1803
calendar year
1803 (MDCCCIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1803rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 803rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 3rd year of the 19th century, and the 4th year of the 1800s decade. As of the start of 1803, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
January–March
January 1 – The first edition of Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière's Almanach des gourmands, the first guide to restaurant cooking, is published in Paris.
January 4 – William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat", in Scotland.
January 30 – Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to discuss, and possibly buy, New Orleans; they end up completing the Louisiana Purchase.
February 19
An Act of Mediation, issued by Napoleon Bonaparte, establishes the Swiss Confederation to replace the Helvetic Republic. Under the terms of the act, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, the Ticino and Vaud become Swiss cantons.
Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state.
February 20 – Kandyan Wars: Kandy, Ceylon is taken by a British detachment.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1803” as calendar year. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as calendar year. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
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 Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6887. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1803 and 1923.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. 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.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “1803”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1803 primary sources, 1803 archive and calendar research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1803”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1803” 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.