Calendar of Literary Facts

1842

  • Hong Kong becomes a British possession
  • The Orange Free State is proclaimed by the Boers in southern Africa
  • Christian Johann Doppler discovers the “Doppler effect”: the effect of velocity on light and sound waves
  • The Treaty of Nanking opens five Chinese ports to free trade with the British and cedes Hong Kong to Great Britain
  • The Russian Natural School of anti-Romantic writers flourishes
  • Sidney Lanier is born (February 3)
  • John Banim dies (August 13)
  • Stéphane Mallarmé is born (March 18)
  • Stendhal dies (March 22)
  • Ambrose Bierce is born (June 24)