Events of 1849

January–March

• January 1
  • France issues Ceres, France's first postage stamp.
  • In Milan, anti-Austrian activists organize a smoking boycott in protest of the Austrian monopoly on tobacco. Protests erupt into brief riots.
• January 12 – Palermo, Sicily rises up against Austrian troops.
• January 13 -Second Anglo-Sikh War – British forces retreat from the Battle of Tooele.
• January 21 – General elections are held in the Papal States.
• January 23 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman doctor.
• January 31 – The Corn Laws are abolished in the United Kingdom (following legislation in 1846).
• February 8 – The New Roman Republic is established.
• February 14 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
• February 28 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay. The California leaves New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, rounds Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrives at San Francisco, California after the 4 month 21 day journey.
• March – The Frankfurt Parliament completes its drafting of a liberal constitution and elects Frederick William IV emperor of the new German national state.
• March 3
  • Minnesota becomes a United States territory.
  • The United States Department of the Interior is established.
  • The U.S. Congress passes the Gold Coinage Act allowing the minting of gold coins.
• March 4 – Zachary Taylor refuses to be sworn in office on a Sabbath (Sunday). Urban legend holds that David Rice Atchison, President pro tempore of the United States Senate was President de jure for a single day.
• March 5 – Zachary Taylor, the 12th President of the United States of America, takes his oath of office.
• March 28 – Four Christians are ordered burnt alive in Antananarivo, Madagascar by Queen Ranavalona I and 14 others are executed.
• March 29 – The United Kingdom annexes the Punjab.

April–June

• April 1 – After 10 days, the insurrection in Brescia is ended by Austrian troops.
• April 2 – The Revolutions of 1848 in the German states end and fail.
• April 14 – Hungary declares independence from Austria.
• April 21 – Irish Potato Famine: 96 inmates of the overcrowded Ballinrobe Union Workhouse die over the course of the preceding week from illness and other famine-related conditions, a record high.
• April 25 – The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal's English population and triggering the Montreal Riots.
• April 27 – Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Rome to defend it from the French troops of General Oudinot.
• May- The Second Carlist War ends in Spain.
• May 3
  • The May Uprising in Dresden (the last of the German revolutions of 1848) begins.
  • The Mississippi River levee at Sauvé's Crevasse breaks, flooding much of New Orleans, Louisiana.
• May 15 – Troops of the Two Sicilies take Palermo and crush the republican government of Sicily.
• May 17 – The St. Louis Fire starts when a steamboat catches fire and nearly burns down the entire city.
• June 5 – Denmark becomes a constitutional monarchy.
• June 6 – Fort Worth, Texas is founded.

July–September

• July 3 – French troops occupy Rome; the Roman Republic surrenders.
• July 6 – The Danish Army beats the Prussian army at Fredericia, Jutland, thereby putting an end to the Prussian/Danish War until 1864.
• August 8 – Austria crushes the Hungarian rebellion with Russian aid.
• August 24 – Venice surrenders to Austrian troops after a 4-month siege.
• September 1 – The first segment of the Pennsylvania Railroad, from Lewiston, Pennsylvania to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, opens for service.

October–December

• October 6 – The 13 Martyrs of Arad are executed after the Hungarian War of Independence.
• November – Austin College receives a charter in Huntsville.
• November 16 – A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group, but his execution is cancelled at the last minute.

Ongoing events

• Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849)
• First war of Schleswig (1848–1851)
• California Gold Rush (1848–1855)

Births

January–June

• January 9 – John Hartley, English tennis player, double winner of Wimbledon (d. 1935)
• January 14 – James Moore, winner of the first ever cycle race (d. 1935)
• January 18
  • Edmund Barton, first Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1920)
  • Aleksander Świętochowski, Polish writer of the Positivist period (d. 1938)
• January 22 – August Strindberg, Swedish author, playwright, and painter (d. 1912)
• February 13 – Lord Randolph Churchill, British statesman (d. 1895)
• February 18 – Alexander Kielland, Norwegian author (d. 1906)
• February 22 – Nikolay Yakovlevich Sonin, Russian mathematician (d. 1915)
• March 2 – Robert Means Thompson, American naval officer (d. 1930)
• March 7 – Luther Burbank, American biologist and botanist (d. 1926)
• March 19 – Alfred von Tirpitz, German soldier (d. 1930)
• April 6 – John William Waterhouse, Italian-born artist (d. 1917)
• May 3 – Bernhard von Bülow, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1929)
• May 16 – Jalaleddin Ali Mir Abolfazl Angha, 39th Oveyssi Sufi master (d. 1914)
• May 22 – Louis Perrier, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1913)
• June 9 – Michael Peter Ancher, Danish painter (d. 1927)

July–December

• July 22 – Emma Lazarus, American poet (d. 1887)
• July 29 – Max Nordau, Austrian author, philosopher, and Zionist leader (d. 1923)
• August 28 – Benjamin Godard, French composer (d. 1895)
• September 3 – Sarah Orne Jewett, American writer (d. 1909)
• September 14 – Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Russian researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1936)
• September 21 – Maurice Barrymore, British-American stage actor and playwright, (d. 1905)
• November 24 – Frances Hodgson Burnett, English-American playwright and author (d. 1945)
• November 29 – John Ambrose Fleming, English electrical engineer and inventor (d. 1924)
• December 4 – Crazy Horse, Chief of the Oglala Sioux (d. 1877)
• December 5 – Eduard Seler, Prussian scholar and Mesoamericanist (d. 1922)
• December 6 – August von Mackensen, German field marshal (d. 1945)
• December 12 – William Kissam Vanderbilt, American railway magnate (d. 1920)
• Muhammad Abduh, Islamic reformer (d. 1905)

Deaths

January–June

• January 30 – Jonathan Alder, American settler (b. 1773)
• February 8 – France Prešeren, Slovenian poet (b. 1800)
• March 14 – King Willem II of the Netherlands (b. 1792)
• April 11 – Pedro Ignacio de Castro Barros, Argentine statesman and priest (b. 1777)
• May 11 – Juliette Récamier, French socialite (b. 1777)
• May 11 – Carl Otto Nicolai, German Composer and Conductor (b. 1810)
• May 22 – Maria Edgeworth, Irish novelist (b. 1767)
• May 25 – Benjamin d'Urban, British general and colonial administrator (b. 1777)
• May 28 – Anne Brontë, English author (b. 1820)
• June 10 – Thomas Robert Bugeaud, Marshal of France and duke of Isly (b. 1784)
• June 15 – James Knox Polk, 11th President of the United States (b. 1795)

July–December

• July 12 – Dolley Madison, First Lady of the United States (b. 1768)
• July 28 – King Charles Albert of Sardinia (b. 1798)
• August 2 – Muhammad Ali of Egypt (b. 1769)
• September 25 – Johann Strauss, Senior, Austrian composer (b. 1804)
• October 7 – Edgar Allan Poe, American writer (b. 1809)
• October 17 – Frédéric Chopin, Polish-French musician and composer (b. 1810)
• October 22 – William Miller, American Baptist preacher (b. 1782)
• December 2 – Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen of William IV of the United Kingdom (b. 1792)