1847
In the war between the United States and Mexico, General Taylor defeated the Mexicans under Santa Anna at Buena Vista; General Scott captured Vera Cruz, and defeated Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo; Colonel Doniphan captured Chihuahua. Scott, after various successes, stormed Chapultepec, took the City of Mexico, and thus practically ended the war.
British subjects in China attacked; after several Chinese strongholds had been captured more liberty was granted foreign residents. Maltreatment of British subjects in Greece led Great Britain to send fleet to Piraeus, seizing shipping to enforce claims. The Argentine Republic granted free navigation of the La Plata River, and England and France withdrew their blockading squadrons. In Algeria, Abd-el-Kadr surrendered to French general, thus ending French war for the time. The Swiss Federal Diet ordered Jesuits expelled from all cantons, and called upon the Sonderbund ("Separate League"), composed of four Catholic cantons, to dissolve; the seceding cantons refused, civil war broke out, and after a brief campaign and the capture of Freiburg by the Federalists the seceding cantons came to terms; Jesuits expelled, monastic lands secularized, and Sonderbund dissolved.
Prussia, Bavaria—where the ruler had alienated his people by his liaison with Lola Montez—most of the other German states, France—where the socialists, led by Louis Blanc, were active—Italy, Austria, and Hungary demanded constitutional reforms. Prussian Landtag convened at Berlin and began to consider the question of the separation of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. Process of electro-silver plating was discovered by Rogers Brothers, of Hartford, Connecticut.
Among persons of prominence who died were Daniel O'Connell, Irish leader; Thomas Chalmers, Scotch theologian; Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, German musician; Marshals Oudinot and Grouchy, of Napoleon's army; Marie Louise of Austria, Napoleon's second wife.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year.