This Year in History:
1847
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
On January 4, 1847, Samuel Colt rescues the future of his faltering gun company by winning a contract to provide the U.S. government with 1,000 of his .44 caliber revolvers.…
A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory. Still only…
Angered by the abusive behavior of American soldiers occupying the city, Mexicans in Taos strike back by murdering the American‑born New Mexican governor Charles Bent. The eldest of four brothers…
On February 2, 1847, the first woman of a group of pioneers commonly known as the Donner Party dies during the group’s journey through a Sierra Nevada mountain pass. The…
On February 19, 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California‑bound emigrants stranded by snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the summer…
The first rescuers from Sutter’s Fort reach the surviving remnants of the Donner emigrant party at their snowbound camp in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains. The events leading up to…
During the Mexican‑American War, Mexican General Santa Anna surrounds the outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demands an immediate surrender. Taylor refuses,…
During the Mexican‑American War, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico three miles south of Veracruz. Encountering little resistance from the Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Veracruz,…
Jack Slade, who later became a victim of the Montana vigilantes, begins his involvement with the West by joining the military. Born in 1829 in Illinois, Joseph Alfred Slade was…
Planning to build a fort for trading furs with the local Indians, Alexander Murray leads a heavily armed party into the Yukon River region of North America. By 1847, Murray…
After 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 pioneers into Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Gazing over the parched earth of the remote location,…
The Republic of Liberia, formerly a colony of the American Colonization Society, declares its independence. Under pressure from Britain, the United States hesitantly accepted Liberian sovereignty, making the West African…
Seen by some as a vicious murderer and by others as a gallant Robin Hood, the famous outlaw Jesse Woodson James is born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County,…
On September 6, 1847, writer Henry David Thoreau moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord, Massachusetts, after living for two years in a shack he built…
On this day in 1847, General Winfield Scott wins the last major battle of the Mexican‑American War, storming the ancient Chapultepec fortress at the edge of Mexico City. The war…
During the Mexican‑American War, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott enter Mexico City and raise the American flag over the Hall of Montezuma, concluding a devastating advance that began with…
On October 19, 1847, Jane Eyre is published by Smith, Elder and Co. Charlotte Brontë, the book’s author, used the pseudonym Currer Bell. The book, about the struggles of an…
On this day in 1847, Bram Stoker, author of the horror novel “Dracula,” is born in Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland. Stoker’s villainous, blood‑sucking creation, the vampire Count Dracula, became a pop‑culture…
