Mexico's General Santa Anna buried his own leg with full military honours.
He lost it in 1838 in the Pastry War, to French grapeshot near Veracruz.
The event
More amazing facts
- 1837 Pushkin died after a duel in early 1837; that October Russia's first train ran from Saint Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo, the town where he had gone to school.
- 1838 The first person ever photographed got into the picture because he was having his boots shined.
- 1839 · 1842 The word 'dinosaur' is younger than photography: the daguerreotype was unveiled in 1839, while Richard Owen coined the 'terrible lizard' only in 1842.
- 1839 · 1860 Tyre rubber was invented by dropping some on a stove.
- 1840 Before the railways, Bristol kept its own time, ten minutes behind London.
- 1840 Britain is the only country whose stamps carry no country name.