1837
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1 January 1837 An earthquake strikes the region of the Sea of Gallilee, flattening several villages and causing an estimated 6,000 deaths.
A setting of Tantum ergo by Giuseppe Verdi (23) is performed for the first time, in San Bartolomeo, Busseto.
2 January 1837 Mily Alyekseyevich Balakirev is born in Nizhny-Novgorod, first of four children born to Aleksey Konstantinovich Balakirev, a government official and Yelizaveta Ivanovna Yasherova who is descended from the minor nobility.
8 January 1837 The Gazette Musicale of Paris publishes an article vigorously attacking Sigismund Thalberg, coincidentally on his 25th birthday. It is inspired and partly written by Franz Liszt (25).
11 January 1837 British settlers make the first survey for their settlement at Adelaide, South Australia.
13 January 1837 Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (32) is appointed Kapellmeister of the Court Chapel Choir by Tsar Nikolay I in St. Petersburg.
22 January 1837 Robert Schumann (26) visits Felix Mendelssohn (27) in Leipzig. Mendelssohn plays through his new Preludes and Fugues op.35. This inspires Schumann to investigate further the music of JS Bach (†86).
23 January 1837 John Field dies in Moscow, aged 54 years and approximately six months. Although he suffered from alcoholism and rectal cancer over the last ten years, the cause of death is pneumonia.
26 January 1837 Michigan becomes the 26th state of the United States.
27 January 1837 A funeral service for John Field is held in the Reformed Church, Moscow. His earthly remains are laid to rest in Yedensky Cemetery outside Moscow, attended by a large crowd.
28 January 1837 Today marks the first of four concerts given by Franz Liszt (25) in Paris “to make known the works of the grande école of the piano, too often disfigured by incompetent executants.” This presumably refers to Sigismund Thalberg (25). The four performances will be a critical triumph.
31 January 1837 Achille Paganini, son of Nicolò (54), is officially legitimized in Piedmont.
Bentley’s Miscellany publishes the first of ten installments of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
1 February 1837 Paul Friedrich replaces Friedrich Franz I as Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
10 February 1837 Alyeksandr Pushkin dies in St. Petersburg at the age of 37.
13 February 1837 Bread riots take place in New York City. The military is called in and 50 people are arrested.
14 February 1837 Ignaz von Rudhart replaces Josef Ludwig Count Armansperg as Prime Minister of Greece.
16 February 1837 Clara Wieck (17) gives her first concert in Berlin, at the Opera House. She is the opening act for a ballet.
17 February 1837 Incidental music to Singer’s play Die letzte Heidenverschwörung in Preußen oder Der Deutsche Ritterorden in Königsberg WWV 41 by Richard Wagner (23) is performed probably for the first time, in the Königsberg Stadttheater.
18 February 1837 Pia de’ Tolomei, an tragedia lirica by Gaetano Donizetti (39) to words of Cammarano after Sestini and Dante, is performed for the first time, in Teatro Apollo, Venice. It gets a mixed reception.
19 February 1837 Georg Büchner dies of typhus in Zürich at the age of 23, his play Woyzeck still unfinished.
20 February 1837 Die beiden Schützen, a komische Oper by Albert Lortzing (35) to his own words after Patrat (tr. Cords), is performed for the first time, in Leipzig Stadttheater.
23 February 1837 César Franck (14) plays the piano in a concert featuring several different performers at the Athénée Musical, Paris. He performs part of his own Deuxième grand concerto for piano and orchestra. Although overshadowed by others on the program, he receives mildly positive notices.
24 February 1837 Clara Wieck (17) gives her first full-length recital in Berlin. This and the five to follow are given a fairly positive critical response. She is compared to Mendelssohn (28). The public love her. Her father reports, “Triumph, triumph, Clara created a furore last night. Her masterly playing was rewarded by an hour and a half of thunder and formidable bravissimos...Even Paganini (54) did not have such accolades here.”
27 February 1837 Justo José Corro replaces Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón as acting President of Mexico.
1 March 1837 Variation on Cavatine du Pirate of Bellini op.8 for piano by Clara Wieck (17) is performed for the first time, by the composer in Berlin.
3 March 1837 On his last full day in office, United States President Andrew Jackson recognizes the independence of the Republic of Texas.
4 March 1837 Martin van Buren replaces Andrew Jackson as President of the United States. The 25th Congress convenes in Washington. Despite the election of Democrat Martin Van Buren, the Democrats lose 15 seats in the House of Representatives while the Whigs gain 25. Democrats hold a 2-1 majority in the Senate.
Chicago is incorporated as a city.
12 March 1837 Sigismund Thalberg (25) gives a concert at the Paris Conservatoire. It is a great success.
19 March 1837 Franz Liszt (25) hires the Paris Opéra, fills it with an audience of 3,000 and proceeds to enthrall the listeners. This is in response to Thalberg’s (25) success of 12 March.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (58) conducts his last orchestral concert at Weimar.
24 March 1837 Black men are granted the right to vote in Lower Canada.
28 March 1837 Felix Mendelssohn (28) marries Cécile Charlotte Sophia Jeanrenaud, daughter of a pastor in the French Reformed Church, in the French Reformed Church of Frankfurt-am-Main. Mendelssohn’s mother and two sisters are absent. His mother is ill and his sisters are both pregnant.
31 March 1837 At the Paris home of Prince Belgiojoso, Franz Liszt (25) and Sigismund Thalberg (25) perform a duel on the keyboards organized by Princess Cristina Belgiojoso-Trivulzio. Thalberg plays his Moses fantasia while Liszt selects his Niobe fantasia. It is generally considered a draw.
John Constable dies in London at the age of 59.
1 April 1837 Richard Wagner (23) is appointed as music director of the city theatre in Königsberg (Kaliningrad).
9 April 1837 Franz Liszt (25) gives a “farewell” concert in Paris before leaving on a tour of Switzerland and Italy. He plays some of Frédéric Chopin’s (27) new etudes op.25.
19 April 1837 Anastasio Bustamante y Osegera replaces Justo José Corro as President of Mexico.
23 April 1837 The Gazette musicale publishes an article by François-Joseph Fétis comparing the piano virtuosos Franz Liszt (25) and Sigismund Thalberg (25). This begins a series of statements in the same periodical between Liszt and Fétis.
In the third and last performance in Paris after his “farewell” concert, Franz Liszt (25) plays on a program with Charles Valentin Alkan (23) and César Franck (15).
25 April 1837 Lowell Mason (45) sails from New York for a six month tour of Europe.
28 April 1837 The aria “Jo l’amai di fiamma pupra” and quintet “Un turbamento orcano” from the opera La figlia abbandonata by Otto Nicolai (26) are performed for the first time, in Milan.
30 April 1837 The piano manufacturer Pape presents a piano performance in Paris featuring Franz Liszt (25), Charles-Valentin Alkan (23), Johann Pixis and César Franck (14). Despite the glittering competition, Franck is reviewed positively.
Massachusetts becomes the first state in the United States to have a state board of education.
1 May 1837 Thomas Carlyle’s The French Revolution: a History is published this month.
8 May 1837 The steamboat Ben Sherrod catches fire on the Mississippi River north of Fort Adams, Mississippi. At least 120 people are killed.
9 May 1837 Franz Liszt (25) and Marie d’Agoult depart Paris, ultimately for Italy.
10 May 1837 Following the demise of the Second Bank of the United States, a liquidity crisis ensues and the Panic of 1837 begins when New York banks suspend all specie payments. 618 banks will fail this year. The depression will last seven years.
15 May 1837 Lowell Mason (45) arrives in Liverpool for a six month tour that will take him to Germany, Switzerland and France.
18 May 1837 Count Adolf Göran Mörner replaces Gustaf af Wetterstedt as Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden.
30 May 1837 The Treaty of Tafna is signed. After losses to Algerians under Abd al-Kadir, France obtains control of only about a third of the country.
31 May 1837 Minna Wagner secretly leaves her husband Richard (24) in Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and flees to Dresden with a businessman named Dietrich.
1 June 1837 Otto Nicolai (26) takes up his position as Kapellmeister of the Vienna Hoftheater.
2 June 1837 António Dias de Oliveira replaces Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, visconde e barão de Sá da Bandeira as Prime Minister of Portugal.
5 June 1837 Houston is incorporated as a city by the Republic of Texas.
6 June 1837 Boers meet at the Vet River and adopt a fundamental law for the Republic of Natal. Piet Retief is chosen leader.
10 June 1837 La fête de Versailles, an intermède en deux parties by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (55) to words of Scribe, is performed for the first time, at Versailles.
11 June 1837 Sectarian violence breaks out in Boston when up to 1,000 Yankees and Irish immigrants battle in Broad Street. The military is called in and quells the fighting.
12 June 1837 William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone of Great Britain receive a British patent for an electromagnetic telegraph.
Lowell Mason (45) attends a Philharmonic concert in London including a performance by Sigismond Thalberg (25). He is greatly impressed.
16 June 1837 Unknown at the time, Nicolò Paganini’s (54) concert today in Turin is the last he will ever give.
18 June 1837 A new liberal constitution for Spain is adopted.
20 June 1837 King William IV of the United Kingdom, King Wilhelm I of Hannover dies at Windsor Castle and is succeeded by his niece, Victoria. With the death of King Wilhelm, Hannover is separated from Great Britain since women may not succeed to its throne. Ernst August I, Duke of Cumberland, the eldest surviving son of George III, becomes King of Hanover.
Lowell Mason (45) happens to meet Sir George Smart in London who invites him to the Chapel Royal on Sunday the 25th to hear the funeral anthem for the king. Mason will attend.
24 June 1837 Felix Mendelssohn (28) writes to his mother from Frankfurt that it would not be seemly for his sister Fanny (31) to publish her compositions. It might look as if that were more important than her role as a wife and mother.
Swiss paleontologist Louis Agassiz surprises the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences, meeting in Neuchâtel, by supporting the idea that the northern hemisphere was once covered by glaciers, and uses the term “ice age.”
30 June 1837 Great Britain ceases to use the pillory for punishment.
1 July 1837 Civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths begins in England and Wales.
4 July 1837 The Grand Junction Railway opens from Birmingham to Liverpool.
7 July 1837 Frédéric Chopin (27) arrives incognito in London with Camille Pleyel. They will stay for three weeks. Chopin comes to love the city very much but he will cough for most of his stay owing to the effects of soot on his delicate lungs.
Lowell Mason (45) calls at the home of Gaspare Spontini (62) in Berlin and is warmly received.
The new King of Hannover, Ernst August II, suppresses the constitution.
24 July 1837 After three months at George Sand’s country estate Nohant, Franz Liszt (25) and Marie d’Agoult depart for an extended trip to Switzerland and Italy.
25 July 1837 Frédéric Chopin (27) and Camille Pleyel return to Paris after a three-week stay in London.
An electric telegraph system invented by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone goes into operation between Euston and Camden Town in London.
30 July 1837 Virginia Donizetti, wife of Gaetano Donizetti (39) dies in Naples of unknown causes. She apparently suffered puerperal fever after giving birth 13 June then became very ill. The baby survived only an hour. Because of the current cholera epidemic in Naples, her earthly remains are buried today.
10 August 1837 Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, visconde e barão de Sá Bandeira replaces António Dias de Oliveira as Prime Minister of Portugal.
13 August 1837 Robert Schumann (27) writes to Clara Wieck (17) asking her to give her father a letter asking him to bless their union.
14 August 1837 Clara Wieck (17) writes to Robert Schumann (27), responding affirmatively to his request of 13 August. They consider themselves engaged. It is St. Eusebius Day.
16 August 1837 Dutch forces capture the fortress of Bonjol on Sumatra, essentially ending the Padri War.
18 August 1837 Joaquín Baldomero Fernández Espartero, conde de Luchana replaces José María Calatrava as Prime Minister of Spain.
Three weeks of voting conclude in the British general election. Prime Minister Lord Melbourne’s Whigs lose 41 seats to the Conservatives but retain a majority.
21 August 1837 Richard Wagner (24) arrives in Riga to take up his position as musical director of the theatre there.
23 August 1837 La double échelle, an opéra comique by Ambroise Thomas (26) to words of Planard, is performed for the first time, at the Théâtre de Nouveautés, Paris. It is the first work of Thomas to be staged.
24 August 1837 A committee appointed by Mayor Samuel A. Eliot and led by attorney T. Kemper Davis, presents its report that music should be part of the curriculum of the Boston Public Schools.
26 August 1837 Two gunboats comprising the navy of Texas are attacked by Mexican ships near Galveston. One escapes, one is run aground and destroyed.
27 August 1837 Felix Mendelssohn (28) once again arrives in England.
Anton Bruckner (12) is admitted to the elementary school at the monastery of St. Florian.
31 August 1837 A relatively unknown speaker fills in for a meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard. His name is Ralph Waldo Emerson and he describes transcendentalist philosophy for the first time in public in a talk called “The American Scholar.”
La preghiera di un popolo, a hymn by Gaetano Donizetti (39) for solo voices, chorus and orchestra is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples.
8 September 1837 Lowell Mason (45) attends a rehearsal of St. Paul by Felix Mendelssohn (28) at Exeter Hall, London and is introduced to the composer.
10 September 1837 Felix Mendelssohn (28) performs during a service at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. After the service, he continues to play and most of the congregation stay on to listen. The sexton, desirous to clear the Cathedral, orders those pumping the bellows to stop. Thus, the concert is concluded. Three or four clergymen publicly berate the sexton and call for his dismissal. The crowd makes a fuss, crying shame at the sexton.
12 September 1837 Samuel Wesley (71) attends a recital by Felix Mendelssohn (28) at All Saints, Newgate Street, London. After the concert, Wesley is asked to play. He does so and receives praise from Mendelssohn. “The frail old man improvised with great artistry and splendid facility, so that I could not but admire. His daughter was so moved by the sight of it all that she fainted and could not stop crying and sobbing.” (Eatcock, 63) Wesley replies to Mendelssohn’s praise, “You should have heard me forty years ago.”
13 September 1837 Friedrich Wieck receives the letter from Robert Schumann (27) asking for his daughter’s hand. Wieck will be evasive.
Richard Wagner (24) conducts in Riga for the first time, in a performance of a comic opera by Carl Blum to which Wagner added an aria.
15 September 1837 Robert Schumann (27) reviews Clara Wieck’s (18) Soirées musicales op.6 in the issue of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik dated today.
16 September 1837 Ferdinand, son of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Koháry is given the title of King of Portugal. He will reign alongside his wife, Queen Maria II as Fernando II.
18 September 1837 Charles Tiffany and John B. Young found Tiffany & Young on Broadway in New York City. The price of every item is not negotiable, a policy unheard of at this time.
19 September 1837 Acting on the Kemper Committee report of 24 August, the Boston School Committee authorizes a trial of music classes in four schools during the 1837-38 academic year. They will be run by the Boston Academy of Music.
20 September 1837 Felix Mendelssohn (28) conducts his St. Paul at the Birmingham Festival to great acclaim.
21 September 1837 Piano Concerto no.2 op.40 by Felix Mendelssohn (28) is performed for the first time, in Birmingham, the composer at the keyboard.
22 September 1837 César Franck (14) receives word that King Louis-Philippe has made him a citizen of France. He may now enroll in the Paris Conservatoire.
27 September 1837 Felix Mendelssohn (28) arrives in Frankfurt from London where he joins his wife to return to Leipzig.
Charles Dickens dedicates his first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club in London.
29 September 1837 Emperor Mo’in ad-Din Abu’n Nasr Mohammad Akbar Padshah Saheb Quiran-e Sani of India dies in Delhi and is replaced by Seraj ad-Din Abu’l Mozaffar.
1 October 1837 Tokugawa Ieyoshi becomes Shogun in Japan.
Felix Mendelssohn (28) arrives in Leipzig from London via Frankfurt hours before he is to conduct the first concert of the new Gewandhaus season.
2 October 1837 A hurricane strikes near Matamoros, Mexico and slowly moves north.
4 October 1837 After waiting a year to become a French citizen, César Franck (14) is enrolled in the Conservatoire.
5 October 1837 The storm that struck Matamoros moves over Galveston.
6 October 1837 The Gulf of Mexico storm makes a third landfall (near present Venice, Louisiana). It then moves across the southern United States. 105 people are killed by this storm.
7 October 1837 Samuel Wesley (71) composes his last piece, the hymn tune Cesarea.
10 October 1837 On a visit to her brother Felix (28) in Leipzig, Fanny Mendelssohn (31) meets her new sister-in-law Cécile for the first time. Fanny was pregnant and could not attend the wedding.
11 October 1837 16:20 Samuel Wesley dies after a short illness, in London, aged 71 years, seven months and 17 days.
13 October 1837 Constantine (Qusantina), Algeria, 330 km west of Tunis, falls to French troops but at great cost including the death yesterday of Charles, Comte de Damrémont, Governor-General of French North Africa.
17 October 1837 07:00 Johann Nepomuk Hummel dies at Weimar, probably of heart disease, aged 58 years, eleven months and three days.
A funeral service in memory of Samuel Wesley takes place in Old Marybone Church following which his mortal remains are laid to rest in the family vault.
18 October 1837 Eusebio Bardají y Azara replaces Joaquín, Baldomero Fernández Espartero, conde de Luchana as Prime Minister of Spain.
20 October 1837 A funeral is held in memory of Johann Nepomuk Hummel in Weimar in the presence of the Grand Ducal court. His mortal remains are laid to rest near those of the ruling family, Goethe and Schiller.
23 October 1837 About 4,000 Patriotes rally at Saint Charles, Lower Canada, led by Louis-Joseph Papineau. They essentially declare the independence of French-speaking Canada.
24 October 1837 Adolf von Henselt (23) marries Rosalie (Mangen) Vogel, recently divorced from the physician to Duke Carl August, in Bad Salzbrunn, Silesia (Szczawno-Zdroj, Poland).
27 October 1837 Seminole war chief Osceola is lured to a “peace conference” at Fort Payton, ten km south of St. Augustine, Florida, and captured. He is transported to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina.
28 October 1837 Gaetano Donizetti’s (39) tragedia lirica Roberto Devereux, ossia Il conte di Essex to words of Cammarano after Ancelot is performed for the first time, in Teatro San Carlo, Naples. The composer reports that “it went very, very well indeed.”
30 October 1837 Scene at the Monastery by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (33) to words of Kukolnik is performed for the first time, in St. Petersburg.
The steamboat Monmouth, carrying about 600 Creek Indians to a reservation, collides with the Tremont at Prophet Island Bend in the Mississippi Rivers. Around 300 Creeks are killed.
31 October 1837 English immigrant William Procter, a candle maker, and Irish immigrant James Gamble, a soap maker, join forces in Cincinnati to form Procter and Gamble. They met because they are married to sisters.
1 November 1837 Karl von Abel replaces Georg Friedrich, Baron Zentner as President of the Council of Ministers of Bavaria.
Johann Strauss Sr. leads his orchestra in a performance of his Viennese waltzes in Paris before an appreciative audience which includes Luigi Cherubini (77), Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (55), Giacomo Meyerbeer (46), Fromental Halévy (38), Adolphe Adam (34) and Hector Berlioz (33).
Lowell Mason (45) arrives back in Boston after a six-month tour that took him to Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland and France.
7 November 1837 Abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is killed by a mob in his Alton, Illinois newspaper office.
8 November 1837 Mount Holyoke Female Seminary opens its doors in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It is the first college in the United States intended exclusively for women.
12 November 1837 Robert Schumann’s (27) Impromptus op.5 and Piano Sonatas opp.11&14 are given favorable reviews in the Paris Gazette musicale. While he is cheered by the news, he unfamiliar with the author, Franz Liszt (26).
Clara Wieck (18) gives her first concert in Prague, at the Conservatory. She receives 13 curtain calls.
14 November 1837 The Boston School Committee accepts the offer of Lowell Mason (45) to teach music in the Hawes Grammar School in South Boston, without payment. Although the School Committee authorized music at their 19 September meeting, the City Council refused to fund the measure.
16 November 1837 Horace Mann begins writing his annual reports as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. They will change the face of public education.
17 November 1837 The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens is published in book form. It was serialized last year.
Political tensions become violent when patriote militia attack 20 British troopers escorting two prisoners at Longueuil, Lower Canada. Many are wounded and the prisoners escape.
19 November 1837 String Quartet no.4 op.44/2 by Felix Mendelssohn (28) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig.
23 November 1837 The first steam railway in the Austrian Empire opens between Floridsdorf, in Vienna, and Wagram (Deutsch-Wagram).
British troops sent to crush the rebellion meet patriote resistance at Saint Jean, Lower Canada. After battling, the British are forced to retreat.
25 November 1837 Patriotes are overrun by a British force at Saint Charles, Lower Canada with great losses.
28 November 1837 Messa di Gloria by Gaetano Donizetti for solo voices, chorus and orchestra is performed for the first time, on the eve of the composer’s 40th birthday.
2 December 1837 Le domino noir, an opéra comique by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (55) to words of Scribe is performed for the first time, at Théâtre de la Bourse, Paris.
3 December 1837 Clara Wieck (18) gives her first concert in Vienna, at the home of Baroness Pereira.
Richard Wagner’s (24) Volks-Hymne “Nikolai” for solo voices, chorus and orchestra to words of von Brackel is performed for the first time, in the Riga Stadttheater.
5 December 1837 Giacomo Meyerbeer (46) halts work on his opera Cinq Mars. It will never be completed.
Grande messe des morts op.5 for tenor, chorus and orchestra by Hector Berlioz (33) is performed for the first time, in L’Eglise des Invalides, Paris. The work was commissioned by the French Minister of the Interior and is used to honor General Damrémont and others killed in the conquest of Constantine, Algeria by French troops. The performance takes place before the royal family and all the powers of the nation. It is an unquestioned success.
Former Mayor William Lyon Mackenzie leads a revolt against repressive government measures in Toronto. After doing some damage, they are dispersed by armed loyalists.
6 December 1837 Agnes von Hohenstaufen, a grosse historisch-romantische Oper by Gaspare Spontini (63) to words of Raupach revised by Lichtenstein, is performed for the first time, in the Berlin Opera. See 28 May 1827 and 12 June 1829.
7 December 1837 Armed loyalist militia attack Mackenzie’s insurgents at Toronto and scatter them. Mackenzie escapes to Buffalo.
10 December 1837 Franz Liszt (26) gives a solo recital at Teatro alla Scala, Milan, in a performance organized by Gioachino Rossini (45) and the publisher Ricordi. The Milanese do not appreciate pianists and this and the two subsequent performances by Liszt in the city are not successful.
14 December 1837 Clara Wieck (18) gives her first concert at the Musikvereinsaal in Vienna. Through the winter, she will give six concerts here, two at the Kärntnertortheater, and appear at many private parties. She becomes the sensation of the city, compared to Paganini (55) for her technical virtuosity and depth of feeling.
Patriotes attack a British force at Saint Eustache but are soundly defeated. The British then go on to bombard and capture the town.
William Lyon Mackenzie sets up a provisional government for Upper Canada on Navy Island in the Niagara River and is joined by about 25 renegade Americans.
15 December 1837 British forces destroy Saint Benoit near Saint Eustache, effectively ending the rebellion in Lower Canada.
16 December 1837 Narciso de Heredia y Begines de los Ríos, conde de Ofalia replaces Eusebio Bardají y Azara as Prime Minister of Spain.
20 December 1837 King Othon I replaces Ignaz von Rudhart as Prime Minister of Greece.
22 December 1837 Albert Lortzing’s (36) komische Oper Zar und Zimmermann, oder Die beiden Peter to the composer’s words after Melesville, Merle and Boirie (tr. Römer) is performed for the first time, in Leipzig. This work secures Lortzing’s position as the most important German composer of comic opera.
24 December 1837 A second child, Francesca Gaetana Cosima, is born to Franz Liszt (26) and Countess Marie d’Agoult, at Hotel dell’Angelo, Como, while they are on their extended tour of Switzerland and Italy.
25 December 1837 US forces under Zachary Taylor attack Seminoles near Lake Okeechobee, Florida. The whites are forced to retreat with serious losses.
26 December 1837 True to its name, Teatro La Fenice reopens in Venice, a little over a year after burning down.
Clara Wieck (18) plays before the Imperial court in Vienna. She will be given the title Imperial Court Pianist by Emperor Ferdinand.
29 December 1837 Fire breaks out in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg. Tsar Nikolay is called back from the theatre to oversee firefighting operations but all that can be done is salvage as much as possible. Most of the interior decoration of the building is destroyed. The conflagration is witnessed by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (33) from his monastery.
30 December 1837 Canadian government forces burn the American steamer Caroline for aiding the rebels and send it over Niagara Falls.
©2004-2014 Paul Scharfenberger
9 November 2014
Last Updated (Sunday, 09 November 2014 06:30)