The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat
An edict read in a rose garden promises equality to all subjects
On 3 November 1839 the minister Mustafa Reşid Pasha read out the Edict of Gülhane on behalf of the young Sultan Abdulmejid I. It guaranteed subjects' life, honour and property regardless of religion and promised fair taxes and orderly conscription. It opened the Tanzimat — nearly 40 years of European-style reform of the army, schools, courts and laws.
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)