- Jan 19 Cold Friday: temperature at Portsmouth, New Hampshire drops from 54°F to minus 12°F in one day with many frozen to death
- Feb 1 1st insurance company managed by African Americans, The African Insurance Company opens in Philadelphia
- Feb 1 Seville, Spain surrenders to the French without a fight
- Feb 1 US Population: 7,239,881, African American population: 1,377,808 (19%)
- Feb 4 Royal Navy seizes Guadeloupe.
- Feb 28 1st US fire insurance joint-stock company organized, Philadelphia
- Mar 6 Illinois passes 1st state vaccination legislation in US
- Apr 19 Venezuela achieves home rule: Vicente Emparan, Governor of the Captaincy General is removed by the people of Caracas and a Junta is installed.
- Apr 20 The Governors of Caracas declares the national sovereignty from Spain
Beethoven's Für Elise
Apr 27 Ludwig van Beethoven composes his famous piano piece "Für Elise"
Byron Swims the Hellespont
May 3 English poet Lord Byron swims across the dangerous Hellespont Strait in Turkey (modern day Dardanelles)
- May 25 In the May Revolution, citizens of Buenos Aires expel the Spanish Viceroy Cisneros during Semana de Mayo
- May 25 The Primera Junta (local government) is established in Argentina
Pacific Fur Company
Jun 23 John Jacob Astor organizes the Pacific Fur Company in Astoria, Oregon
- Jul 1 Louis Napoleon abdicates as king of the Netherlands
- Jul 4 French troops occupy Amsterdam
- Jul 9 Napoleon annexes the Kingdom of Holland as part of the First French Empire
- Jul 20 Citizens of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia), declare independence from Spain
- Aug 9 Napoleon annexes Westphalia as part of the First French Empire
- Aug 21 Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, is elected Crown Prince of Sweden by the Swedish Riksdag of the Estates.
Silvana
Sep 16 Carl Maria von Weber's opera "Silvana", starring his future wife Carone Brandt in the title role, premieres at the Nationaltheater in Frankfurt, Confederation of the Rhine (now Germany)
Battle of Bussaco
Sep 27 Battle of Bussaco: Arthur Wellesley's Anglo-Portuguese Army defeats a larger French force led by Marshal André Masséna with the French suffering 4,500 dead and wounded
- Oct 27 United States annexes West Florida from Spain
- Dec 10 English bare-knuckle boxer Tom Cribb beats African-American Tom Molineaux in 33rd of 40 round bout at Copthall Common, England; first interracial boxing match
- Dec 15 1st Irish magazine in US, "Shamrock" published
- Dec 22 British frigate HMS Minotaur sinks killing 480
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists