Calendar of Literary Facts

1815

  • William Tudor founds The North American Review in Boston
  • Augustin Jean Fresnel develops the wave theory of light
  • The world’s first steam warship, the U.S.S. Fulton, is launched
  • The percussion-cap mechanism is developed for handguns and rifles, replacing the flintlock
  • Great Britain, Austria, and Russia form the Holy Alliance to combat Napoleon, recently returned from exile
  • William Wells Brown is born (March 15)
  • Allied troops under the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher defeat Napoleon’s French forces at the Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon is exiled to the isle of St. Helena (June 18)
  • Anthony Trollope is born (April 24)