Years: 1842 1843 1844 - 1845 - 1846 1847 1848

Decades: 1810s 1820s 1830s - 1840s - 1850s 1860s 1870s

Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century

1845 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 29 - The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time (New York Evening Mirror ).
• March 1 - President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
• March 3 - Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.
• March 3 - For the first time the U.S. Congress passes legislation overriding a presidential veto.
• March 11 - First Maori War: Chiefs Kawiti and Hone Heke lead 700 Maoris in the burning of the British colonial settlement of Kororareka, now known as Russell.
• March 17 - The rubber band is invented in England
• May 20 - The HMS Erebus and Terror with 134 men under John Franklin sail from the River Thames beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage.
• July 4 - Near Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau embarks on a two-year experiment in simple living at Walden Pond (see Walden).
• July 20 - Charles Sturt enters the Simpson Desert in central Australia
• August 28 - Scientific American begins publication
• October 10 - In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipmen students and seven professors.
• October 13 - A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution, that if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.
• December 2 - Manifest Destiny: US President James Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
• December 27 - Anesthesia is used for childbirth for the first time (Dr. Crawford Williamson Long in Jefferson, Georgia).
• December 29 - Texas is admitted as the 28th U.S. state.
• December 30 - Queen's Colleges of Belfast, Cork and Galway are incorporated in Ireland.

• Second separation of Republic of Yucatan from Mexico
• Beginning of the Irish potato famine.
• James K. Polk succeeds John Tyler as President of the United States of America
• Ephraim Bee reveals that the Emperor of China has given him a special dispensation; that he had entrusted him with certain sacred and mysterious rituals through Caleb Cushing, the US Commissioner to China, to "extend the work and influence of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus" in the new world.

Births

• February 25 - George Reid, fourth Prime Minister of Australia, (d. 1918)
• March 3 - Georg Cantor, German mathematician (d. 1918)
• March 10 - Emperor Alexander III of Russia
• March 27 - Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, physicist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in physics 1901 (d. 1923)
• May 12 - Gabriel Fauré, composer (d. 1924)
• May 17 - Jacint Verdaguer, Catalan poet
• May 25 - Eugène Grasset, Swiss/French artist (d. 1917)
• May 25 - Lip Pike, baseball player (d. 1893)
• May 30 - King Amadeus I of Spain
• June 9 - Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto (d. 1914)
• July 18 - Tristan Corbière, French poet (d. 1875)
• July 19 - Horatio Nelson Young, American naval hero (d. 1913)
• August 10 - Abai Kunanbaev, Kazak poet (d. 1904)
• August 19 - Edmond James de Rothschild, philantropist (d. 1934)
• August 25 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria (d. 1886)
• August 26 - Mary Ann Nicholls, first confirmed victim of Jack the Ripper (d. 1888)
• November 10 - John Sparrow David Thompson, Canadian prime minister

Deaths

• May 12 - Janos Bacsanyi, Hungarian poet
• June 8 - Andrew Jackson, 7th president of the United States of America

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1845 is also the name of a song on One Minute Silence's album Buy Now... Saved Later.