| 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. |
| 1810–1859 | USA [agriculture] | US cotton production, the vast majority of which is grown in the southern states, rises from 171,000 bales in 1810 to just under 5.4 million in 1859. |
| 1827–1838 | Ireland, Germany, USA [statistics and demography] | A period of Irish and German migration to the USA begins due to a severe winter in 1829, increased legislation against German Jews, economic stress in Ireland, and Irish factionalism. |
| 1827–1838 | USA [zoology] | US ornithologist John James Audubon publishes the first volume of his multi-volume work Birds of America. |
| 1831–1840 | USA, UK [statistics and demography] | Emigration to the USA is 75,810 from Britain and 207,381 from Ireland. |
| 1838 | Germany [biology] | German botanist Matthias Jakob Schleiden publishes the article ‘Contributions to Phytogenesis’, in which he recognizes that cells are the fundamental units of all plant life. He is thus the first to formulate cell theory. |
| 1838 | UK [boxing] | The original London Prize Ring Rules for boxing are introduced in England, superseding English prizefighting champion Jack Broughton's rules which have governed the sport since 1743. |
| 1838 | Germany [family planning] | German physician Friedrich Wilde develops the contraceptive rubber cap. This is the first use of rubber for medical purposes. |
| 1838 | England [fiction] | The English writer Charles Dickens begins publishing The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby in serial form. It appears as a book in 1839. |
| c. 1838 | England [painting] | The English artist J M W Turner paints The Fighting Téméraire. |
| 6 January 1838 | USA [communications] | The US artist and inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse and financier Alfred Louis Vail make the first successful public demonstration of an electric telegraph. |
| 13 January 1838 | Canada, USA [political events] | William Lyon Mackenzie, leader of the revolt against British rule in Upper Canada, is arrested in the USA. |
| 8 April 1838 | UK [ships and shipping] | English engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ship Great Western is launched. The largest ship in the world (65m/212 ft long), and the first steamship built specifically for oceanic service, it crosses the Atlantic in half the time (15 days) sailing ships take. |
| 8 May 1838 | UK [suffrage] | The Working Men's Association in Britain, led by the Irish parliamentarian Feargus O'Connor, draws up the People's Charter, demanding universal male suffrage, vote by secret ballot, annual parliaments, payment of members of Parliament, abolition of the property qualification for members of Parliament, and the equalization of electoral districts. |
| 8 July 1838 | Germany [births and deaths] | Ferdinand (Adolf August Heinrich) Graf von Zeppelin, German builder of rigid dirigible airships, born in Konstanz, Baden, Germany (–1917). |
| 18 September 1838 | UK [legislation] | The Anti-Corn Law League is established in Manchester, England, by the English industrialist Richard Cobden. Its purpose is to campaign for the repeal of the laws that protect the domestic landed interest by regulating the importation of corn into Britain. |
| 1 October 1838 | UK, Afghanistan [wars] | Britain begins the First Anglo-Afghan War to consolidate its influence over the Afghans and to prevent Russia increasing its power in the region, which constitutes a threat to British interests in India. |
| 11 October 1838 | Germany [astronomy] | Using the method of parallax, German astronomer Friedrich Bessel calculates the star 61 Cygni to be 10.3 light years away from Earth. It is the first determination of the distance of a star other than the Sun. |
| 27 November 1838 | Mexico, France [political events] | A French force occupies the Mexican port of Veracruz in support of the claims for compensation of French victims of civil unrest in Mexico. |
| 16 December 1838 | Natal [colonization] | The Boers (Dutch settlers) decisively defeat a Zulu army at Blood River, in retaliation for the attack on Pieter Retief's force on 6 February, and secure their position in Natal, southern Africa. |
