This Year in History:
1849
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
At a graduation ceremony at a church in Geneva, New York on January 23, 1849, Geneva Medical College bestows a medical degree upon Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to receive one. Despite the near-uniform opposition of her fellow students and medical professionals, Blackwell pursued her calling with an iron will and […]
On April 10, 1849, Walter Hunt—a mechanic and independent inventor from New York—patents his metal invention with a spring called the safety pin. Although later businessmen would make a fortune selling the ubiquitous devices, Hunt sells rights to it for just $400 and never earns anything else. Born on July 29, 1796, in Martinsburg, New […]
On November 16, 1849, a Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for his allegedly antigovernment activities linked to a radical intellectual group. His execution is stayed at the last minute. Dostoevsky’s father was a doctor at Moscow’s Hospital for the Poor, where he grew rich enough to buy land and serfs. After his father’s […]
John Froelich, the inventor of the first internal-combustion traction motor, or tractor, is born on November 24, 1849, in Iowa. At the end of the 19th century, Froelich operated a grain elevator and mobile threshing service: Every year at harvest time, he dragged a crew of hired hands and a heavy steam-powered thresher through Iowa and […]
On December 22, 1849 writer Fyodor Dostoevsky is led before a firing squad and prepared for execution. He had been convicted and sentenced to death on November 16 for allegedly taking part in antigovernment activities. However, at the last moment he was reprieved and sent into exile. Dostoevsky’s father was a doctor at Moscow’s Hospital […]
