Timeline August 1819

Events in August 1819 5

• 1736 – 1819 James Watt (1736-1819) Died 25 August 1819, aged 83 James Watt was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the steam engine were central to the Industrial Revolution. His separate condenser design dramatically increased the efficiency of steam power, driving its adoption in mining, manufacturing, and transport. The unit of power, the watt, is named in his honor.
• 1785 – 1819 Oliver Hazard Perry (1785-1819) Died 23 August 1819, aged 34 Oliver Hazard Perry was an American naval officer who commanded the US fleet to victory at the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, declaring "We have met the enemy and they are ours." He died of yellow fever aboard ship off Trinidad while returning from a diplomatic mission to Venezuela. He died on his thirty-fourth birthday.
• 1819 Battle of Boyaca Bolivar's decisive victory secures independence for New Granada Simon Bolivar's army defeated Spanish royalist forces at the Boyaca River after a celebrated crossing of the Andes, effectively ending Spanish control of New Granada. The victory opened the way to Bogota and the creation of the Republic of Colombia. It is commemorated as Colombia's independence day.
• 1819 Peterloo Massacre Cavalry charge into pro-democracy rally kills at least 11 At St Peter's Field in Manchester, cavalry charged into a crowd of roughly 60,000 gathered to demand parliamentary reform, killing at least eleven people and injuring hundreds. The massacre was named ironically after the Battle of Waterloo and became a rallying symbol for British electoral reform. It prompted the government's repressive Six Acts later that year.
• 1819 Gericault exhibits The Raft of the Medusa Painting of a shipwreck scandal debuts at the Paris Salon Theodore Gericault exhibited his monumental painting The Raft of the Medusa at the Paris Salon, depicting survivors of the 1816 wreck of the French frigate Meduse adrift at sea. Its unflinching depiction of suffering and the government's negligence caused controversy and cemented Gericault's reputation. It is now considered a landmark of French Romantic painting.