| 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. |
| 1840–1850 | USA [farming] | Wheat becomes an increasingly important cash crop in the USA; production in 1839 is nearly 85 million bushels and climbs to over 100 million bushels in 10 years. |
| 1840–1860 | world [plagues and epidemics] | A cholera pandemic kills millions of people worldwide. |
| 1841–1850 | USA, UK [statistics and demography] | Emigration to the USA is 267,044 from Britain and 780,719 from Ireland. |
| 1845–1958 | Germany [earth sciences] | German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion. |
| 1847 | Scotland [surgery] | Scottish physician James Simpson, in Account of a New Anaesthetic Agent 1847, first describes the use of chloroform as an anaesthetic. He uses it to assist women during childbirth. |
| 1847 | Germany [physics] | German physicist Franz Neumann states the mathematical laws of electrical induction – the process of converting mechanical energy into electrical. |
| 1847 | England [physics] | English physicist James Joule discovers the law of conservation of energy – the first law of thermodynamics. |
| 1847 | UK [civic and commercial buildings] | The British Museum in London, England, designed by the English architect Robert Smirke, is completed, a leading example of the Greek revival style. |
| 1847 | [maths] | The English mathematician George Boole publishes The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, in which he shows that the rules of logic can be treated mathematically. Boole's work lays the foundation of computer logic. |
| 1847 | England [fiction] | The English writer Frederick Marryat publishes his historical novel The Children of the New Forest, which becomes a classic of children's literature. |
| 11 February 1847 | USA [births and deaths] | Thomas Alva Edison, prolific US inventor who invents the light bulb, phonograph, and motion picture projector, born in Milan, Ohio (–1931). |
| 3 March 1847 | Scotland, USA [births and deaths] | Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born US scientist who invents the telephone, born in Edinburgh, Scotland (–1922). |
| 1 July 1847 | USA [postal services] | The first adhesive postage stamps in the USA go on sale. |
| 24 July 1847 | USA [religious freedom] | The Mormon leader Brigham Young leads a group of Mormons to what is now Salt Lake City, Utah, where they establish their headquarters. |
| 26 August 1847 | Liberia [colonization] | Liberia, the colony established in west Africa for freed US slaves, is proclaimed an independent republic under the presidency of Joseph Roberts. |
| 9 September 1847 | USA [natural resources] | Gold is discovered in California and leads to the first ‘gold rush’. |
| October 1847 | England [fiction] | The English writer Charlotte Brontë publishes her second novel, Jane Eyre, under the name Currer Bell. (Her first novel, The Professor, does not appear until 1857.) |
| 21 October 1847 | Switzerland [wars] | Civil war begins in Switzerland, following the Catholic cantons' refusal on 20 July to dissolve their armed league, the Sonderbund, in the face of a liberal, anticlerical majority in the diet. |
| 4 November 1847 | Germany [births and deaths] | Felix Mendelssohn(-Bartholdy), German composer, dies in Leipzig, Germany (38). |
| December 1847 | England [fiction] | The English writer Emily Brontë publishes her only novel, Wuthering Heights, under the name Ellis Bell. |
