1817 Calendar

January 19, 1817 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, crosses the Andes from Argentina to liberate Chile and then Peru.

February 8, 1817 – Las Heras crosses the Andes with an army to join San Martín and liberate Chile from Spain.

February 12, 1817 – An Argentine/Chilean patriotic army, after crossing the Andes, defeats Spanish troops on the Battle of Chacabuco.

March 8, 1817 – The New York Stock Exchange is founded.

April 15, 1817 – Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc founded the American School for the Deaf, the first American school for deaf students, in Hartford, Connecticut.

May 15, 1817 – Opening of the first private mental health hospital in the United States, the Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason (now Friends Hospital) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

June 5, 1817 – The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.

July 4, 1817 – At Rome, New York, United States, construction on the Erie Canal begins.

November 3, 1817 – The Bank of Montreal, Canada’s oldest chartered bank, opens in Montreal, Quebec.

December 10, 1817 – Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state.

February 21, 1817 – Jose Zorrilla y Moral, Spanish dramatist (d. 1893)

March 2, 1817 – János Arany, Hungarian journalist (d. 1882)

March 27, 1817 – Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli, Swiss biologist (d. 1891)

May 15, 1817 – Debendranath Tagore, Indian religious reformer (d. 1905)

June 26, 1817 – Branwell Bronte, British painter and poet (d. 1848)

July 29, 1817 – Ivan Aivazovsky, Armenian-Russian painter (d. 1900)

September 5, 1817 – Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, Russian writer (d. 1875)

September 6, 1817 – Alexander Tilloch Galt, Canadian politician (d. 1893)

September 7, 1817 – Queen Louise of Hesse-Kassel of Denmark (d. 1898)

December 8, 1817 – Christian Emil Krag-Juel-Vind-Frijs, Danish nobleman and politician (d. 1896)