The Musket Wars
European guns shattered the old balance between the tribes
Once Māori began trading for European muskets, old tribal feuds turned into a devastating arms race. The Ngāpuhi chief Hongi Hika visited England in 1820 and came back with hundreds of guns to strike his neighbours. Over three decades hundreds of battles were fought; by various estimates 20,000 to 40,000 people died, and whole tribes were driven from their lands.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1789 Storming of the Bastille — 18 years earlier
- 1796 Jenner's first vaccination — 11 years earlier
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — 3 years earlier
- 1805 Battle of Trafalgar — 2 years earlier
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — 7 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1783 Russian annexation of Crimea (1783) — 24 years earlier
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — 5 years later
Middle East
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — 21 years later
Africa
- 1798 Battle of the Pyramids — 9 years earlier
- 1804–1903 Usman dan Fodio's jihad and the Sokoto Caliphate — 3 years earlier
- 1805–1848 Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of Egypt — 2 years earlier
Asia
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — 8 years later
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — 10 years later
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — 12 years later
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — 24 years later
Americas
- 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution — 16 years earlier
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — 4 years earlier
- 1810–1826 Spanish American wars of independence — 3 years later
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — 10 years later
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — 15 years later
Alive at the time
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (aged 58)
- Napoleon Bonaparte (aged 38)
- Ludwig van Beethoven (aged 37)
- Simón Bolívar (aged 24)
- Alexander Pushkin (aged 8)
- James Watt (aged 71)
- George III (aged 69)
- Thomas Jefferson (aged 64)
- Mikhail Kutuzov (aged 62)
- Louis XVIII (aged 52)