1848. December 10, 1848 – Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte is elected first president of the French Second Republic. December 20, 1848 – President Bonaparte takes his Oath of Office in front of the French National Assembly. January 1, 1849 – France issues Ceres, the nation's first postage stamp. Southern Europe Greece September 3, 1843 – Popular uprising in Athens, Greece, including citizens and military captains, to require from King Otto the issue of a liberal Constitution to the state, which has been governed since independence (1830) by various domestic and foreign business interests. Italian Peninsula January 12, 1848 – The Palermo rising erupts in Sicily, against the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies. March 22, 1848 – Republic of San Marco comes into existence in Venice. January 21, 1849 – General elections are held in the Papal States. February 8, 1849 – The new Roman Republic is proclaimed. April 27, 1849 – Giuseppe Garibaldi enters Rome to defend it from the French troops of General Oudinot. May 15, 1849 – Troops of the Two Sicilies take Palermo and crush the republican government of Sicily. July 3, 1849 – French troops occupy Rome; the Roman Republic surrenders. Spain This period saw the 1840 end of the First Carlist War, a civil war in Spain over the succession to the throne and the nature of the Spanish monarchy. This was the first full decade of the reign of Isabella II of Spain. Since she was only 10 years old in 1840, her true reign started in 1843, for which the first portion was referred to as Década moderada. The Affair of the Spanish Marriages (1846) was a series of intrigues between France, Spain, and the United Kingdom relating Isabella II's marriages, which was shortly followed by Second Carlist War (1847–1849). Portugal May 16, 1846 – Revolutionary insurrection in Portugal (crushed by royalist troops on February 22, 1847) Africa December 7, 1840 – David Livingstone leaves Britain for Africa. August 10, 1845 – The French Consul in Zanzibar (M. Broquant) receives the final letter sent by Eugène Maizan during his expedition into tropical Africa. December 20, 1848 – Slavery is abolished on the island of Réunion. Algeria December 21, 1847 – Abd al-Kader surrenders and is imprisoned by the French. Ethiopia February 7, 1842 – Battle of Debre Tabor: Ras Ali Alula, Regent of the Emperor of Ethiopia, defeats warlord Wube Haile Maryam of