World Events 1837-1841

Date

Event

1837	Victoria begins her 63-year reign as queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
1837	Blacksmith John Deere invents a steel plowshare that can easily turn the heavy sod of the American prairie. It opens to cultivation a region that becomes the major wheat-growing area of the United States.
1838	More than 14,000 Native Americans of the Cherokee Nation are forced to move 1287 km (800 mi) from their homeland in Georgia to Oklahoma. Thousands perish en route.
1838	The best-selling books are Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby by English novelist Charles Dickens.
1839	The First Opium War between Great Britain and China begins. The war is ended in 1842 by a treaty ceding Hong Kong to the British.