1847 in the United States
Encyclopedia

Incumbents

  • President
    President of the United States
    The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

    : James K. Polk
    James K. Polk
    James Knox Polk was the 11th President of the United States . Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the 12th Governor of Tennessee...

     (Democratic
    Democratic Party (United States)
    The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

    )
  • Vice President
    Vice President of the United States
    The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

    : George M. Dallas
    George M. Dallas
    George Mifflin Dallas was a U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and the 11th Vice President of the United States , serving under James K. Polk.-Family and early life:...

     (Democratic
    Democratic Party (United States)
    The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

    )
  • Chief Justice
    Chief Justice of the United States
    The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...

    : Roger B. Taney
    Roger B. Taney
    Roger Brooke Taney was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was the first Roman Catholic to hold that office or sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also the eleventh United States Attorney General. He is most...

  • Speaker of the House of Representatives
    Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
    The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, or Speaker of the House, is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives...

    : John Wesley Davis
    John Wesley Davis
    John Wesley Davis was a doctor and a prominent U.S. politician during the 1840s.-Early life and education:...

     (D
    Democratic Party (United States)
    The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

    -Indiana) (until March 4), Robert Charles Winthrop
    Robert Charles Winthrop
    Robert Charles Winthrop was an American lawyer and philanthropist and one time Speaker of the United States House of Representatives....

     (Whig
    Whig Party (United States)
    The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...

    -Massachusetts) (starting December 6)
  • Congress
    United States Congress
    The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

    : 29th
    29th United States Congress
    -House of Representatives:During this congress, two House seats were added for each of the new states of Texas and Iowa.-Leadership:-Senate:* President: George M. Dallas * President pro tempore: Willie P. Mangum...

     (until March 4), 30th
    30th United States Congress
    The Thirtieth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1847 to March 3, 1849, during the last two years of...

     (starting March 4)

January–March

  • January 4 – Samuel Colt
    Samuel Colt
    Samuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...

     sells his first revolver
    Revolver
    A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...

     pistol to the U.S government.
  • January 13 – The Treaty of Cahuenga
    Treaty of Cahuenga
    The Treaty of Cahuenga, also called the "Capitulation of Cahuenga," ended the fighting of the Mexican-American War in Alta California in 1847. It was not a formal treaty between nations but an informal agreement between rival military forces in which the Californios gave up fighting...

     ends the fighting in the Mexican-American War in California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

    .
  • January 16 – John C. Fremont
    John C. Frémont
    John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...

     is appointed Governor of the new California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

     Territory.
  • January 17 – Saint Anthony Hall is founded at Columbia University
    Columbia University
    Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

    , New York City
    New York City
    New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

    , New York
    New York
    New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

    .
  • January 30 – Yerba Buena
    Yerba Buena (town)
    Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco when in the Spanish Las Californias Province of New Spain, and then after 1822 in the Mexican territory of Alta California, until the Mexican American War ended with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when California became a territory of the...

    , California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

     is renamed San Francisco
    San Francisco, California
    San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

    .
  • February 5 – A rescue effort, called the First Relief, leaves Johnson's Ranch to save the ill-fated Donner Party
    Donner Party
    The Donner Party was a group of American pioneers who set out for California in a wagon train. Delayed by a series of mishaps, they spent the winter of 1846–47 snowbound in the Sierra Nevada...

    . These California bound emigrants became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846–1847, and some had resorted to cannibalism to survive.
  • February 22 – Mexican-American War – The Battle of Buena Vista
    Battle of Buena Vista
    The Battle of Buena Vista , also known as the Battle of Angostura, saw the United States Army use artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army in the Mexican-American War...

    : 5,000 American troops under General Zachary Taylor
    Zachary Taylor
    Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...

     use their superiority in artillery
    Artillery
    Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

     to drive off 15,000 Mexican
    Mexico
    The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

     troops under Antonio López de Santa Anna
    Antonio López de Santa Anna
    Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón , often known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna, known as "the Napoleon of the West," was a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government...

    , defeating the Mexicans the next day.
  • March 1 – The state of Michigan
    Michigan
    Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

     formally abolishes the death penalty.
  • March 9 – Mexican-American War: United States forces under General Winfield Scott
    Winfield Scott
    Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....

     invade Mexico
    Mexico
    The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

     near Veracruz.
  • March 29 – Mexican-American War: United States forces led by General Winfield Scott
    Winfield Scott
    Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....

     take Veracruz after a siege
    Siege
    A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...

    .

April–June

  • May 7 – In Philadelphia
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
    Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

    , the American Medical Association
    American Medical Association
    The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...

     (AMA) is founded.
  • June 1 – Zeta Psi
    Zeta Psi
    The Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America was founded June 1, 1847 as a social college fraternity. The organization now comprises about fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand brothers, and is a founding member of the North-American...

     Fraternity of North America is founded at New York University
    New York University
    New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

    .

July–September

  • July 1 – The United States issues its first postage stamp
    Postage stamp
    A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

    s.
  • July 24 – After 17 months of travel, Brigham Young
    Brigham Young
    Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...

     leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Salt Lake Valley
    Salt Lake Valley
    Salt Lake Valley is a valley in Salt Lake County in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Utah. It contains Salt Lake City and many of its suburbs, notably West Valley City, Murray, Sandy, and West Jordan; its total population is 1,029,655 as of 2010...

    , resulting in the establishment of Salt Lake City.
  • July 29 – The Cumberland School of Law
    Cumberland School of Law
    Cumberland School of Law is an ABA accredited law school at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The 11th oldest law school in the United States, it is 160 years old and has more than 11,000 graduates. Its alumni include two United States Supreme Court Justices; Nobel Peace Prize recipient...

     is founded at Cumberland University
    Cumberland University
    Cumberland University is a private university in Lebanon, Tennessee, United States. It was founded in 1842, though the current campus buildings were constructed between 1892 and 1896.-History:...

     in Lebanon, Tennessee
    Tennessee
    Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

    . At the end of 1847 only 15 law schools exist in the United States.
  • August 12 – U.S. troops of General Winfield Scott
    Winfield Scott
    Winfield Scott was a United States Army general, and unsuccessful presidential candidate of the Whig Party in 1852....

     begin to advance along the aqueduct
    Aqueduct
    An aqueduct is a water supply or navigable channel constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the term is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels, and other structures used for this purpose....

     around Chalco
    Chalco
    Aluminum Corporation of China Limited, also known as Chalco , is a multinational aluminum company headquartered in Beijing, People's Republic of China...

     and Xochimilco
    Xochimilco
    Xochimilco is one of the sixteen delegaciones or boroughs within Mexican Federal District. The borough is centered on the formerly independent city of Xochimilco, which was established on what was the southern shore of Lake Xochimilco in the pre-Hispanic period...

     lakes in Mexico
  • August 20 – US troops defeat Mexican troops in Valencia, Mexico
    Mexico
    The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...


Undated

  • The North Carolina General Assembly
    North Carolina General Assembly
    The North Carolina General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of North Carolina. The General Assembly drafts and legislates the state laws of North Carolina, also known as the General Statutes...

     incorporates the railroad town of Goldsborough
    Goldsboro, North Carolina
    Goldsboro is a city in Wayne County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 37,597 at the 2008 census estimate. It is the principal city of and is included in the Goldsboro, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area. The nearby town of Waynesboro was founded in 1787 and Goldsboro was...

    , and the Wayne
    Wayne County, North Carolina
    - Cities and towns :*Brogden*Dudley*Elroy*Eureka*Fremont*Goldsboro*Mar-Mac*Mount Olive*Pikeville*Rosewood*Seven Springs*Walnut Creek*Grantham-Geography:According to the U.S...

    county seat is moved to the new town.
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