| 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. |
| 1831–1840 | USA, UK [statistics and demography] | Emigration to the USA is 75,810 from Britain and 207,381 from Ireland. |
| 1839 | USA [technology] | US inventor Charles Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber by adding sulphur and white lead and then heating it. |
| 1839 | England [technology] | English pioneer of photography William Fox Talbot publishes a paper describing the paper negative. |
| 1839 | UK [tools] | British engineer James Nasmyth designs the steam hammer; an important tool for forging heavy machinery. He patents it 24 November 1842. |
| 1839 | France [orchestral music] | The French composer Hector Berlioz completes his dramatic symphony Roméo et Juliette/Romeo and Juliet. |
| 1839 | Germany [biology] | German physiologist Theodor Schwann publishes Microscopic Investigations on the Accordance in the Structure and Growth of Plants and Animals, in which he argues that all animals and plants are composed of cells. Along with Matthias Schleiden, he thus founds modern cell theory. |
| 1839 | France [fiction] | The French writer Stendhal publishes his novel La Chartreuse de Parme/The Charterhouse of Parma. |
| 1839 | France [physics] | The French physicist Edmund Becquerel discovers the photovoltaic effect when he observes the creation of a voltage between two electrodes, one of which is exposed to light. |
| 9 January 1839 | France [photography] | French physicist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre announces to the French Academy of Arts and Science that he can produce permanent positive images on a copper plate coated with silver iodide that is exposed to bright sunlight for 20–30 minutes. The image is developed with mercury vapour, and fixed in a salt solution. His ‘daguerreotype’ proves to be a dead end, overtaken by William Henry Fox Talbot's production of a photographic negative a few weeks later. |
| 19 January 1839 | France [births and deaths] | Paul Cézanne, French post-Impressionist painter whose work leads to the development of cubism, born in Aix-en-Provence, France (–1906). |
| 20 January 1839 | Chile, Peru, Bolivia [wars] | The Battle of Yungay, resulting in a victory for Chile against the Peru–Bolivia Federation, leads to the dissolution of the Federation. |
| 24 February 1839 | Uruguay, Argentina [wars] | Uruguay declares war against Argentina, following Argentine attempts to subvert the government of Uruguay. |
| 26 February 1839 | UK [horse-racing] | Lottery, ridden by Jem Mason, wins the inaugural Grand National horse race at Aintree, Liverpool, England. |
| 19 April 1839 | Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg [treaties] | The Treaty of London is signed, agreeing the territorial arrangements for the separation of Belgium and the Netherlands. Luxembourg, disputed between the two, becomes an independent grand duchy, and the River Scheldt is opened to the ships of both the Netherlands and Belgium. |
| 1 July 1839 | Ottoman Empire [law and government] | Sultan Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire dies and is succeeded by his 16-year-old son, Abdul Mejid. |
| 7 July 1839 | China, UK [wars] | The First Opium War between China and Britain begins after the Chinese authorities seize and burn cargoes of opium due to be exported from China by British merchants, in an attempt to combat smuggling of the drug. |
| 8 July 1839 | USA [births and deaths] | John D(avison) Rockefeller, US industrialist who founds Standard Oil, and philanthropist who founded the Rockefeller Foundation, born in Richford, New York (–1937). |
| 3 November 1839 | UK, China [wars] | The First Opium War between Britain and China gains momentum when a British frigate sinks a Chinese fleet of junks. |
| 3 December 1839 | Denmark [political events] | King Frederick VI of Denmark dies and is succeeded by his nephew, Christian VIII. |
