The invention of margarine
Napoleon III offers a prize for a butter substitute
Napoleon III offered a prize for a cheap butter substitute for the army and the poor. In 1869 the chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès won it with “oleomargarine”, made from beef fat and milk.
Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Did you know
Margarine was invented for a prize offered by Napoleon III. The emperor wanted cheap butter for the army and the poor, and in 1869 the chemist Mège-Mouriès won with oleomargarine made from beef fat. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 8 years earlier
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — 5 years earlier
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 2 years earlier
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — same year
- 1877 Premiere of Swan Lake — 8 years later
Middle East
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 7 years later
Africa
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — same year
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 10 years later
- 1885 The Mahdists take Khartoum — 16 years later
- 1885–1908 The Congo Free State — 16 years later
- 1886 The Witwatersrand Gold Rush — 17 years later
Asia
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 16 years earlier
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 1 year earlier
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — 7 years later
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 14 years later
- 1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — 16 years later
Americas
- 1865 Assassination of Abraham Lincoln — 4 years earlier
- 1867 Canadian Confederation — 2 years earlier
- 1869 First transcontinental railroad — same year
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 7 years later
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 10 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 18 years earlier
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 24 years later
- 1893 Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom — 24 years later
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 60)
- Karl Marx (aged 51)
- Queen Victoria (aged 50)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 48)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 41)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 35)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 29)
- Thomas Edison (aged 22)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 16)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 13)