1825: the first public steam railway opened in England, and in St Petersburg the Decembrists marched onto Senate Square.
The events
- First public steam railway1825 · Darlington. On 27 September 1825 the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in England, the first public railway to use steam locomotives. The train was hauled by George Stephenson's Locomotion No. 1. The railway age that transformed industry and trade had begun.
- Decembrist revolt1825 · Senate Square, Saint Petersburg. On 26 December 1825 noble officers led troops onto Senate Square, refusing to swear allegiance to Nicholas I and demanding a constitution. The revolt was crushed by artillery; five leaders were hanged and over a hundred exiled to Siberia.
More amazing facts
- 1804 1804: Napoleon crowned himself emperor, while the former slaves of Haiti, having beaten his army, declared independence — the first nation founded by a slave revolt.
- 1809 · 1859 · 1861 Darwin and Lincoln were born on the same day: 12 February 1809.
- 1815 Two months before Waterloo, in April 1815, Indonesia's Tambora erupted — its ash brought the 'Year Without a Summer' to Europe and North America.
- 1835 · 1859 Darwin spent five weeks on the Galápagos in 1835, but did not publish On the Origin of Species until 24 years later.
- 1844 In May 1844 Morse sent the first telegram from Washington to Baltimore; ten days later the last pair of great auks was killed in Iceland.
- 1850 · 1861 China's Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) overlapped with the American Civil War and cost an estimated 20–30 million lives — many times more.