26 February — Poland becomes an integral part of the Russian Empire, loses its own army and the Sejm.
11 September — in St. Petersburg, on Palace Square, the Alexander Column 47.5 m high was erected in memory of victories over Napoleon. Exactly two years later, its ceremonial opening took place. The project author was O. R. Montferrand; the bas-reliefs of the pedestal were by Svintsov and Lepe; the statue of the angel atop the column was by B. Orlovsky.
15 January — Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was born, a French engineer who gained worldwide fame by building the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
23 January — Edouard Manet was born, a French painter, one of the founders of Impressionism.
25 January — Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin was born, a Russian landscape painter.
27 January — Lewis Carroll was born, an English children’s writer and mathematician. He is known worldwide for the fairy tales "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass", which secured for the author the fame of an unrivaled master of prose and verse.