The Communist Manifesto
Marx and Engels: “Workers of the world, unite!”
In February 1848 a pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League, appeared in London. The Manifesto described history as class struggle and predicted the fall of capitalism. It became one of the most influential political texts, inspiring socialist parties and the revolutions of the 20th century.
Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 5 years later
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 13 years later
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 19 years later
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 21 years later
Middle East
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — 20 years earlier
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — 9 years earlier
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — 9 years earlier
Africa
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — 13 years earlier
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — 1 year earlier
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 21 years later
Asia
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — 17 years earlier
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — 9 years earlier
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 5 years later
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 20 years later
Americas
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — 13 years earlier
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — 10 years earlier
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — 2 years earlier
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — 2 years earlier
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — 13 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 3 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 39)
- Abraham Lincoln (aged 39)
- Karl Marx (aged 30)
- Queen Victoria (aged 29)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 27)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 20)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 14)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 8)
- Thomas Edison (aged 1)
- Katsushika Hokusai (aged 88)