* 1839 – Nikolai Przhevalsky, Russian explorer ( d. 1888 )

* 1839 – Benjamin Pierce, American politician ( b. 1757 )

* 1839 – Dorothea von Schlegel, German novelist ( b. 1763 )

* 1839 – Nelson Miles, American general ( d. 1925 )

* 1839 – The French government announces that Louis Daguerre's photographic process is a gift " free to the world ".

* 1754 – William Murdoch, Scottish engineer and inventor, created gas lighting ( d. 1839 )

* 1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for war with Qing China.

* 1839 – Gulstan Ropert, French prelate ( d. 1903 )

On her return to Haworth, she met William Weightman ( 1814 – 1842 ), her father's new curate, who started work in the parish in August 1839.

* 1839 – The Treaty of London establishes Belgium as a kingdom.

* 1839 – Aleksandr Stoletov, Russian physicist ( d. 1896 )

* 1839 – Sir John St Aubyn, 5th Baronet, English politician ( b. 1758 )

* 1839 – Walter Pater, English essayist and critic ( d. 1894 )

He married Helen Leech ( 1839 – 1932 ), the daughter of another wealthy cotton merchant and shipbuilder from Stalybridge, at Gee Cross on 8 August 1863.

#* Charlotte Napoléone Bonaparte ( 1802 – 1839 )

#*** Léonie Stéphanie Elise Bonaparte ( 1833 – 1839 )

#*** Napoléon Charles Grégoire Jacques Philippe Bonaparte ( 1839 – 1899 )

# Maria Annunziata Caroline Bonaparte ( 1782 – 1839 ) married Joachim Murat, Marshal of France

Portales brought the military under civilian control by rewarding loyal generals, cashiering troublemakers, and promoting a victorious war against the Peru-Bolivia Confederation ( 1836 – 1839 ).

September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914 ) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist, sometimes known as " the father of pragmatism ".

A census was taken in the Ottoman Empire 1831-38 by Sultan Mahmud II ( 1808 – 1839 ) as a part of the reform movement Tanzimat.

** William Erasmus Darwin ( 1839 – 1914 ), eldest son of Charles Darwin ( 1809 – 1882 )

It was Rochet d ' Hericourt's exploration into Shoa ( 1839 – 42 ) that marked the beginning of French interest in the Djiboutian coast of the Red Sea.

* 1839 – George Armstrong Custer, American general ( d. 1876 )

The first British person to see Darwin harbour appears to have been Lieutenant John Lort Stokes of HMS Beagle on 9 September 1839.

* Charles John Seghers, Jesuit clergyman and missionary ( 1839 – 1886 )

* 1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the Trail of Tears.

* 1839 – John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist, founded the Standard Oil Company ( d. 1937 )

# John Brown Abbott ( November 29, 1831 – May 24, 1839 )

* 1839 – John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist ( d. 1922 )

As far as can be ascertained, it was Sir John Herschel in a lecture before the Royal Society of London, on March 14, 1839 who made the word " photography " known to the world.

The word " photograph " was coined in 1839 by Sir John Herschel and is based on the Greek φῶς ( phos ), meaning " light ", and γραφή ( graphê ), meaning " drawing, writing ", together meaning " drawing with light ".

The United States Exploring Expedition ( 1838 – 42 ) under Charles Wilkes reached Samoa in 1839 and appointed of Englishman John C. Williams as acting U. S. consul.

London: John Murray 1839.

Representative John Quincy Adams had made a proposal in 1839, but there were no new proposals until December 14, 1863, when a bill to support an amendment to abolish slavery throughout the entire United States was introduced by Representative James Mitchell Ashley ( Republican, Ohio ).

His father, John Butler Yeats ( 1839 – 1922 ), was a descendant of Jervis Yeats, a Williamite soldier and linen merchant who died in 1712.

* May 23 – John D. Rockefeller, American industrialist and philanthropist ( b. 1839 )

* February 3 – John Butler Yeats, Northern Irish artist ( b. 1839 )

** Sir John St Aubyn, 5th Baronet, British fossil collector ( d. 1839 )

Begun in 1839 and originally called " New Helvetia " ( New Switzerland ) by its builder, John Sutter, the fort was a 19th century agricultural and trade colony in California.

At Walden Pond, he completed a first draft of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, an elegy to his brother, John, that described their 1839 trip to the White Mountains.

To honor John Eager Howard, an officer in the American Revolutionary War and later the fifth Governor of Maryland, the area was designated the Howard District when Anne Arundel County was divided in 1839.

On June 22, 1839, a party of twenty-five Ross supporters assassinated Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot.

In 1839, as President of the Western Cherokee, Sequoyah signed an Act of Union with John Ross that reunited the two groups of the Cherokee Nation.

* Wiltse, Charles M. John C. Calhoun, Nationalist, 1782 – 1828 ( 1944 ) ISBN 0-8462-1041-X ; John C. Calhoun, Nullifier, 1829 – 1839 ( 1948 ); John C. Calhoun, Sectionalist, 1840 – 1859 ( 1951 ); the standard scholarly biography