Following a burglary, a murder, and two attempted murders in Adelaide during March 1838, Governor Hindmarsh created the South Australian Police Force ( now named South Australia Police ) in April 1838 under 21-year-old Henry Inman.

Governor Gawler took over from Hindmarsh in late 1838 and, despite being under orders from the Select Committee on South Australia in Britain not to undertake any public works, promptly oversaw construction of a governor's house, the Adelaide Gaol, police barracks, a hospital, a customs house and a wharf at Port Adelaide.

The main body of the church moved first to Kirtland, Ohio in the early 1830s, then to Missouri in 1838, where the 1838 Mormon War with other Missouri settlers ensued, culminating in adherents being expelled from the state under Missouri Executive Order 44 signed by the governor of Missouri.

However the Jamaican slaves bound to their former owners ' service, albeit with a guarantee of rights, until 1838 under what was called the Apprenticeship System.

Sakukawa Kanga ( 1782 – 1838 ) had studied pugilism and staff ( bo ) fighting in China ( according to one legend, under the guidance of Kosokun, originator of kusanku kata ).

In Australia the first police force having centralised command as well as jurisdiction over an entire colony was the South Australia Police, formed in 1838 under Henry Inman.

In 1838 Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet came up with his own approximating function, the logarithmic integral li ( x ) ( under the slightly different form of a series, which he communicated to Gauss ).

In a handwritten note on a reprint of his 1838 paper " Sur l ' usage des séries infinies dans la théorie des nombres ", which he mailed to Carl Friedrich Gauss, Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet conjectured ( under a slightly different form appealing to a series rather than an integral ) that an even better approximation to π ( x ) is given by the offset logarithmic integral function Li ( x ), defined by

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.

By January 1837, an alliance of 107 Boers, sixty Rolong, and forty Coloured men, organised as a commando under the leadership of Potgieter and Gert Maritz, attacked Mzilikazi's settlement at Mosega, which suffered heavy losses, and early in 1838 Mzilikazi fled north beyond the Limpopo ( to current day Zimbabwe ), never to return to the Transvaal.

* " The Last Heir of Castle Connor " ( 1838 ), a non-supernatural tale, exploring the decline and expropriation of the ancient Catholic gentry of Ireland under the Protestant Ascendancy.

The 1838 and 1842 Treaties of Buffalo Creek were treaties with New York Indians, such as the Seneca Nation, Mohawk nation, Cayuga nation, and Oneida Indian Nation, which covered land sales of tribal reservations under the US Indian Removal program, by which they planned to move most eastern tribes to Indian Territory.

The law of 16 August 1838, had improved the position of the Jews in Saxony, but still discriminated with regard to the Jewish oath, which was to be taken under conditions which seemed to involve the supposition that a Jew could not fully be trusted in his testimony before a civil court.

In 1965 the county seat was moved to Port Saint Joe, which under its original name Saint Joseph, had been the site of Florida's first Constitutional Convention in 1838.

To further strengthen the authority of the state, the Supreme War Council was established under the leadership of Yamagata Aritomo ( 1838 – 1922 ), a Chōshū native who has been credited with the founding of the modern Japanese army and was to become the first constitutional prime minister.

Galveston County was formally established under the Republic of Texas on May 15, 1838.

Farmer was succeeded by his grandson in 1838 under whom the gardens became famous.

In the fall of 1838, more than 600 Saxon Lutherans, under the leadership of Pastor Martin Stephan, uprooted themselves and migrated to Missouri, seeking to avoid the enforced religious conformity brought about by the Prussian Union of churches.

Militia under the authority of United States Army officers rounded them up and in September 1838, the band of 859 headed west, in what became known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death.

The first post office was established in 1838 under the name Monon ,, and when the town was incorporated in 1879, it legally adopted the post office's name as the town's name.

It was incorporated as a town in 1838 under the name Thibodauxville, in honor of local plantation owner Henry Schuyler Thibodaux, who provided land for the village and served as acting governor of Louisiana in 1824.

It was separated from the Barry County on December 31, 1838, and established as a county under its present name, given in honor of the often fictionalized American Revolutionary War veteran Sergeant John Newton the fellow of Sergeant William Jasper of Fort Moultrie fame.

Miami was platted under the name of Greenville in 1838.

* 1838 – Émile Loubet, 7th President of France ( d. 1929 )

John Wilkes Booth ( May 10, 1838 – April 26, 1865 ) was a famous American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D. C., on April 14, 1865.

* December 20 – Émile Loubet, 8th President of France ( b. 1838 )

President Martin Van Buren on July 4, 1838, signed the U. S. Congress laws establishing the Territory of Iowa.

Knight was President of the society from 1811 – 1838, and developed the society's aims and objectives to include a programme of practical research into fruit-breeding.

When originally formed in 1838, the county was named Roberts County, after settler Hiram Roberts ; it was renamed in 1839 for James Buchanan, then a U. S. Senator and later President of the United States.

After Republic of Texas Vice President Mirabeau B. Lamar visited the area during a buffalo-hunting expedition between 1837 and 1838, he proposed that the republic's capital then located in Houston, Texas, be relocated to the central Austin area situated on the north bank of the Colorado River near the present-day Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge.

Monroe Township was founded in 1838 and named in honor of the President of the United States James Monroe.

In 1837, Lewisberry native Hervey Hammond began manufacture of the patented Hammond window sash spring, and in 1838, President Martin Van Buren installed Hammond springs in all of the White House's windows.

The most infamous removal was the Cherokee Trail of Tears of 1838, when President Martin Van Buren enforced the highly contentious Treaty of New Echota with the Cherokee Nation to exchange their property for land out west.

Émile François Loubet (; 1838 – 1929 ) was the 8th President of France.

Devonshire himself developed a keen interest in horticulture and was elected President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1838.

" However, in 1838, President Martin Van Buren refused a request by Massachusetts statesman Edward Everett to withdraw the site from public sale, and it was sold for $ 22.

During his forty years of involvement in the church, Walther held several positions, including that of president of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis ( founded at Perry County, Missouri in 1838 ), President of Concordia Theological Seminary, now of Fort Wayne, Indiana ( 1861 ), and founder of the St. Louis Lutheran Bible Society ( 1853 ).

This appointment was renewed by President Martin Van Buren in 1838, but Hale was removed by President John Tyler in 1841 on party grounds.

Cowdery held the position of Assistant President of the Church from 1834 until his excommunication in 1838.

On June 17, 1838, President Sidney Rigdon announced to a large Mormon congregation that the dissenters were " as salt that had lost its savor " and that it was the duty of the faithful to cast them out " to be trodden beneath the feet of men.

Between 1838 and 1848 he served as President of the Royal Society.

President Martin Van Buren advised Congress that the treaty was fraudulent but on June 11, 1838, Congress adopted it as a resolution.

Named by USAS for Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States, who signed the bill authorizing the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838 – 42, led by Lt. Charles Wilkes of the US Navy.

On 10 March 1838 he had been appointed by the Lord President of the council to hold inquiries on the grants of charters of incorporation to Bolton and Sheffield, and on 21 May of the same year he was made a member of the commission on the municipal boundary of Birmingham.

In 1838 he became a life member of the Royal Geological Society of Ireland, and acted as its President from 1846 – 48.

He was elected as a Jacksonian in 1829 to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy in the term ending March 4, 1833, caused by the resignation of John H. Eaton to join the Cabinet of President Andrew Jackson ; reelected in 1832 and served from October 19, 1829, to July 4, 1838, when he resigned to accept a Cabinet position.