1842
Events
- February 21 - John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.
- March 5 - Over 500 Mexican troops led by Rafael Vasquez invade Texas briefly occupy San Antonio and then head back to the Rio Grande. This is the first such invasion since the Texas Revolution.
- March 30 - Anesthesia is used for the first time in an operation (Dr. Crawford Long performed the operation and ether was used).
- March 31 - Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway line opened up to Werneth in North West England.
- August 9 - Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed, establishing the United States-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.
- Massacre of Elphinstone's British army on the road from Kabul to Jallalabad, Afghanistan, by Mohammed Akbar, son of Dost Mohammed Khan
- August 29 - Treaty of Nanking signing ends the First Opium War
- British Empire annexes Hong Kong
- Pentonville Prison built.
- New Zealand seat of government moves from Russell to Auckland
Births
- February 4 - Arrigo Boito, poet and composer
- February 25 - Karl May, writer (d. 1912)
- March 10 - Mykola Lysenko, composer
- April 14 - Catherine Eddowes, fourth confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper (d. 1888)
- May 8 - Emil Christian Hansen, fermentation physiologist
- May 13 - Arthur Sullivan, composer (d. 1900)
- May 17 - August Thyssen, industrialist (d. 1926)
- August 23 - Osborne Reynolds, engineer and physicist
- September 13 - John H. Bankhead, United States Senator (d. 1920)
- September 21 - Abd-ul-Hamid II, future Ottoman sultan
- October 14 - Joe Start, baseball player
- December 9 - Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist (d. 1921)
- Anna Elizabeth Dickenson - Orator
- Rikard Nordraak, Norwegian composer
Deaths
- March 13 - Henry Shrapnel, soldier, inventor
- March 23 - Stendhal, writer
- March 30 - Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, French painter
- April 4 - Jean Moufot, French philosopher and mathematician
- May 8 - Jules Dumont d'Urville, explorer
- September 15 - Francisco Morazán, President of Central America