Britain annexes the Punjab
The fall of the Sikh Empire — and the Koh-i-Noor for the Queen
The Second Anglo-Sikh War of 1848–1849 ended with the Sikh defeat at Gujrat. The East India Company annexed the Punjab, the last major independent state in India, and the Koh-i-Noor diamond from the Lahore treasury was sent to Queen Victoria.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1839 Birth of photography: the daguerreotype — 9 years earlier
- 1845–1852 Great Famine in Ireland — 3 years earlier
- 1848–1849 Revolutions of 1848 — same year
- 1848 The Communist Manifesto — same year
- 1861 Unification of Italy — 13 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 5 years later
- 1858 Treaty of Aigun — 10 years later
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 13 years later
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — 16 years later
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 19 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
- 1830 France invades Algiers — 18 years earlier
- 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
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)