1843
Ada Lovelace's Notes Published
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, published her translation of an Italian article on Babbage's Analytical Engine, appending notes three times the length of the original. Note G contained an algorithm for computing Bernoulli numbers - the first computer program ever written, for a machine that would never be built in her lifetime.
Ether Anesthesia Glimpsed
In Rochester, a country doctor named Crawford Long used ether to remove a tumor from a friend's neck without pain. He didn't publish. Three years later, William Morton would demonstrate the same thing in Boston and take the credit. Surgery, for the first time in human history, stopped being mostly a matter of speed and screaming.
Britain Annexes Sindh
Sir Charles Napier, defying his orders, conquered the lower Indus valley and reported home with the single Latin word "Peccavi" - "I have sinned." The pun is probably apocryphal but the conquest was real. Sindh was added to the Bombay Presidency, and another Muslim-ruled kingdom had joined the Company's collection.
Maori Wairau Incident
In the South Island of New Zealand, an attempt by British settlers to arrest Chief Te Rauparaha over a disputed land claim ended in a firefight that killed twenty-two Europeans. It was the first serious warning that the Treaty of Waitangi's cozy fictions would not survive actual colonization. Governor FitzRoy's refusal to punish the Maori chiefs enraged the settlers but preserved a fragile peace for several more years.