Ranavalona I, Queen of Madagascar
A queen who kept Europe at bay for 33 years
In 1828 the widow of King Radama I took the throne of Merina, the state that had united most of Madagascar. Ranavalona I expelled missionaries, banned Christianity and harshly persecuted converts, and repelled British and French naval attacks. Yet she used European skills: the Frenchman Jean Laborde built her an entire industrial complex. Europeans called her the 'mad queen'; Malagasy historians judge her more kindly.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1804 Coronation of Napoleon — 24 years earlier
- 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna — 14 years earlier
- 1833 Abolition of slavery in the British Empire — 5 years later
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — 11 years later
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — 17 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1812 Napoleon's invasion of Russia — 16 years earlier
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 25 years later
Middle East
- 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay — same year
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — 11 years later
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — 11 years later
Asia
- 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora — 13 years earlier
- 1817–1824 First cholera pandemic — 11 years earlier
- 1819 Raffles founds modern Singapore — 9 years earlier
- c. 1831 Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa — 3 years later
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 25 years later
Americas
- 1803 Louisiana Purchase — 25 years earlier
- 1817 San Martín's Crossing of the Andes — 11 years earlier
- 1822 Independence of Brazil — 6 years earlier
- 1835 Darwin in the Galápagos — 7 years later
- 1838–1839 Trail of Tears — 10 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 23 years later
Alive at the time
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (aged 79)
- Simón Bolívar (aged 45)
- Alexander Pushkin (aged 29)
- Charles Darwin (aged 19)
- Abraham Lincoln (aged 19)
- Karl Marx (aged 10)
- Queen Victoria (aged 9)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 7)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 0)
- Katsushika Hokusai (aged 68)