Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena.
Greeks rise against the Ottoman Empire; with intervention by Britain, France and Russia, Greece wins its independence.
Using the Rosetta Stone, Jean-François Champollion announces his decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Karl Marx, the influential philosopher and economic and political theorist, is born in Trier, Prussia.
Britain and the Netherlands divide their spheres in the Malay world, roughly creating today's Malaysia–Indonesia divide.
Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, with its choral finale on the Ode to Joy, premieres in Vienna.
The first public railway to use steam locomotives opens in England, ushering in the railway age.