1803

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Completing the Louisiana Purchase from France .

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Events

January–March

January 1 – The first edition of Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière's Almanach des gourmands, the first guide to restaurant cooking, is published in Paris.
January 4 – William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat", in Scotland.
January 30 – Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to discuss, and possibly buy, New Orleans; they end up completing the Louisiana Purchase.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
February 19
- An Act of Mediation, issued by Napoleon Bonaparte, establishes the Swiss Confederation to replace the Helvetic Republic. Under the terms of the act, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, the Ticino and Vaud become Swiss cantons.
- Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
February 20 – Kandyan Wars: Kandy, Ceylon is taken by a British detachment.
February 21 – Edward Despard and six others are hanged and beheaded for plotting to assassinate King George III of the United Kingdom, and to destroy the Bank of England.
February 24 – Marbury v. Madison: The Supreme Court of the United States establishes the principle of judicial review.
February 25 – A major redistribution of territorial sovereignty within the Holy Roman Empire is enacted, via an act known as the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss.
March 9 – Aargau becomes a Swiss canton.

April–June

March–April – The franc germinal is introduced in France.
April 5 — Ludwig van Beethoven puts on a big Akademie concert at the Theater an der Wien, in Vienna consisting of the premieres of his second symphony, third piano concerto, and his oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives.
April 26 – The L'Aigle meteorite falls in Normandy, causing a shift in scientific opinion on the origin of meteorites.
April 30 – The Louisiana Purchase is made from France by the United States.[1]
May – First Consul of France, Citizen Bonaparte, begins making preparations to invade England.
May 18 – The Napoleonic Wars begin, when the United Kingdom declares war on France, after France refuses to withdraw from Dutch territory.
May 19 – Master Malati, a Coptic Christian leader, is beheaded by a Muslim mob in Cairo, Egypt.
June 7 – Indiana Territory governor (and future U.S. president) William Henry Harrison signs treaties at Fort Wayne, with representatives of the Delaware, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Miami, Kickapoo, Eel River, Wea, Piankeshaw and Kaskaskia Indian tribes. The U.S. Senate ratifies the treaties on November 25.<ref>Laws of the United States of America; from March 4, 1789, to March 4, 1815 (Weightman, 1815) p714</ref>
June 14 – Napoleon Bonaparte orders the establishment of five military camps to defend the coast of France, located at Bayonne, Ghent, Saint-Omer, Compiègne, Saint-Malo, and one in the occupied Netherlands, at Utrecht. Each one has 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry to defend it.<ref>Frederick C. Schneid, Napoleon's Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition (Greenwood, 2005) pp77-78</ref>

July–September

July 4 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
July 5 – The convention of Artlenburg leads to the French occupation of Hanover (which had been ruled by the British king).
July 23 – Robert Emmet's uprising in Ireland begins.
July 26 – The wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon is opened, being the first public railway line in England.
August 3 – The British begin the Second Anglo-Maratha War, against the Scindia Dynasty of Gwalior.
August 31 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition begins as Lewis and a crew of 11 depart on the Ohio River.
September 6 – John Dalton, British scientist, begins using symbols to represent the atoms of different elements.
September 11 – Second Anglo-Maratha War: Battle of Delhi – British troops under General Lake defeat the Marathas of Scindia's army, under General Louis Bourquin.
September 20 – Irish rebel Robert Emmet is executed.
September 23 – Second Anglo-Maratha War: Battle of Assaye – British-led troops defeat Maratha forces.

October–December

October 14 – Orissa, an area of India along the Bay of Bengal that comprises the modern-day Indian state of Odisha, is occupied by the British under the British East India Company, after the Second Anglo-Maratha War.<ref>Chandan Kumar Sadangi and Sanjay Mohapatra, Change Management for Organizations: Lessons from Political Upheaval in India (Emerald Group Publishing, 2017) p x</ref> The Maratha Empire formally cedes the area in the Treaty of Deogaon, signed on December 17.<ref>Lieutenant-Colonel H. F. Murland, Baillie-Ki-Paltan: Being a History of the 2nd Battalion, Madras Pioneers 1759–1930 (Andrews UK Ltd., 2012) p122</ref>
October 20 – The Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, doubling the size of the United States.
November 18 – Haitian Revolution: Battle of Vertières – The Haitian army, led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defeats the French army sent by Napoleon.
November 30
- The Balmis Expedition starts in Spain, with the aim of vaccinating millions against smallpox in Spanish America and the Philippines.
- At the Cabildo in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marqués de Casa Calvo officially transfer Louisiana (New Spain) to French representative Prefect Pierre Clément de Laussat.<ref>Robert S. Levine, Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism (University of North Carolina Press, 2009) p27</ref> Barely three weeks later, France transfers the same land to the United States.
December 9 – The proposed Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, requiring that electoral ballots distinctly list the choice for president and the choice for vice president, is approved by Congress for submission to the states for ratification; passed in the wake of the problems in the 1800 presidential election, the amendment is ratified by 13 of the 17 states and is proclaimed in effect on September 25, 1804.<ref>The Constitution of the United States of America, As Amended, ed. by Jack Brooks (U. S. House of Representatives, 1992) pp15-16</ref>
December 20 – The Louisiana Purchase is completed as the French prefect, de Laussat, formally transfers ownership of land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains to the United States, by way of commissioners William C. C. Claiborne and James Wilkinson.<ref>Charles Etienne and Arthur Gayarré, History of Louisiana: The American Domination (Pelican Publishing, 1972)</ref> Claiborne is appointed as the area's first American governor.<ref>C. A. Goodrich, History of the United States (Huntington and Hopkins, 1823) p306</ref>