World History 1807

About the history of the world in 1807, Napoleon puts relatives in power throughout Europe, Robert Fulton starts a steamboat in New York.

TWO CENTURIES OF WORLD HISTORY: 1778-1978

1807

Jan. 4 Britain set up a retaliatory blockade of the ports of France and its allies.

Mar. 25 The first railway passenger service began on the 4-mi. route from Swansea (Wales) to Oystermouth (and continued until 1960). One passenger remarked that the ride, at 16 mph, made one "reel from the car at the journey's end, in such a state of dizziness and confusion of the senses that it is well if he recovers in a week."

Aug. Having made his brother Joseph king of Naples and his brother Louis king of Holland, Napoleon wanted to make his brother Jerome king of Westphalia, which he had just won from Prussia. He annulled Jerome's marriage to an American, Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of a Baltimore banker, contracted in 1803, and forced him to marry Princess Catherine of Wurttemberg. Jerome's American grandson, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, served as U.S. secretary of the navy in 1905 and as attorney general in the cabinet of Theodore Roosevelt from 1906 to 1909.

Sept. 4 Robert Fulton began operating his first steamboat on the Hudson River, inaugurating commercial river transportation on a run from New York to Albany, which took 28 hours and 45 minutes. On its maiden trip upriver, the boat lay over at Clermont, the estate of Fulton's partner, Robert R. Livingston, thus giving rise to the mistaken idea that its name was Clermont, when in fact it was registered as North River Steam Boat. Fulton did not invent the steamboat but was the first to make it a commercial success.

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