1836

Events

   * February 23 - The siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
   * February 24 - Samuel Colt receives a patent for the Colt revolver
   * March 2 - Declaration of independence of Texas from Mexico.
   * March 5 - Samuel Colt makes the first pistol (.34-caliber).
   * March 6 - After a 13-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the
     189 Texas volunteers defending the Alamo are defeated and the fort
     taken.
   * March 27 - Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Santa Ana orders the
     Mexican army to kill about 400 Texans at Goliad, Texas
   * May 15 - Francis Baily, during an eclipse of the sun, observes the
     phenomenon named after him as Baily's beads
   * June 15 - Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.
   * September 1 - Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white woman to settle
     west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.
   * September 5 - Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the
     Republic of Texas.
   * October 2 - Naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England
     aboard the HMS Beagle after a 5-year journey collecting biological data
     he will later use to develop his theory of evolution.
   * November - Martin Van Buren defeats William Henry Harrison in the U.S.
     presidential election

Births

   * January 14 - Henri Fantin-Latour, painter
   * January 27 - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, writer (+ 1895)
   * February 24 - Winslow Homer, artist
   * March 27 - Sir Henry Royce, automobile pioneer
   * May 27 - Jay Gould, American financier (+ 1892)
   * May 28 - Alexander Mitscherlich, chemist (+ 1918)
   * June 2 - Mily Balakirev, composer (+ 1910)
   * July 8 - Joseph Chamberlain, British politician
   * Sri Ramakrishna (+ 1886)

Deaths

   * November 5 - Karel Hynek Macha, poet
   * June 28 - James Madison, Fourth President of the United States

Heads of states

   * Ottoman Empire - Mahmud II Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1808-1839)
   * Prussia - Frederick William III King of Prussia (1797-1840)