Events January–March January 1 – Nominal beginning of the Trienio Liberal in Spain: A constitutionalist military insurrection at Cádiz leads to the summoning of the Spanish Parliament (March 7). January 8 – General Maritime Treaty ("General Treaty for the Cessation of Plunder and Piracy by Land and Sea, Dated February 5, 1820") signed between the sheikhs of Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain and Ras Al Khaimah (later constituents of the Trucial States) in the Arabian Peninsula and the United Kingdom. January 27 (NS) – An Imperial Russian Navy expedition, led by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen in Vostok with Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, sights the Antarctic ice sheet. January 29 – George IV of the United Kingdom ascends the throne, on the death at Windsor Castle of his father George III (after 59 years on the throne), ending the 9-year period known as the British Regency. There will be a gap of 21 years before the title Prince of Wales is next used. January 30 – British Royal Navy captain Edward Bransfield, an Irishman, in the Williams is the first person to positively identify Antarctica as a land mass. February 6 Capture of Valdivia: Lord Cochrane occupies Valdivia in the name of the Republic of Chile. 86 free African American colonists sail from New York City to Freetown, Sierra Leone. February 14 – Minh Mạng starts to rule in Vietnam. February 20 – A revolt begins in Santa María Chiquimula, Totonicapán Department of Guatemala. February 23 – Cato Street Conspiracy: A plot to murder the Cabinet of the United Kingdom is exposed in England. March 3 – A fire in Guangzhou (Canton) burns 15,000 houses and kills an undetermined number of people. March 3 and 6 – Slavery in the United States: The Missouri Compromise becomes law, allowing admission of Missouri and Maine, slave and free states respectively, as U.S. states. March 9 – King Ferdinand VII of Spain accepts the new constitution, beginning the Trienio Liberal. March 10 – The Astronomical Society of London is founded. March 15 – Maine is admitted as the 23rd U.S. state. March 26 – Likely date when Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, receives his First Vision in Palmyra, New York (possibly March 26). March 28 - A Coup d'état against Paraguayan dictator José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia fails. Fulgencio Yegros and Pedro Juan Caballero are some of the people behind