This Year in History:
1843
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Franklin James, the lesser-known older brother of Jesse, is born in Clay County, Missouri. Frank and Jesse James were both legends in their own time, though Jesse is better remembered today because of his more dramatically violent death. The two Missouri brothers drifted into a life of crime after serving in Confederate guerilla forces during […]
On January 29, 1843, William McKinley, who will become the 25th American president and the first to ride in an automobile, is born in Niles, Ohio. McKinley served in the White House from 1897 to 1901, a time when the American automotive industry was in its infancy. During his presidency, McKinley (who died from an […]
Called the U.S.’s first ambassador to Japan, a 14-year-old fisherman by the name of Manjiro is considered America’s first Japanese immigrant, arriving in the country on May 7, 1843, by way of a whaling ship. According to the National Endowment of the Humanities, the boy and his crew were caught in a violent storm, with […]
The first major wagon train to the northwest departs from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail. Although U.S. sovereignty over the Oregon Territory was not clearly established until 1846, American fur trappers and missionary groups had been living in the region for decades, to say nothing of the Native Americans who had settled the land centuries earlier. […]
On December 19, 1843, Charles Dickens’ classic story “A Christmas Carol” is published. Dickens was born in 1812 and attended school in Portsmouth. His father, a clerk in the navy pay office, was thrown into debtors’ prison in 1824, and 12-year-old Charles was sent to work in a factory. The miserable treatment of children and […]
