moody, American evangelist (d. 1899)
• February 13 – Valentin Zubiaurre, Spanish composer (d. 1914)
• March 1 – William Dean Howells, American writer, historian, editor, and politician (d. 1920)
• March 1 – Ion Creanga, Romanian writer
• March 7 – Henry Draper, American physician and astronomer (d. 1882)
• March 18 – Grover Cleveland, President of the United States (d. 1908)
• March 23 – Charles Wyndham, English actor and theatrical manager (d. 1919)
• April 5 – Algernon Charles Swinburne, English poet (d. 1909)
• April 17 – John Pierpont Morgan, American financier and banker (d. 1913)
• April 21 – Fredrik Bajer, Danish politician and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1922)
• May 9 – Adam Opel, German engineer and industrialist (d. 1895)
• May 27 – Wild Bill Hickok, American gunfighter (d. 1876)
• May 28 – George Ashlin, Irish Architect (d. 1921)
• June 22 – Paul Morphy, American chess player (d. 1884)
• June 22 – Touch the Clouds, Native American Minneconjou chief 7 feet tall (d. 1905)
• June 22 – Paul Bachmann, German mathematician (d. 1920)

July–December

• July 4 – Carolus-Duran, French painter (d. 1917)
• July 18 – Vasil Levski, Bulgarian revolutionary (d. 1873)
• August 24 – Théodore Dubois, French composer (d. 1924)
• September 14 – Nikolai Bugaev, prominent Russian mathematician (d.1903)
• September 12 – Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse (d. 1892)
• September 16 – King Pedro V of Portugal (d. 1861)
• September 18 – Aires de Ornelas e Vasconcelos, (Portuguese) Archbishop of Goa (d. 1880)
• October 10 – Robert Gould Shaw, American Civil War General, reformer (d. 1863)
• October 28 – Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th and the last shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate (d. 1913)
• October 29 – Harriet Powers, African-American folk artist (d. 1910)
• November 2 – Émile Bayard, French artist, illustrator (d. 1891)
• November 5 – Saint Arnold Janssen (d. 1909)
• November 14 – Lucas Barrett, English naturalist (d. 1862)
• November 20 – Lewis Waterman, American inventor and businessman (d.1901)
• November 23 – Johannes Diderik van der Waals, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1923)
• December 15 – George B. Post American architect (d. 1913)
• December 26 – George Dewey, U.S. naval officer (d. 1917)

Deaths

• January 20 – John Soane, British architect (b. 1753)
• January 23 – John Field, Irish composer (b. 1782)
• February 7 – Gustav IV Adolf, ex-King of Sweden (b. 1778)
• February 10 – Alexander Pushkin, Russian author (b. 1799)
• February 19 – Georg Büchner, German playwright (b. 1813)
• March 31 – John Constable, English painter (b. 1776)
• April 28 – Joseph Souham, French general (b. 1760)
• May 20 – Landgrave Frederick of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) (b. 1747)
• June 14 – Giacomo Leopardi, Italian writer (b. 1798)
• June 20 – King William IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1765)
• September 7 – Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken, Russian military leader (b. 1752)
• September 21 – Pieter Vreede, Dutch politician (b. 1750)
• September 28 – Akbar Shah II, last Mughal emperor of India (b. 1760)
• October 1 – Robert Clark, American politician (b. 1777)
• October 10 – Charles Fourier, philosopher (b. 1772)
• November 7 – Elijah P. Lovejoy, American abolitionist (b. 1809)