1839

June 3: China's Imperial Commissioner Lin Zexu begins month-long program of destroying opium seized from British traders, triggering the First Opium War

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Events

January–March

January 2 – The first photograph of the Moon is taken, by French photographer Louis Daguerre.
January 6 – Night of the Big Wind: Ireland is struck by the most damaging cyclone in 300 years.
January 9 – The French Academy of Sciences announces the daguerreotype photography process.
January 19 – The British Aden Expedition captures Aden.
January 20 – Battle of Yungay: Chile defeats the Peru–Bolivian Confederation, leading to the restoration of an independent Peru.
January – The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson.
February 11 – The University of Missouri is established, becoming the first public university west of the Mississippi River.
February 24 – William Otis receives a U.S. patent for the steam shovel.
March 5 – Longwood University is founded in Farmville, Virginia.
March 7 – Baltimore City College, the third public high school in the United States, is established in Baltimore, Maryland.
March 9
- The Anti-Corn Law League is founded in Manchester, England.
- The Pastry War between France and Mexico ends.
- Prussia imposes the Child Labor Law of 1839, becoming the first nation in the world to place restrictions on child labor.
March 23
- An earthquake in the Kingdom of Burma kills more than 400 people and destroys three cities, as well as heavily damaging the capital at Ava.
- The Boston Morning Post first records the use of "O.K." (oll korrect).
March 26 – The first Henley Royal Regatta is held on the River Thames in England.

April–June

April 9 – The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation, alongside the Great Western Railway line in England, from London Paddington station to West Drayton.
April 19 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom, with its independence and neutrality guaranteed by the great powers of Europe. Half of the Limburg province of Belgium is added to the Netherlands, giving rise to a Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg (the latter being joined (from September 5) to the German Confederation).
April 24 – Boston University is established as the Newbury Biblical Institute in Vermont.
May 7–11 – The Bedchamber Crisis in the United Kingdom: Following the announcement by Prime Minister Lord Melbourne that he intends to resign,<ref> Mark Hovell, The Chartist Movement (Manchester University Press, 1966) p143.</ref> Robert Peel asks (for political reasons) that Queen Victoria dismiss some of her personal attendants, Ladies of the Bedchamber, as a condition for his forming a government. Victoria refuses to accept the condition and Melbourne is persuaded to stay on as Prime Minister.<ref>Template:Cite hansard</ref>
13 May – First Rebecca Riots targeted against turnpikes in Wales, at Efailwen in Carmarthenshire.<ref name="Welsh Academy">Template:Cite book</ref>
May 12 – Socialist activist Louis Auguste Blanqui and the Société des Saisons begin an uprising against the government of France. The insurrection is suppressed, but not before 50 people are killed and 190 wounded. Blanqui is imprisoned until 1848.<ref> Jill Harsin, Barricades: The War of the Streets in Revolutionary Paris, 1830-1848 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002) p124.</ref>
May 22 – Former British statesman Lord Durham, as President of the New Zealand Company, formally asks the British government for permission to colonize New Zealand, and to establish a colonial government under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.<ref>T. Lindsay Buick, The French at Akaroa: An Adventure in Colonization (Cambridge University Press, 1928)(reprinted 2011) p294</ref>
May 23 – Turkish troops cross the Euphrates River and invade Syria, but are defeated in battle in June.<ref>Charles Alan Fyffe, A History of Modern Europe, Volume 2 (Cassell & Company, 1886) p453</ref>
June 3 – Destruction of opium at Humen begins, casus belli for Britain to open the 3-year First Opium War against Qing dynasty China. A rapid rise in the sale of opium in China to over 40,000 chests (~Template:Convert per annum)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=CIH>Template:Cite book</ref> has caused the Chinese government to dispatch scholar-official Lin Zexu to Guangzhou to deal with the growing problem of opium addiction.
June 22 – Louis Daguerre receives a patent for his camera (commercially available by September at the price of 400 francs).
June 27 – The emperor of the Sikh Empire, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, dies at 58.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

July–September

File:Storming Column entering Fortress at Ghuznee.jpg

Lithograph depicting the July 23 storming of the fortress during the Battle of Ghazni.

July 1
- Slaves aboard the Amistad rebel, and capture the ship.
- Abdülmecid I (1839–1861) succeeds Mahmud II (1808–1839) as Ottoman Emperor.
July 23 – First Anglo-Afghan War: Battle of Ghazni – British forces capture the fortress city of Ghazni in Afghanistan.
August 8 – The Fraternity of Beta Theta Pi is founded by John Reily Knox at Miami University.
August 19 – The French government gives the daguerreotype "for the whole world".
August 31 – The First Carlist War (Spain) ends with the Convenio de Vergara, also known as the Abrazo de Vergara ("the embrace in Vergara"; Bergara in Basque), between liberal general Baldomero Espartero, Count of Luchana and Carlist General Rafael Maroto.
September 4 – Battle of Kowloon: British vessels open fire on Chinese war junks enforcing a food sales embargo on the British community in China in the first armed conflict of the First Opium War.

October–December

October 3 – A railway between Naples and Portici (Template:Convert) in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is inaugurated by King Ferdinand II of Bourbon as the first line in the Italian Peninsula.
October 15 – Emir Abdelkader declares a jihad against the French.
November 4 – Newport Rising: Between 5,000 and 10,000 Chartist sympathisers march on Newport, Monmouthshire, to liberate Chartist prisoners; around 22 are killed when troops fire on the crowd.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This is the last large-scale armed civil rebellion against authority in mainland Britain and sees the most deaths.
November 11 – The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
November 17 – Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio, opens in Milan.
November 25 – A disastrous cyclone hits India with terrible winds and a giant 40-foot storm surge, wiping out the port city of Coringa; 300,000 people die.
November 27 – The American Statistical Association is founded in Boston, Massachusetts.
December 6 – The Whig Party (United States), at its first ever national convention, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, nominates former U.S. Army General William Henry Harrison to be its candidate for President of the United States in the 1840 election. Although Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky has received 103 of the 128 necessary votes on the first ballot, he obtains only 90 on the final vote, while Harrison gets 148. Former U.S. Senator John Tyler is unanimously nominated for vice president.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
December 26 – Heinola in the Grand Duchy of Finland is granted town rights by Czar Nicholas I.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Date unknown

The United Kingdom, backed by the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire, compels July Monarchy France to abandon Muhammad Ali of Egypt, and forces him to return Syria and Arabia to the Ottoman Empire.
Khalid bin Saud Al Suad usurps the throne from Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah Al Saud, who assumed power of Nejd in 1834, and is sent to Cairo as prisoner. Omar bin Ofaysan, the Amir Faisal's governor in the Eastern Province seeks asylum in Bahrain, but Khalid the pretender demands his surrender and the surrender of the fort at Dammam; then under the control of the Al Khalifa of Bahrain.
Khorshid Pasha vows to attack Bahrain to exert Egyptian rule over Bahrain, but his attack is prevented after Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed of Bahrain pays tribute.
A quarrel breaks out between the Chief of Abu Dhabi of the Beniyas tribe, Shaikh Khalifa bin Shakboot, and the fugitives who settled there after their departure from Bahrain, the Al Binali tribe. Under the command of their leader, Isa bin Tureef Al Binali, they relocate to Kenn Island where they exercise depredations over the Bahraini and other Gulf vessels. Their motive is to restore their belongings which they abandoned upon leaving Bahrain.
Tanzimat starts in the Ottoman Empire.
Emperor Minh Mạng renames Việt Nam to Đại Nam.
In the United States, the first state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.
Michael Faraday publishes Experimental Researches in Electricity,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> clarifying the true nature of electricity.
Charles Goodyear vulcanizes rubber.
Valley Falls Company, a predecessor of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate and holdings company in the United States, is founded in Rhode Island.Template:Citation needed
Chattanooga, Tennessee, is incorporated as a town.
Galveston, Texas, is incorporated.
Episcopal High School (Alexandria, Virginia) is founded in Alexandria, Virginia, as the first high school in Virginia.
Archaeological excavation at the Mayan site of Copán begins.Template:Citation needed