1845
Irish Potato Blight
A water mold blown in on the Atlantic wind rotted the Irish potato crop in the fields. By winter, whole parishes were eating seaweed. Over the next seven years a million would die of famine and fever and another million would emigrate. The English cabinet, committed to free trade, did too little. Ireland never forgave.
Texas Annexed
After nine years as an independent republic, Texas joined the United States as the twenty-eighth state. Mexico had warned that it would mean war. President Polk had won on a platform of annexation. He was about to find out whether Mexico meant it. It did. Within a year American troops were on the Rio Grande, and the Mexican-American War that would redraw the continent had begun.
Anglo-Sikh War Begins
After Ranjit Singh's death, his Sikh Empire collapsed into court intrigue and the Khalsa army crossed the Sutlej looking for a fight. Four hard-fought battles over three months ended in Sikh defeat at Sobraon and the cession of Kashmir, which the British promptly sold to a Hindu raja. The Punjab was tottering.
Franklin Expedition Vanishes
Sir John Franklin sailed from England with two ships, Erebus and Terror, and 128 men to find the Northwest Passage. They were last seen in Baffin Bay. Search parties would find skeletons and notes in ice. The fate of the expedition - scurvy, lead poisoning, cannibalism - would not be fully reconstructed for over a century.