| 1730–1807 | UK [newspapers] | The Daily Advertiser is launched in London, England. With its dependence on advertisements, this may be regarded as the first modern newspaper. |
| 1799–1825 | [maths] | The French mathematician and physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace publishes the five-volume Traité de mécanique céleste/Celestial Mechanics, which applies calculus to the motions of celestial bodies and Isaac Newton's theories of the Solar System to show how its stability is implicit in the law of gravitation. |
| 1800–1850 | USA [consumer products] | A revolution in retail and wholesale trade occurs: specialization transforms the urban retail market, replacing the general store with individual stores for hardware, groceries, dry goods, furnishing, books, tobacco, and so on. Cash-only sales policies are instituted around 1806. |
| 1804 | Germany [orchestral music] | The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven completes his Piano Sonata No. 21 (Opus 53), the Waldstein; and his three Violin Sonatas (Opus 30). |
| 1804 | Germany [plays] | The play Wilhelm Tell by the German writer Friedrich Johann Christoph von Schiller is first performed, in Weimar, Germany. |
| 1804 | USA [motor vehicles] | The US inventor Oliver Evans builds a five-horsepower steam engine, which he drives 2.4 km/1.5 mi through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its original purpose is to propel a scow, a water vehicle for dredging and cleaning docks. |
| 1804 | USA, Cuba [food and drink] | The first recorded shipment of bananas to the USA arrives from Cuba aboard the merchant ship Reynard. An organized fruit trade does not begin until 1885. |
| 1804 | UK [legislation] | Boys as young as five or six are being used to clean chimneys in Britain. Legislation is passed preventing the apprenticing of boys under nine and limiting the working day to a maximum of eight hours; these laws are often broken. |
| 12 February 1804 | Prussia [births and deaths] | Immanuel Kant, German philosopher whose work had a major influence on subsequent philosophy, dies in Königsberg, Prussia (80). |
| 21 February 1804 | UK [railways] | English engineer Richard Trevithick builds the first steam railway locomotive, and on a wager runs it on a 16 km/10 mi track at the Pen-y-darren ironworks in South Wales carrying 10 tons of iron and 70 passengers. Further development is hindered because the engine cracks the cast iron rails. |
| 21 March 1804 | France [legislation] | The Civil Code (renamed the Code Napoleon in 1807) is promulgated in France, providing a uniform civil law (previously French law was split between Roman law in the south and custom law in the north). |
| December 1804 | USA [elections] | Americans re-elect Thomas Jefferson as US president and elect former New York governor George Clinton as vice-president. |
| 1 December 1804 | UK [aircraft] | English aviation pioneer George Cayley develops an instrument to measure wind resistance. About this time he also begins to construct models of gliders with fixed wings, fuselage, elevators and a rudder – the basic configuration of the modern aeroplane. |
| 2 December 1804 | France [political events] | Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself emperor as Napoleon I in Paris, France. Pope Pius VII officiates at the coronation. |
| 21 December 1804 | England [births and deaths] | Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, British prime minister 1868 and 1874–80, a Conservative, born in London, England (–1881). |
