1800
year

1800 (MDCCC) was a century common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1800th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 800th year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th and last year of the 18th century, and the 1st year of the 1800s decade. As of the start of 1800, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
As of March 1 (O.S. February 18), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day farther behind, bringing the difference to 12 days until February 28 (O.S. February 16), 1900.
Events
January–March
January 1
Quasi-War: Action of 1 January 1800 – A naval battle off the coast of Haiti, between four United States merchant vessels escorted by naval schooner USS Experiment, and a squadron of armed barges manned by Haitian pirates (known as picaroons), under the command of general André Rigaud, ends indecisively.
The Dutch East India Company dissolves.
February 7 – A public plebiscite in France confirms Napoleon as First Consul, by a substantial majority.
February 11 – Infrared radiation is discovered by astronomer Sir William Herschel.
February 22 – The Baker rifle, designed by Ezekiel Baker, is selected by the British Board of Ordnance as a new standard.
March 14 – Papal conclave, 1799–1800: cardinal Barnaba Chiaramonti succeeds Pius VI as Pius VII, the 251st pope. He is crowned on March 21, in Venice.
“1800” enters the record as year. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what year can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1800” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, year provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6875. The Library of Congress control number is sh99003819. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1800, 1923, 1900 and 1799.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “1800” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.