1845

Events

January–March

* January 10 – Elizabeth Barrett receives a love letter from the younger poet Robert Browning; on May 20, they meet for the first time in London. She begins writing her ''Sonnets from the Portuguese''.
* January 23 – The United States Congress establishes a uniform date for federal elections, which will henceforth be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
* January 29 – ''The Raven'' by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time, in the '' New York Evening Mirror''.
* February 1 – Anson Jones, President of the Republic of Texas, signs the charter officially creating Baylor University (the oldest university in the State of Texas operating under its original name).
* February 7 – In the British Museum, a drunken visitor smashes the Portland Vase, which takes months to repair.
* February 28 – The United States Congress approves the annexation of Texas.
* 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.
** The United States Congress passes legislation overriding a presidential veto for the first time.
* March 4 – James K. Polk is sworn in as the 11th President of the United States.
* March 11 – New Zealand Wars open with the Flagstaff War: Chiefs Kawiti and Hone Heke lead 700 Māoris in the burning of the British colonial settlement of Kororāreka (modern-day Russell, New Zealand).
* March 13 – The ''Violin Concerto'' by Felix Mendelssohn premieres in Leipzig, with Ferdinand David as soloist.
* March 17 – Stephen Perry patents the rubber band, in the United Kingdom.
* March 30 – Due to different transition dates to the Gregorian calendar, Finland (then part of the Russian Empire) is the only place in the world to have Easter day on this particular Sunday.

April–June

* April 7 – An earthquake destroys part of Mexico City, along with the nearby towns of Tlalpan and Xochimilco.
* April 10 – The Great Fire of Pittsburgh destroys much of the American city of Pittsburgh.
* April 20 – Ramón Castilla becomes president of Peru.
* May – Frederick Douglass's autobiographical ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'' is published by the Boston Anti-Slavery Society.
* May 2 – Yarmouth suspension bridge in Great Yarmouth, England, collapses leaving around 80 dead, mostly children.
* May 19 – HMS ''Erebus'' and HMS ''Terror'', with 134 men, comprising Sir John Franklin's expedition to find the Northwest Passage, sail from Greenhithe on the Thames. They will last be seen in the summer, entering Baffin Bay.
* May 25 – A theater fire in Canton, China, kills 1,670.
* May 30 – ''Fatel Razack'' (''Fath Al Razack'', "Victory of Allah the Provider", Arabic: قتح الرزاق) is the first ship to bring indentured labourers from India to Trinidad and Tobago, landing in the Gulf of Paria with 227 immigrants.
* June 8 – Former U.S. President Andrew Jackson, 78, dies at The Hermitage (Nashville, Tennessee).

July–September

* July 26–August 10 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iron steamship ''Great Britain'' makes the transatlantic crossing from Liverpool to New York, the first screw propelled vessel to make the passage.
* July 28 – HMS ''Terror'' and HMS ''Erebus'' of the Franklin Expedition go missing in the Davis Strait west of Greenland, while searching for the Northwest Passage.
* August 4 – British emigrant barque '' Cataraqui'' is wrecked on King Island (Tasmania) with 400 people killed and only 9 survivors.
* August 9 – The Aberdeen Act is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, empowering the British Royal Navy to search Brazilian ships, as part of the abolition of the slave trade from Africa.
* August 19 – Tornado in Montville destroys two large factories, killing 200 people.
* August 28 – The journal ''Scientific American'' begins publication.
* September 9 – Potato blight breaks out in Ireland, beginning the Great Famine.
* September 18 – The Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata is formally declared.
* September 25 – The Phi Alpha Literary Society is founded, in Jacksonville, Illinois.

October–December

* October 9 – The eminent and controversial Anglican, John Henry Newman, is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
* October 10 – In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with fifty midshipmen and seven professors.
* October 13 – A majority of voters in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution that, if accepted by the United States Congress, will make Texas a U.S. state.
* October 19 – Richard Wagner's opera ''Tannhäuser'' debuts at the Dresden Royal Court Theater.
* October 21 – The '' New York Herald'' becomes the first newspaper to mention the game of baseball.
* November 20 – Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata – Battle of Vuelta de Obligado: The Argentine Confederation is narrowly defeated by an Anglo–French fleet on the waters of the Paraná River, but the victors suffer serious damage to their ships, and Argentina attracts political support in South America.
* December 2 – Manifest destiny: U.S. President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced, and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
* December 11 – First Anglo-Sikh War: Sikh army crosses the Sutlej in the Punjab.
* December 22– 23 – Battle of Ferozeshah (Anglo-Sikh War): East India Company forces are victorious over those of the Sikh Empire.
* December 27
** Anesthesia is used for childbirth for the first time, by Dr. Crawford Long in Jefferson, Georgia.
** American newspaper editor John L. O'Sullivan claims (in connection with the annexation of the Oregon Country) in '' The United States Magazine and Democratic Review'' that the United States should be allowed "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions". It is the second time he uses the term '' manifest destiny'' (first in connection with the Republic of Texas in July – August), and it will have a huge influence on American imperialism in the following century.
* 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.

Date unknown

* The Republic of Yucatán separates from Mexico for a second time.
* Ephraim Bee reveals that the Emperor of China has given him a special dispensation: that he has entrusted him with certain sacred and mysterious rituals through Caleb Cushing, the U.S. Commissioner to China, to "extend the work and influence of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus" in the New World.
* Friedrich Engels

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