1842
Treaty of Nanking
Signed on the deck of HMS Cornwallis on the Yangtze, this was the first of the "unequal treaties": China paid an indemnity, opened five treaty ports, and ceded Hong Kong in perpetuity. The Qing's century of humiliation had begun. The foreign powers had learned that gunboats on Chinese rivers produced concessions.
Ether Used as Anesthetic by Crawford Long
In Jefferson, Georgia, Dr. Crawford Long administered sulfuric ether to James Venable before excising a neck tumor - the first surgical use of modern anesthesia. Long, a country doctor, neglected to publish. William Morton's 1846 demonstration in Boston would steal the glory. But in a quiet Georgia office, surgery had already stopped screaming.
Retreat From Kabul Ends
William Nott's British column finally reentered Kabul, burned the central bazaar in revenge, and withdrew. It was the final act of the First Anglo-Afghan War, a war that had achieved nothing except massive loss of life and imperial prestige. The lesson - that Afghanistan was not governable by foreigners - would be forgotten and re-learned by three more empires.
Mormon Migration Prelude
In Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith preached a theology of new revelation and old covenant, built a temple on a bluff over the Mississippi, and collected suspicious neighbors. Two years later a mob would kill him in a Carthage jail. Brigham Young would lead the survivors a thousand miles west to a Great Salt Lake.