• French commentator Alexis de Tocqueville publishes the second volume of Democracy in America, his landmark study of American society.

These people were born in 1840:

• Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
• French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
• French impressionist master Claude Monet.
• English writer Thomas Hardy.
• Kuroda Kiyotaka, second Prime minister of Japan.
• French writer Emile Zola.

These people died in 1840:

• Japanese emperor Kokaku.

1839 - 1840 - 1841

19th century

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