1839 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 9 - The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
• January 19 - British East India Company captures Aden
• January 20 - In the Battle of Yungay , Chile defeats a Peruvian and Bolivian alliance.
• February 24 - William Otis receives a patent for the steam shovel.
• March 23 - First recorded use of "OK" oll korrect (Boston Morning Post).
• March 26 - The first Henley Royal Regatta is held
• April 19 - The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.
• June 22 – Louis Daguerre receives patent for his camera (commercially available by September with the prize of 400 Francs)
• July 1 – Slave rebellion of Amistad
• August 19 – French government gives Louis Daguerre a pension and gives the daguerreotype "for the whole world"
• November 11 - The Virginia Military Institute is founded in Lexington, Virginia.
• November 17 - Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio opens in Milan.
• November 27 - In Boston, Massachusetts, the American Statistical Association is founded

Undated

• Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mahmud II (1808-1839) to Abd-ul-Mejid (1839-1861)
• In the United States, the first state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.
• The first parallax measurement of the distance to Alpha Centauri is published by Thomas Henderson.
• Excavation on Copan begins
• Half of the Limburg province of Belgium was added to the Netherlands, since 1839 there is a Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg.
• Abd al-Kader declares a jihad against the French.

Births

• January 19 - Paul Cézanne, painter (d. 1906)
• February 11 - Josiah Willard Gibbs theoretical physicist/chemist
• February 22 - Francis Pharcellus Church, American editor and publisher (d. 1906)
• March 21 - Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (d. 1881)
• April 12 - Nicholas Michailovitch Prjevalsky, explorer
• July 8 - John Davison Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist
• December 5 - George Armstrong Custer, American cavalry officer

Deaths

• April 1 - Benjamin Pierce (b. 1757), U.S. politician
• April 2 - Hezekiah Niles, Founder of Niles' Weekly Register.
• April 11 - John Galt, Scottish novelist, founder of Guelph, Ontario.
• May 17 - Archibald Alison, Scottish author
• August 10 - John St Aubyn, British fossil collector
• August 22 - Benjamin Lundy, American abolitionist
• August 28 - William Smith, geologist/cartographer.
• November 15 - William Murdoch, inventor