Person report

★04 Mar 1824
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the British Isles, was founded as the National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck by author and philanthropist William Hillary.

★05 Apr 1847
Birkenhead Park, generally acknowledged as the world's first publicly funded civic park, opened in Birkenhead, England.

★21 May 1851
The Congress of Colombia passed a law abolishing slavery in the country, to take effect at the beginning of the new year.

★27 Sep 1851
The British East India Company inaugurated the Horsburgh Lighthouse on the rocky outcrop of Pedra Branca, Singapore, which later became the subject of a territorial dispute.

★18 Oct 1851
Moby-Dick, a novel by American writer Herman Melville, was first published as The Whale in London.

★21 Oct 1858
French composer Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring music most associated with the can-can was first performed at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris.

★21 Mar 1861
Vice President of the Confederate States of America Alexander H. Stephens extemporaneously gave the "Cornerstone Speech", in which he laid out the Confederacy's causes for declaring secession.

★01 Sep 1862
American Civil War: Confederate forces attacked retreating Union Army troops at the Battle of Chantilly during a rainstorm in Chantilly, Virginia, but the fighting ended up being tactically inconclusive.

★13 Feb 1867
Work began on the covering of the Senne, burying the polluted main waterway in Brussels to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.

★15 Jun 1878
Eadweard Muybridge took a series of photographs to prove that all four feet of a horse leave the ground when it gallops; the study became the basis of motion pictures.

Historical data by Wikipedia Contributors CC BY-SA 3.0.