1839
year
1839 (MDCCCXXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1839th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 839th year of the 2nd millennium, the 39th year of the 19th century, and the 10th and last year of the 1830s decade. As of the start of 1839, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
January–March
January 2 – The first photograph of the Moon is taken, by French photographer Louis Daguerre.
January 6 – Night of the Big Wind: Ireland is struck by the most damaging cyclone in 300 years.
January 9 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the daguerreotype photography process.
January 19 – The British Aden Expedition captures Aden.
January 20 – Battle of Yungay: Chile defeats the Peru–Bolivian Confederation, leading to the restoration of an independent Peru.
January – The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson.
February 11 – The University of Missouri is established, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River.
February 24 – William Otis receives a U.S. patent for the steam shovel.
“1839” enters the record as year. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what year can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“1839” 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 Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7616. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1839 and 1923.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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 “1839”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 1839 primary sources, 1839 archive and year 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 “1839”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “1839” 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.