1836

February 23 - The siege of the Alamo begins in San Antonio, Texas.
February 24 - Samuel Colt receives a patent for the Colt revolver
March 2 - Declaration of independence of Texas from Mexico.
March 5 - Samuel Colt makes the first pistol (.34-caliber).
March 6 - After a 13-day siege by an army of 3,000 Mexican troops, the 189 Texas volunteers defending the Alamo are defeated and the fort taken.
March 27 - Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre - Santa Ana orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texanss at Goliad, Texas
May 15 - Francis Baily, during an eclipse of the sun, observes the phenomenon named after him as Baily's beads
June 15 - Arkansas is admitted as the 25th U.S. state.
July 11 - President Andrew Jackson issues the Specie Circular, beginning the failure of the land speculation economy that would lead to the Panic of 1837.
September 1 - Narcissa Whitman, one of the first white woman to settle west of the Rocky Mountains, arrives at Walla Walla, Washington.
September 5 - Sam Houston is elected as the first president of the Republic of Texas.
October 2 - Naturalist Charles Darwin returns to Falmouth, England aboard the HMS Beagle after a 5-year journey collecting biological data he will later use to develop his theory of evolution.
November - Martin Van Buren defeats William Henry Harrison in the U.S. presidential election
December 10 - Emory College, the forerunner of Emory University, is chartered in Oxford, Georgia.

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