Events of 1834

Zollverein and German Unification

The Buxton Memorial Fountain in London, celebrating the emancipation of slaves.

• January 1 – Zollverein: Customs charges are abolished at borders within Germany.

• January 3 – The government of Mexico imprisons Stephen F. Austin in Mexico City.

• March 6 – York, Upper Canada is incorporated as Toronto.

• March 27 – Andrew Jackson is censured by the Congress of the United States.

• April 14 – The Whig Party is officially named by United States Senator Henry Clay.

• June 7 – Greek independence general Theodoros Kolokotronis is sentenced to death for treason for resisting the rule of Otto of Greece (he is released next year).

• June 10 – Thomas Carlyle moves to Cheyne Row, (Carlyle's House), London.

• July 15 – The Spanish Inquisition, which began in the 15th century, is suppressed by royal decree.

• July 16 – William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne succeeds Earl Grey as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

• July 24 – The Liberal Wars end in Portugal.

• August 1 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire (see Slavery Abolition Act).

• August 11/12 – Ursuline Convent Riots: A convent of Ursuline nuns is burned near Boston, MA.

• August 15 – The South Australia Act allows for the creation of a colony there.

• October 16 – The Palace of Westminster is destroyed by fire.

• December 10 – Sir Robert Peel succeeds Lord Melbourne as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

• December 11 – The Sixth Xhosa War is characterized by severe clashes between white settlers and Bantu peoples in Cape Colony; Dutch speaking settlers colonize the area north of Orange River.

Undated

• A pro-republic uprising fails in Piedmont; one of the activists is Giuseppe Garibaldi.

• The British East India Company monopoly on China trade ends.

• Robert Owen organizes the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union.

• Athens becomes Greece's capital city.

• Medical School of Louisiana was founded later to remain Tulane University in New Orleans.

• Thomas Davenport, the inventor of the first American DC electrical motor, installs his motor in a small model car, creating one of the first electric cars.

Births

January–June

• January 7 – Johann Philipp Reis, German physicist and inventor (d. 1874)

• January 15 – Samuel Arza Davenport, American politician (d. 1911)

• February 8 – Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian chemist (d. 1907)

• February 9 – Felix Dahn, German author (d. 1912)

• February 16 – Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist and philosopher (d. 1919)

• February 19 – Charles Davis Lucas, Victoria Cross recipient (d. 1914)

• March 16 – James Hector, Scottish geologist (d. 1907)

• March 17 – Gottlieb Daimler, German engineer and inventor (d. 1900)

• March 20 – Charles W. Eliot, American President of Harvard University (d. 1926)

• March 23 – Julius Reubke, German composer (d. 1858)

• March 24 – William Morris, English poet and artist (d. 1896)

• March 24 -John Wesley Powell, American explorer (d. 1902)

• April 1 – Big Jim Fisk, American entrepreneur (d. 1872)

• April 2 – Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor (d. 1904)

• April 26 – Artemus Ward, American humorist (d. 1867)

• May 23 – Carl Heinrich Bloch, Danish sculptor (d. 1890)

• June 19 – Charles Spurgeon, English Baptist preacher (d. 1892)

July–December

• July 10 – James McNeill Whistler, American painter and etcher (d. 1903)

• July 19 – Edgar Degas, French painter (d. 1917)

• August 4 – John Venn, British mathematician (d. 1923)

• August 22 – Samuel Pierpont Langley, American astronomer, physicist, and aeronautics pioneer (d. 1906)

• August 31 – Amilcare Ponchielli, Italian composer (d. 1886)

• September 9 – Joseph Henry Shorthouse, English novelist (d. 1903)

• November 19 – Georg Hermann Quincke, German physicist (d. 1924)

• October 8 – Walter Kittredge, American composer (d. 1905)

• December 16 – Léon Walras, French economist (d. 1910)

Deaths

January–June

• January 12 – William Wyndham Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)

• January 17 – Giovanni Aldini, Italian physicist (b. 1762)

• February 2 – Lorenzo Dow, American minister (b. 1777)

• February 12 – Friedrich Schleiermacher, German theologian (b. 1768)

• February 23 – Karl Ludwig von Knebel, German poet (b. 1744)

• March 2 – José Cecilo del Valle, first President of Central America (b. 1780)

• April 5 – Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Goodwin Keats, Governor of Newfoundland (b. 1757)

• April 10 – John 'Merino' MacArthur, Australian farmer (b. 1767)

• April 11 – John 'Mad Jack' Fuller, English philanthropist and patron of the arts and sciences (b. 1757)

• April 29 – Grigore IV Ghica, prince of Wallachia (b. 1755)

• May 20 – Marquis de La Fayette, French nobleman and soldier (b. 1757)

July–December

• July 12 – David Douglas, Scottish botanist (b. 1799)

• July 14 – Edmond Charles Genêt, French ambassador to the United States during the French Revolution (b. 1763)

• July 19 – Károly Hadaly, Hungarian mathematician (b. 1743)

• July 25 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English writer (b. 1772)

• August 1 – Robert Morrison, Scottish Protestant missionary to China (b. 1782)

• August 7 – Joseph Marie Jacquard, French inventor (b. 1752)

• August 17 – Husein Gradaščević, Bosnian rebel leader (b. 1802)

• September 2 – Thomas Telford, Scottish engineer (b. 1757)

• September 9 – James Weddell, Antarctic explorer (b. 1787)

• September 16 – William Blackwood, English writer (b. 1776)

• September 24 – Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (b. 1798)

• October 8 – François-Adrien Boïeldieu, French composer (b. 1775)

• October 11 – William John Napier, 9th Lord Napier, British Navy officer, politician and diplomat (b. 1786)

• December 23 – Thomas Malthus, English economist and political philosopher (b. 1766)

• December 27 – Charles Lamb, English essayist (b. 1775)

• December 31 – João Batista Gonçalves Campos, Intellectual leader of the Cabanagem, social revolt in the vice-Kingdom of Grão-Pará, Brazil (b. 1782)