Recent from talks
All channels
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Welcome to the community hub built to collect knowledge and have discussions related to 1823.
Nothing was collected or created yet.
from Wikipedia
| Years |
|---|
| Millennium |
| 2nd millennium |
| Centuries |
| Decades |
| Years |
| 1823 by topic |
|---|
| Humanities |
| By country |
| Other topics |
| Lists of leaders |
| Birth and death categories |
| Establishments and disestablishments categories |
| Works category |
| Gregorian calendar | 1823 MDCCCXXIII |
| Ab urbe condita | 2576 |
| Armenian calendar | 1272 ԹՎ ՌՄՀԲ |
| Assyrian calendar | 6573 |
| Balinese saka calendar | 1744–1745 |
| Bengali calendar | 1229–1230 |
| Berber calendar | 2773 |
| British Regnal year | 3 Geo. 4 – 4 Geo. 4 |
| Buddhist calendar | 2367 |
| Burmese calendar | 1185 |
| Byzantine calendar | 7331–7332 |
| Chinese calendar | 壬午年 (Water Horse) 4520 or 4313 — to — 癸未年 (Water Goat) 4521 or 4314 |
| Coptic calendar | 1539–1540 |
| Discordian calendar | 2989 |
| Ethiopian calendar | 1815–1816 |
| Hebrew calendar | 5583–5584 |
| Hindu calendars | |
| - Vikram Samvat | 1879–1880 |
| - Shaka Samvat | 1744–1745 |
| - Kali Yuga | 4923–4924 |
| Holocene calendar | 11823 |
| Igbo calendar | 823–824 |
| Iranian calendar | 1201–1202 |
| Islamic calendar | 1238–1239 |
| Japanese calendar | Bunsei 6 (文政6年) |
| Javanese calendar | 1750–1751 |
| Julian calendar | Gregorian minus 12 days |
| Korean calendar | 4156 |
| Minguo calendar | 89 before ROC 民前89年 |
| Nanakshahi calendar | 355 |
| Thai solar calendar | 2365–2366 |
| Tibetan calendar | ཆུ་ཕོ་རྟ་ལོ་ (male Water-Horse) 1949 or 1568 or 796 — to — ཆུ་མོ་ལུག་ལོ་ (female Water-Sheep) 1950 or 1569 or 797 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1823.
1823 (MDCCCXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1823rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 823rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 23rd year of the 19th century, and the 4th year of the 1820s decade. As of the start of 1823, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
[edit]January–March
[edit]
- January 22 – By secret treaty signed at the Congress of Verona, the Quintuple Alliance gives France a mandate to invade Spain for the purpose of restoring Ferdinand VII (who has been captured by armed revolutionary liberals) as absolute monarch of the country.
- January 23 – In Paviland Cave on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial (although Buckland dates it as Roman).[1]
- February 3
- Jackson Male Academy, precursor of Union University, opens in Tennessee.
- Gioachino Rossini's opera Semiramide is first performed, at La Fenice in Venice.
- February 10 – The first worldwide carnival parade takes place in Cologne, Prussia.
- February 11 – Carnival tragedy of 1823: About 110 boys are killed during a stampede at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta, Malta.
- February 15 (approx.) – The first officially recognised gold is found in Australia, by surveyor James McBrien at Fish River, near Bathurst, New South Wales, predating the Australian gold rushes.
- February 20 – Explorer James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W: the southernmost position any ship has reached at this time.
- March 15 – Sailor Benjamin Morrell erroneously reports the existence of the island of New South Greenland near Antarctica.[2]
- March 19 – Emperor Agustín de Iturbide of Mexico abdicates, thus ending the short-lived First Mexican Empire.
April–June
[edit]
- April 7 – French forces, the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis", cross the Spanish border at the Bidasoa River
- April 10 – Siege of Pamplona begins in Navarre as French troops besiege the city's garrison
- April 13 – Franz Liszt, 11, gives a concert in Vienna, after which he is personally congratulated by Ludwig van Beethoven.[3]
- May 5 – Emperor Pedro I of Brazil inaugurates Brazil's first Assembleia Geral, with 50 Senators and 102 Deputies.[4]
- May 7 – Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov in appointed as Governor-General of Novorossiya (New Russia), the portion of Russian Empire bordering the Black Sea (in modern days it constitutes southern regions of Ukraine).[5]
- May 9 – Russian author Alexander Pushkin begins work on his verse novel Eugene Onegin.[6]
- May 23 – The rebel Spanish government withdraws from Madrid to Seville following the French advance
- May 25
- The Duke of Angoulême, commander of the invading French forces, establishes a regency in Madrid on behalf of Ferdinand VII who remains a captive of the Spanish government
- The Catholic Association, a campaign for religious emancipation, begins in Ireland at a meeting of 13 people at a bookseller's house on Capel Street in Dublin.[7]
- June 5 – Raffles Institution is established (as the Singapore Institution) by the founder of Singapore, Sir Stamford Raffles.[8]
July–September
[edit]
- July 1 – The Congress of Central America declares absolute independence from Spain, Mexico and any other foreign nation, including North America, and a republican system of government is established.
- July 4 – Royal assent is given to several significant Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, after the Home Secretary (and future Prime Minister) Robert Peel had worked to get approval by Parliament. Approved are the Judgment of Death Act 1823, effectively abolishing the death penalty for over 100 offences and ;[9] allowing judges to commute sentences for capital offences (other than murder or treason) to imprisonment or transportation.;[10] the Transportation Act allowing convicts transported to the colonies to be employed on public works.[9] On July 10, the Gaols Act 1823 is given assent, beginning the process of prison reform based on the campaign of Elizabeth Fry.[9]
- July 15 – The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome is almost completely destroyed by fire.[11]
- July 28 – The first theatrical adaptation of the Frankenstein story, Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, opens at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London. On August 29, Mary Shelley attends a performance, the only version of her novel she will ever see.[12]
- August 1 – William Pitt Amherst arrives in Calcutta with Lady Amherst to become the new Governor-General of India.[13]
- August 4 – Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an 11-man police force, that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division.[14]
- August 5 – The Royal Hibernian Academy is founded in Dublin.[15]
- August 16 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia draws up a secret "manifesto", designating his second younger brother Nikolai to succeed him, bypassing Nikolai's older brother, Grand Duke Konstantin. The existence of the manifesto is revealed on Alexander's death in 1825.[16]
- August 18 – Demerara rebellion of 1823: In the British colony of Demerara-Essequibo (modern-day Guyana in South America), an insurrection of 10,000 black slaves begins; it is suppressed after three days, but hundreds of suspects are executed in the reprisals that follow.[17]
- August 20 – Pope Pius VII dies after a reign of more than 23 years that began on March 14, 1800; he is remembered for crowning Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France.[18]
- August 24 – Hugh Glass gets mauled by a sow grizzly while on a fur trapping expedition in the Missouri Territory and has to crawl 200 miles for help.[19]
- August 31 – Battle of Trocadero: French infantry of the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis" capture the fort of Trocadero and turn its guns on Cádiz.
- September 10 – Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru.
- September 17 – Pamplona surrenders to French forces after a five-month siege.
- September 22 – Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel (according to what he writes in 1838).
- September 23 – First Anglo-Burmese War: Burmese forces attack the British on Shapura, an island close to Chittagong.
- September 28 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Annibale della Genga is elected Pope Leo XII.[18]
- September 30 – Cádiz surrenders to the French and Ferdinand VII of Spain is restored to his throne, immediately repealing the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812. Despite French advice, he begins an era of repression against his opponents known as the Ominous Decade
October–December
[edit]
- October 5 – The Lancet medical journal is founded by Thomas Wakley in London.
- October 22 – Simón Bolívar writes to Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia to release his friend the explorer Aimé Bonpland under threat of invasion. Rodríguez never responds to the letter.
- November 3 – An explosion at the Rainton Colliery Company's Plain Pit mine at Chilton Moor in the north-east of England, kills at least 57 coal miners.[20]
- November 7 – General Rafael del Riego is executed in Madrid for high treason
- November – According to tradition, William Webb Ellis invents the sport of rugby football at Rugby School in England.[9]
- December 2 – James Monroe first introduces the Monroe Doctrine in the State of the Union address, declaring that any European attempts to recolonize the Americas would be considered a hostile act towards the United States.
Undated
[edit]- The first Anglo-Ashanti War begins.
- British expedition up the St. Clair River; site of Corunna surveyed as a potential capital for Upper Canada.[21]
- Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers.
- Work begins on the British Museum in London, designed by Robert Smirke, and the Altes Museum in Berlin, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
- The Oxford Union is founded as a student debating society in England.
Births
[edit]January–June
[edit]

- January 1 – Sándor Petőfi, Hungarian poet, revolutionary (d. 1849)
- January 3 – Robert Whitehead, English engineer, inventor (d. 1905)
- January 8 – Alfred Russel Wallace, British naturalist, biologist (d. 1913)
- January 11 – Pierre Philippe Denfert-Rochereau, French military officer and politician (d. 1878)
- January 27 – Édouard Lalo, French composer (d. 1892)
- February 15 – Li Hongzhang, Chinese politician, general and diplomat (d. 1901)
- February 28
- Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (d. 1883)
- Ernest Renan, French philosopher, philologist, historian and writer (d. 1892)
- March 3 – John George Adair, Scots-Irish businessman and landowner; also known as "Black Jack" for his eviction of 244 people in 1861; financier of JA Ranch (d. 1885)
- March 8 – Gyula Andrássy, 4th Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 1890)
- March 14 – Théodore de Banville, French writer (d. 1891)
- March 18 – Antoine Chanzy, French general and colonial governor (d. 1883)
- April 1 – Simon Bolivar Buckner, American soldier, politician and Confederate soldier (d. 1914)
- April 3 – William M. Tweed, American political boss (d. 1878)
- April 4 – Carl Wilhelm Siemens, German engineer (d. 1883)
- April 24 – Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada, 27th President of Mexico (d. 1889)
- April 25 – Abdülmecid I, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1861)
- May 2 – Emma Hardinge Britten (b. Emma Floyd), English-born spiritualist (d. 1899)
- May 9 – Sir Frederick Weld, 6th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1891)
- May 15
- Thomas Lake Harris, American poet (d. 1906)
- Youssef Bey Karam, Lebanese nationalist leader (d. 1889)[22]
- May 17 – Henry Eckford, British horticulturist (d. 1905)
- May 22 – Solomon Bundy, American politician (d. 1889)
- May 26 – William Pryor Letchworth, American businessman, philanthropist, founder of Letchworth State Park, New York
- July 6 – Sophie Adlersparre, Swedish feminist (d. 1895)
- June 21 – Jean Chacornac, French astronomer (d. 1873)
July–December
[edit]

- July 9 (date uncertain) – Phineas Gage, improbable American head injury survivor (d. 1860)
- July 18
- Félix du Temple de la Croix, French Army Captain, aviation pioneer (d. 1890)
- Leonard Fulton Ross, American Civil War general (d. 1901)
- July 23 – Coventry Patmore, English poet (d. 1896)
- August 3 – Thomas Francis Meagher, American Civil War general (d. 1867)
- August 4 – Oliver P. Morton, American politician (d. 1877)
- August 5 – Eliza Tibbets, mother of the California orange industry (d. 1898)
- August 10
- Hugh Stowell Brown, Manx preacher (d. 1886)
- Charles Keene, English artist, illustrator (d. 1891)
- August 11 – Charlotte Mary Yonge, English author (d. 1901)
- August 13 – Goldwin Smith, English historian (d. 1910)
- August 14 – Karel Miry, Belgian composer (d. 1889)
- August 15 – Orris S. Ferry, American Civil War general and politician (d. 1875)
- August 23 – Nil Izvorov, Bulgarian Orthodox priest and venerable (d. 1905)
- September 16 – Ludwik Teichmann, Polish anatomist (d. 1895)
- September 28 – Alexandre Cabanel, French painter (d. 1889)
- November 1 – Lascăr Catargiu, 4-time prime minister of Romania (d. 1899)
- November 8 – Joseph Monier, French inventor (d. 1906)
- November 16 – Henry G. Davis, American politician (d. 1916)
- November 18 – Charles H. Bell, American politician (d. 1893)
- November 21 – Andrzej Jerzy Mniszech, Polish painter (d. 1905)
- November 25 – Henry Wirz, Swiss-born American Confederate military officer, prisoner-of-war camp commander (d. 1865)
- December 6 – Friedrich Max Müller, German-born Orientalist (d. 1900)
- December 9 – Rosalie Olivecrona, Swedish women's rights activist (d. 1898)
- December 13 – Ferdinand Büchner, German composer (d. 1906)
- December 22 – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American Unitarian minister, abolitionist (d. 1911)
- December 27 – Sir Mackenzie Bowell, 5th Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1917)
Undated
[edit]- Manolache Costache Epureanu, 2-time prime minister of Romania (d. 1880)
- Julian Gutowski, Polish politician (d. 1890)
Deaths
[edit]January–June
[edit]

- January 21
- Gideon Olin, American politician (b. 1743)
- Cayetano José Rodríguez, Argentine representative to the Congress of Tucumán
- January 22 – John Julius Angerstein, Russian-born English merchant, insurer and art collector (b. 1735)
- January 26 – Edward Jenner, English physician, medical researcher (b. 1749)
- January 27 – Charles Hutton, English mathematician (b. 1737)
- January 28 – Return J. Meigs Sr., American colonel (b. 1740)
- February 9 – Agnes Ibbetson, English plant physiologist (b. 1757)
- February 7 – Ann Radcliffe, English writer (b. 1764)
- February 21 – Charles Wolfe, Irish poet (b. 1791)
- March 1 – Pierre-Jean Garat, French Basque opera singer (b. 1764)
- March 5 – Magdalena Rudenschöld, Swedish conspirator (b. 1766)
- March 14
- Charles François Dumouriez, French general (b. 1739)
- John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, British Royal Navy admiral (b. 1735)
- March 18
- Jean-Baptiste Bréval, French cellist (b. 1753)
- Henry Brockholst Livingston, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (b. 1757)
- March 19 – Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, Polish aristocrat and patron of the arts (b. 1734)
- April 18 – George Cabot, American politician (b. 1752)
- June 1 – Louis-Nicolas Davout, French marshal (b. 1770)
- June 19 – William Combe, English writer, poet and adventurer (b. 1742)
July–December
[edit]

- July 4 – Estcourt Cresswell, English politician (b. 1823)[23]
- July 8 – Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter (b. 1756)[24]
- August 1 – Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier of Great Britain (b. 1758)
- August 7 – Mátyás Laáb, Croatian writer, translator (b. 1746)
- August 18 – John Treadwell, the fourth Governor of Connecticut (b. 1745)
- August 20 – Pope Pius VII, Italian Benedictine (b. 1742)
- August 22 – Lazare Carnot, French general, politician and mathematician (b. 1753)
- August 30 – Pierre Prévost, French panorama painter (b. 1764)
- September 11 – David Ricardo, English economist (b. 1772)
- September 17 – Abraham-Louis Breguet, Swiss horologist, inventor (b. 1747)
- September 23 – Matthew Baillie, Scottish physician, pathologist (b. 1761)
- September 28 – Charlotte Melmoth, English-born American actress (b. 1749)
- November 9 – Vasily Kapnist, Ukrainian-Russian poet, dramatist (b. 1758)
- November 11 – Richard Richards, British judge and politician (b. 1752)
- December 3 – Giovanni Battista Belzoni, Italian explorer, pioneer archaeologist of Egypt (b. 1778)
- December 4 – Gregorio José Ramírez, Costa Rican politician, merchant and marine (b. 1796)
References
[edit]- ^ Aldhouse-Green, Stephen (October 2001). "Great Sites: Paviland Cave". British Archaeology (61). Retrieved July 16, 2010.
- ^ Simpson-Housley, Paul (1992). Antarctica:Exploration, Perception and Metaphor. New York: Routledge. p. 52. ISBN 0-415-08225-0.
- ^ According to Gustav Schilling.
- ^ Bethell, Leslie (1985). Brazil: Empire and Republic, 1822-1930. Cambridge University Press. p. 49.
- ^ "Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov", in Encyclopædia Britannica 28 (1910) p. 213.
- ^ Hasty, Olga Peters (1999). Pushkin's Tatiana. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 14.
- ^ Robert Huish, The Memoirs Private and Political of Daniel O'Connell, Esq., M.P., His Times and Contemporaries (W. Johnston, 1836) p129
- ^ Jie-Min, LCNA:Koh, Jaime,NIL:Vina; Singapore, National Library Board. "Raffles Institution". www.nlb.gov.sg. Retrieved 2025-07-13.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b c d Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 252–253. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
- ^ "Timeline of capital punishment in Britain". Retrieved March 3, 2012.
- ^ "Fires, Great", in Walford, Cornelius, ed. The Insurance Cyclopeadia: Being an Historical Treasury of Events and Circumstances Connected with the Origin and Progress of Insurance. C. & E. Layton, 1876. p.71.
- ^ "Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein". 2021-12-08.
- ^ The Cambridge Modern History, Volume 11 (Macmillan, 1909) p727.
- ^ Robert M. Utley, Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers (Oxford University Press, 2002)
- ^ Vaughn, W. E., ed. (1976). A New History of Ireland: Ireland Under the Union, 1870-1921. Clarendon Press. p. 423.
- ^ Donald J. Raleigh and A.A. Iskenderov, The Emperors and Empresses of Russia: Reconsidering the Romanovs (Routledge, 2015)
- ^ Gelien Matthews, Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement (LSU Press, 2006) p21
- ^ a b Charles A. Coulombe, Vicars of Christ: A History of the Popes (Citadel Press, 2003) pp393-397
- ^ As featured in the 2002 novel The Revenant and 2015 film of the same title.
- ^ Anderson, Maureen (2008). Durham Mining Disasters: c1700-1950s. Barnsley: Wharncliffe.
- ^ Mathewson, George (July 22, 2014). "Founding of Corunna was a capital idea". The Sarnia Journal. Archived from the original on 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
- ^ "Youssef Bey Karam on Ehden Family Tree website". Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
- ^ "CRESSWELL, Estcourt (c.1745-1823), of Bibury, nr. Cirencester, Glos. and Pinkney Park, Wilts. | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ^ "Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823)". National Records of Scotland. 31 May 2013. Retrieved 24 June 2022.
from Grokipedia
Events
January–March
On January 3, Stephen F. Austin received a grant of one league of land on the Brazos River in Mexican Texas from the Coahuila y Tejas state legislature, authorizing him to settle 300 families as colonists. On January 27, U.S. President James Monroe nominated and the Senate confirmed the first American diplomatic ministers to independent South American nations, including Caesar Rodney as minister to Buenos Aires (United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, now Argentina), Condy Raguet to Brazil, and John M. Forbes to Buenos Aires as chargé d'affaires, marking formal U.S. recognition of their sovereignty following independence from Spain.[9][10] On February 3, Gioachino Rossini's opera Semiramide premiered at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice under the Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, with libretto by Gaetano Rossi based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, featuring Isabella Colbran in the title role and marking Rossini's last opera seria.[11][12] On February 20, British navigator James Weddell, aboard the brig Jane and cutter Beaufoy, reached a southern latitude of 74°15′ S in an open sea, surpassing prior records set by James Cook and naming the expanse the "Open Sea" amid favorable conditions unusual for the season.[13] On February 28, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Johnson v. M'Intosh, holding that Native American tribes held occupancy rights to lands but that fee simple title vested in the discovering European sovereign, invalidating private purchases from tribes without government extinguishment based on longstanding international precedents of conquest and discovery.[14][15] On March 11, the first normal school in the United States, Concord Academy in Concord, Vermont, opened to train teachers, established by Samuel Read Hall to professionalize education instruction.[10]April–June
On April 7, the French Army of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis, comprising around 60,000 troops under the command of the Duke of Angoulême, crossed the Bidasoa River into Spain, marking the start of the military intervention authorized by the Congress of Verona to quell liberal constitutionalist forces and reinstate absolute monarchy under King Ferdinand VII.[4][16] This action followed Ferdinand's imprisonment by Spanish liberals during the Trienio Liberal (1820–1823), a period of revolutionary governance that had dismantled absolutist structures, prompting European monarchies to view the unrest as a threat to stability.[4] Three days later, on April 10, French forces commenced the Siege of Pamplona, a fortified city held by constitutionalist troops, initiating a prolonged blockade that aimed to isolate and compel surrender of key liberal strongholds in northern Spain.[17] The operation reflected the campaign's strategy of rapid advances combined with sieges to dismantle revolutionary defenses without widespread devastation, prioritizing restoration over conquest.[4] In Mexican Texas, empresario Stephen F. Austin, operating under his 1821 colonization contract, actively surveyed and prepared lands for Anglo-American settlement during this quarter, laying groundwork for contractual grants that would formalize pioneer claims and encourage migration into the sparsely populated frontier.[18] These efforts, continuing from initial surveys, positioned Austin's colony—encompassing modern Austin County—as the primary vector for organized territorial expansion, with land titles beginning issuance in coordination with Mexican authorities to promote agricultural development and loyalty to the Mexican government.[18][19]July–September
On July 2, 1823, the Portuguese garrison in Salvador, Bahia, surrendered to Brazilian forces after a prolonged siege, marking the final expulsion of loyalist troops from the province and solidifying Brazilian control amid the War of Independence.[20] This outcome followed naval blockades and land campaigns led by figures such as Lord Cochrane, resulting in the evacuation of approximately 10,000 Portuguese soldiers and securing Bahia's allegiance to the Empire of Brazil under Pedro I, thereby reducing internal fragmentation risks in the nascent empire.[21] The preceding day, July 1, 1823, saw the United Provinces of Central America declare formal independence from Mexico, following Emperor Agustín de Iturbide's abdication announced on March 19, 1823,[22] establishing a provisional federation across former Spanish captaincies-general including Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.[23] This act stemmed from local assemblies rejecting integration into the Mexican Empire, reflecting empirical divergences in regional elites' preferences for republican governance over monarchical centralization, though it initiated a period of constitutional assembly and federal stabilization efforts amid ongoing factional disputes.[23] In late August 1823, American frontiersman Hugh Glass, scouting for game during a fur-trapping expedition in the unclaimed territories of present-day South Dakota, encountered and killed a grizzly bear defending its cubs, only to sustain grievous wounds from the animal's counterattack.[24] Left for dead by companions Andrew Henry and John Fitzgerald due to the expedition's precarious position post-Arikara conflicts, Glass regained consciousness amid exposed ribs, lacerated flesh, and infection risks, then crawled roughly 200 miles over six weeks to Fort Kiowa, subsisting on berries, roots, and scavenged buffalo carcasses while evading further threats.[24] This incident underscored the lethal hazards of westward expansion in ungoverned plains, where small trapping parties faced acute vulnerabilities from wildlife and isolation without institutional support, contributing to the empirical tally of high mortality rates—estimated at over 50% for such ventures—in early 19th-century American frontier commerce.[25]October–December
On October 9, the remaining royalist garrison at Puerto Cabello surrendered to republican forces, effectively ending organized Spanish military resistance in Venezuela.[26] On December 2, President James Monroe delivered his 1823 State of the Union Address (seventh annual message) to the 18th United States Congress, declaring that the Western Hemisphere's American continents should not be regarded as subjects for future colonization by European powers and that any attempt to extend their political systems to independent American nations would be considered a manifestation of unfriendly disposition toward the United States.[1][27]Undated
Joseph Smith reported that, beginning in 1823, he received multiple visitations from an angelic being identified as Moroni, who informed him of the existence of buried golden plates containing an ancient religious record and sacred artifacts, located on a hill near his family's farm in Manchester, New York.[28] According to Smith's later accounts, Moroni provided detailed descriptions of the plates' contents, which chronicled the history and teachings of ancient American peoples, and instructed Smith to retrieve them only after spiritual preparation, emphasizing their divine origin and purpose for translation into English.[29] These reported events marked the initiation of Smith's involvement with what would become the Book of Mormon, though contemporary corroboration beyond Smith's testimony remains absent from independent records.[30]The Monroe Doctrine
Proclamation and Immediate Context
President James Monroe proclaimed the doctrine on December 2, 1823, during his Seventh Annual Message to Congress, warning European powers against further colonization or intervention in the Western Hemisphere.[2] The message's relevant passages, primarily drafted by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, emphasized that the American continents were closed to new European colonization and that any attempt to extend monarchical systems there would be viewed as a threat to U.S. peace and safety.[27] Adams, skeptical of aligning with Britain, convinced Monroe to issue a unilateral U.S. statement rather than a joint declaration.[31] The proclamation responded to immediate diplomatic pressures, including British Foreign Secretary George Canning's August 1823 proposal for a joint Anglo-American declaration opposing European recolonization of Latin America, which Monroe initially considered after consultations with former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.[31] Canning's overture stemmed from Britain's commercial interests in the newly independent republics, but U.S. leaders opted for independence in policy articulation to assert national sovereignty. Surrounding threats included the post-Napoleonic Holy Alliance—comprising Russia, Austria, Prussia, and supported by France—of potential intervention to restore Spanish rule in Latin America, following successful independence movements led by Simón Bolívar and others since 1810.[27] A key empirical trigger was France's April 7, 1823, invasion of Spain with 95,000 troops under the Duke of Angoulême, authorized by the Holy Alliance at the Verona Congress to suppress liberal revolts and reinstate absolutist King Ferdinand VII, raising fears of a similar monarchical intervention across the Atlantic.[32][27] This action exemplified the Alliance's commitment to counter-revolutionary principles, prompting U.S. vigilance against analogous moves in the Americas.[33]
