Madison reelected President of the United States. Philadelphia began construction of waterworks system. United States victorious in the war with Algiers. The Holy Alliance formed, including all the rulers of Europe excepting the Sultan of Turkey, the Pope, and the King of England. Davy invented the safety lamp. Wollaston, English scientist, by means of electricity, brought platinum to incandescence—the forerunner of the incandescent electric light. Daniel O'Connell killed D'Esterre in a duel. Anti-corn-law riots in England. Robert Fulton died. Financial depression throughout the United States.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that for a hundred days (March to June) Napoleon was in power in France, Louis XVIII having fled from Paris.
1816
Twenty years of continual warfare had left England with a debt of eight hundred million pounds, with business at a standstill, riots general throughout the country, and hundreds of thousands of discharged sailors and soldiers added to the unemployed. Fouché was expelled from France by the Bourbons, and Talleyrand replaced in the ministry by the Duc de Richelieu. The Inquisition was reestablished in Spain, and stringent measures employed in the effort to put down the revolts in the American colonies. Bolivar, in Venezuela, inflicted serious losses on the Spaniards. Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Paraguay, declared themselves independent of Spain.
The United States still suffered from a general commercial and industrial depression. First tariff imposed; New England, with Daniel Webster as its leading orator, was at that time for free trade; the South, led by Calhoun, was for protection. New England's shipping trade was practically suspended as a result of the new tariff. Seminole Indian uprising in Florida quelled. First savings-bank in the country opened in Philadelphia. Indiana admitted to the Union. Freemasons expelled from Italy. Goods of English manufacture excluded from Russia. Rebuilding of Moscow begun. First form of the stethoscope invented by Laennec, of Paris.
Gouverneur Morris, American statesman, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, English dramatist and statesman, died.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year.
1817
The United States entered upon the prosperous period known as the Era of Good Feeling. Government land rapidly taken up by settlers, and people began to push westward. Resumption of the trouble with the Seminoles on the border of Florida. Jackson took command of the troops after many white settlers had been massacred. First line of steamships between New York and Liverpool opened. On July 4 ground was broken for the Erie Canal. First school for deaf-mutes opened at Hartford. First insane asylum in America opened by the Friends in Philadelphia. Mississippi admitted to the Union.
Depression continued in England; several Luddites executed for smashing machinery; eighteen persons hanged for forging Bank of England notes; habeas corpus suspended. Pindaree and Mahratta wars in India; Lord Hastings, the English governor-general, won a series of victories and greatly extended the British power. The Prince Regent of England hooted by mobs because of his conduct to his wife.