Events of 1841

• January 25 – Charles Elliot of Britain and Kei Sin of Qing sign the Convention of Chuenpeh.

• January 26 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland occupies Hong Kong. Later during the year, the first census of the island records a population of about 75,000.

• January 30 – A fire ruins and destroys 2/3 of the then villa (now city) of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

• February 4 – First known reference to Groundhog Day, in the diary of a James Morris.

• February 18 – The first ongoing filibuster in the United States Senate begins and lasts until March 11.

• March 4 – Martin Van Buren is succeeded as President of the United States by William Henry Harrison.

• March 9 – Amistad: The Supreme Court of the United States rules in the case that the Africans who seized control of the ship had been taken into slavery illegally.

• March 29 – The Bishopton railway station is opened.

• April 4 – President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, becoming the first President of the United States to die in office and at one month, the elected president with the shortest term served. He is succeeded by Vice President John Tyler, who becomes the 10th President of the United States.

• April 6 – President John Tyler is sworn in.

• May 11 – Lt. Charles Wilkes lands at Fort Nisqually in Puget Sound.

• June 6 – This United Kingdom census is the first to show names and approximate ages of all individuals residing in the country, on that Sunday night.

• August 16 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history.

• September 24 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland annexes Sarawak from Brunei; James Brooke is appointed rajah.

• October 16 – Queen's University is founded in Kingston, Ontario, by Rev. Thomas Liddell, who carries a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria and becomes the school's first principal.

• October 30 – A fire at the Tower of London destroys its Grand Armoury and causes a quarter of a million pounds worth of damage.

• November 13 – Scottish surgeon James Braid first sees a demonstration of animal magnetism by Charles Lafontaine in Manchester, which leads to his study of the phenomenon that he (Braid) eventually calls hypnotism.

Undated

• The two colonies of the Canadas are merged into the Province of Canada.

• Fordham University is founded in The Bronx by the Society of Jesus. Its name at its founding is St. John's College.

• August Borsig builds the first German locomotive.

• The city of Dallas, Texas is founded by John Neely Bryan.

• John Augustus develops the concept of probation.

• Sir Richard Owen invents the term "dinosaur."

Ongoing events

• First Opium War (1839–1842)

Births

• January 7 – Bernadette Soubirous, visionary from Lourdes (d. 1879)

• January 14 – Berthe Morisot, French painter (d. 1895)

• January 25 – Jackie Fisher, British admiral (d. 1920)

• January 28 – Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh explorer and journalist (d. 1904)

• February 2 – François-Alphonse Forel, Swiss hydrologist (d. 1912)

• February 4 – Clément Ader, French engineer, inventor, and airplane pioneer (d. 1926)

• February 25 – Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French painter (d. 1919)

• March 8 – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1935)

• April 9 – William George Aston, British consular official (d. 1911)

• April 13 – Louis-Ernest Barrias, French sculptor (d. 1905)

• May 10 – James Gordon Bennett, Jr., American newspaper publisher (d. 1918)

• August 25 – Emil Kocher, Swiss medical researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1917)

• September 8 – Charles J. Guiteau, American lawyer and assassin of James A. Garfield (d. 1882)

• September 28 – Georges Clemenceau, French statesman (d. 1929)

• October 7 – King Nicholas I of Montenegro (d. 1921)

• October 16 – Prince Hirobumi Ito, Japanese governor of Korea (d. 1909)

• November 6 – Nelson W. Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island (d. 1915)

• November 6 – Armand Fallières, French President (d. 1931)

• November 9 – King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (d. 1910)

• November 13 – Edward Burd Grubb, American Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General (d.1913)

• November 20 – Wilfrid Laurier, seventh Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1919)

• December 6 – Frédéric Bazille, French painter (d. 1870)

• December 20 – Ferdinand Buisson, French pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1932)

• December 20 – Wilfrid Laurier, Seventh Prime Minister of Canada from July 11, 1896, to October 5, 1911. (d. 1919)

Deaths

• February 17 – Ferdinando Carulli, Italian guitarist (b. 1770)

• March 1 – Claude Victor-Perrin, duc de Belluno, French marshal (b. 1764)

• April 4 – William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States (b. 1773)

• April 28 – Peter Chanel, French Roman Catholic missionary (martyred) (b. 1803)

• April 30 – Peter Andreas Heiberg, Danish author and philologist (b. 1758)

• May 20 – Joseph Blanco White, British theologian (b. 1775)

• May 23 – Franz Xaver von Baader, German philosopher and theologian (b. 1765)

• June 1 – David Wilkie, Scottish artist (b. 1785)

• August 24 – Theodore Edward Hook, English author (b. 1788)

• September 25 – John Chandler, American politician (b. 1762)

• December 4 – David Daniel Davis, British physician (b. 1777)

• December 23 – William Hay Macnaghten, Anglo-Indian diplomat (b. 1793)