Born in 1809:

• Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of the United States.
• German composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
• English naturalist Charles Robert Darwin.
• American poet, novelist, and overall creep Edgar Allan Poe.
• English poet Alfred Tennyson.
• Polish poet Juliusz Slowacki.
• French poet Xavier Forneret.
• American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
• English politician and future prime minister William Ewart Gladstone (to Scottish parents in Liverpool).
• Texas general William Barret Travis, commander at The Alamo.
• French socialist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
• American leader of westward movement and black nationalism, Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, into slavery.
• American abolitionist George Luther Stearns, financial backer of John Brown.
• French mathematician Joseph Liouville.
• Irish physicist James MacCullagh.
• German mathematician Hermann Grassmann.
• German anatomist and physician Friedrich Henle.
• American frontiersman Kit Carson.

Died in 1809:

• American soldier and explorer Meriwether Lewis, suicide while at an inn on the road from Natchez to Nashville.
• English poet Anna Seward.
• Austrian composer Franz Josef Haydn.
• German composer Johann Georg Albrechtsberger.
• English-born American propagandist and pamphleteer Thomas Paine.
• Siamese king Rama I. His son Rama II succeeds him.
• French Marshal Jean Lannes along with 20,000 French and 23,300 Austrians at Aspern and Essling.
• 40,000 Austrians and 34,000 French at Wagram.
• 6,200 British and 7,400 French at Talavera.

Events of 1809:

• (March 4) James Madison inaugurated as President.  His wife, Dolley, starts the tradition of an Easter Egg Roll on the United States Capitol grounds (later moved to the White House lawn).
• Congress organises the Illinois Territory.
• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck publishes his Zoological Philosophy, an early form of the theory of evolution.
• The Spanish governor of Texas forbids all foreigners from entering.
• The rivalry between two British cabinet ministers leads to a duel on Putney Heath¹.
• Napoleon Bonaparte tries to clean up the mess he made of Spain, but cannot dislodge Sir Arthur Wellesley out of Portugal. Austria sees an opportunity to regain some of its territory and pride.
• (February 21) Marshal Lannes finally captures Zaragoza.
• (March 1) The United States Congress repeals the Embargo Act, whose only accomplishment was to ruin the U.S. economy.
• (April 8) Austria invades Bavaria.  Napoleon is still in Spain.  The Austrians advance through Bavaria.
• (April 22) Napoleon arrives at Eckmuhl and begins to push the Austrians out of Bavaria.
• (May 12) Wellesley forces Marshal Soult out of Oporto.
• (May 13) Napoleon brings his army to Vienna, albeit on the other side of the Danube.
• (May 17) Napoleon annexes the Papal States.
• (May 20) Napoleon crosses the Danube, and occupies Aspern and Essling.
• (May 22) Napoleon beats back an Austrian attack with much bloodshed, but Marshal Lannes is killed and the French army retreats to an island in the Danube.
• (June 6-9) Napoleon defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Wagram. Hardly a masterpiece of tactics, but it left Vienna unprotected.
• (June 10) Pope Pius VII excommunicates the invaders; Napoleon is not mentioned by name.
• (July 5-6) Pius is arrested.
• (July 27-28) Wellesley beats off Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Victor at the Battle of Talavera, and is made Viscount Wellington for his efforts.
• (October 12) Staps attempts to assassinate Napoleon.
• (October 14) Austria and France sign the Treaty of Schönbrunn:
• Napoleon parcels bits of Galicia off to Russia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
• Napoleon takes East Tyrol, Croatia, and Slovenia for himself.
• Austria agrees to join the embargo against Great Britain known as the Continental System.
• (December 16) Napoleon divorces Josephine.

¹Suggested by mauler.

1808 - 1809 - 1810

How they Were Made - 19th Century