Once I learned this was also  a leap year, it took only the briefest trip down the rabbit hole to learn that all the years ending in 24 are leap years. Because, math.

Empires expand and contract

The First Anglo-Burmese War (known as the First British Invasion in Burmese accounts*) broke out in March, following the Burmese occupation of Assam and Manipur. The war lasted for two years, ending in a decisive, but expensive victory for the British. The British gained control over the northeastern section of the Indian subcontinent. In addition to territory, the Burmese signed a commercial treaty with the British East India Company.** It was the beginning of the end for the powerful Burmese Empire, but it would be 1885 before the British seized complete control of Burma after the Third Anglo-Burmese War.

The First Anglo-Ashanti War actually began in 1823, not 1824. (Bear with me.) The war began with a territorial dispute between the Ashanti Empire and the Fante, which was a client state of Great Britain. The British governor of the region rejected the Ashanti claims, which should come as a surprise to no one. He arrogantly chose to lead a small British force against an Ashante army that was four times its size. in which the forces of the Ashanti Empire crushed British forces in the Gold Coast. On January 22, 1824, the Ashanti defeated the British at the Battle of Nsamankow. Later that year, they again defeated the British and their African allies at the Battle of Efutu. The war ended in 1831, with a negotiated border. The British and the Ashanti fought four more wars between 1863 and 1900, which ended with the Ashanti empire incorporated into the British Gold Coast Colony. (Are you seeing a pattern here?)

On April 29, the British poet lord Byron died of a fever at Missolonghi. He had arrived in Greece on Christmas Eve, 1923, to join the Greek fight for independence, which had begun in 1821.  His arrival in Greece had little practical impact on the war, but his presence there, and especially his death, caught the imagination of philhellenes across Europe.

On December 9, South American republican forces under the leadership of Antonio José de Sucre*** won a decisive victory over Spanish colonial forces at the Battle of Ayacucho in Peru. The battle was the last major confrontation in the Latin American wars of independence. The victory secured the independence of Peru, which had been declared in 1821, and was the tipping point in the Latin American revolutions as a whole .

In related news, border disputes are settled

Britain and the Netherlands signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty, which resolved territorial disputes between the British Empire and the Netherlands that resulted from the British occupation of Dutch colonial territories in the Malay Peninsula and the Spice Islands during the Napoleonic Wars. (Though in fact the two colonial powers had been butting heads in Southeast Asia since the 17th century.)

The United States and Russia sign a treaty settling their dispute about the boundary between the United States and Russian Alaska. Russia ceded all lands south of the parallel 54° 40’ north, known to Americans as the Oregon territory.

Other political stuff

There were four candidates in the presidential election of 1824: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William Crawford. When the vote was tallied, Jackson had a plurality of the popular vote, at 40.5%, but none of the candidates had enough electoral votes to win. Even so, Jackson had more electoral votes than the others—99 compared to Adams with 84, Crawford with 41 and Clay with 37. Acting under the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution, the House of Representatives met to select the president from the top three candidates. Each state had one vote, determined by the majority of its congressional representatives. Clay having been eliminated from the race, most of his supporters switched their votes to Adams, giving John Quincy a one-vote majority and the presidency. Jackson was furious at losing the election to what he termed a “corrupt bargain” between Clay and Adams to overturn the will of the people. In other words, the electoral college has been an issue for debate for a long, long time.

Violent upheavals in the kingdoms of southern African in the early 19th century, a period known as the Difaqane, or “crushing”, resulted in smaller kingdoms being absorbed by larger, stronger kingdoms. In 1824, the leader of one of these strong kingdoms, Moshoeshoe I, occupied the mountain stronghold of Thaba-Bosiu. From this secure capital, he consolidated disparate groups into the powerful Sotho kingdom. Under his leadership, Sotho survived attacks by the Zulu, the Boers and the British for much of his reign.

The first constitution of Mexico was ratified on October 4, 1824, creating the First Mexican Republic. (It would not be the last.) The constitution was drafted after the demise of the short-lived rule of Emperor Agustin I. ****

New Ideas

British paleontologist and fossil hunter,William Buckland presented the first scientific description of a dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus. (The short accounts all say this is the first dinosaur to be validly named in scientific terms—I do not know what this means, though I suspect it takes me back to Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus, who has been tracking me down.) He made a number of paleontological discoveries, including a skeleton which he named “the Red Lady of Paviland after the location where it was found. The skeleton, now known to be male, has been dated to ca 30,000 BP, i.e. “Before Present” and is the oldest modern human found in Britain. He developed the study of fossil feces, which he dubbed coprolite, the term still used today. On the other hand, he is also known for his efforts to reconcile geological studies with the Bible. People are complicated.

Beethoven composed his Ninth Symphony. Need I say more?

*A reminder that there is always another side of the battlefield.

**The British East India Company functioned as a semi-political entity in India until 1857, when the Company’s possessions became a Crown colony. (A brief pause here while I re-read several of my posts related to the British East India Company’s political power and try to decide whether to link to one. Let’s try this one: Poor Tipu )

***De Sucre was Simón Bolívar’s chcief lieutenant during the Latin American wars wars of independence. He later became the first constitutionally elected leader of Bolivia.

**** Agustin was an officer in the Spanish army who switched sides during the Mexican War of Independence to lead a rebel force. After Mexico won its independence in 1821, he was proclaimed first president and then emperor. (Am I the only one who sees Napoleonic echoes here?) Regardless of how Agustin became emperor, there was considerable discontent during his reign, which culminated in a revolt led by Santa Anna. (Who I had heard of, but know little about.) Agustin abdicated in March, 1823 and went into exile in Europe. When he returned to Mexico in July 1824—after the new constitution had been drafted but before it had been ratified—he was arrested and executed as a traitor. In 1838, his ashes were carried to Mexico City, where he was buried with honors as a hero of the revolution.