First Anglo-Afghan War
The retreat from Kabul: Britain's worst disaster in Asia
Fearing Russian influence, Britain invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and installed the puppet Shah Shuja. A rising in Kabul forced the British to retreat over the winter passes in January 1842: a column of 4,500 troops and some 12,000 camp followers was almost entirely wiped out. Army surgeon William Brydon reached Jalalabad, and his arrival became the emblem of the disaster.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — 25 years earlier
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — 6 years earlier
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — same year
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — 6 years later
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 22 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 14 years later
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 22 years later
Africa
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — 4 years earlier
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — 8 years later
Asia
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — 24 years earlier
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — 20 years earlier
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — 8 years earlier
- 1839–1842 First Opium War — same year
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 14 years later
Americas
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — 17 years earlier
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — 4 years earlier
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — 1 year earlier
- 1846 First public demonstration of ether anaesthesia — 7 years later
- 1846–1848 Mexican–American War — 7 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 12 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 30)
- Abraham Lincoln (aged 30)
- Karl Marx (aged 21)
- Queen Victoria (aged 20)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 18)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 11)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 5)
- Katsushika Hokusai (aged 79)
- Andrew Jackson (aged 72)
- Muhammad Ali of Egypt (aged 70)