| Year Summary | Monarch is Queen Victoria. Prime Minister is Lord John Russell (Whig). US President is James Knox Polk (D-Tennessee), and then on March 4 it is Zachary Taylor (W-Kentucky). Polk is the first sitting US President to have his photograph taken. Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the United States' first woman doctor. Karl Marx moves from Paris to London (and lives there until his death). Charles Dickens serialises <em>David Copperfield</em>. The design of the <em>Staunton chess set</em> is registered by Nathaniel Cooke. Two shilling coin (florin), showing the Queen wearing a crown, is introduced partly to test public opinion on possible decimalization of the currency. |
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