Events January–March January 2 – The Panic of 1819, the first major peacetime financial crisis in the United States, begins. January 25 – Thomas Jefferson founds the University of Virginia. January 29 – Sir Stamford Raffles lands on the island of Singapore. February 2 – Dartmouth College v. Woodward: The Supreme Court of the United States under John Marshall rules in favor of Dartmouth College, allowing Dartmouth to keep its charter and remain a private institution. February 6 – The Treaty of Singapore, between Hussein Shah of Johor and the British Sir Stamford Raffles, founds a trading settlement in Singapore. February 15 – The United States House of Representatives agrees to the Tallmadge Amendment, barring slaves from the new state of Missouri (the opening vote in a controversy that leads to the Missouri Compromise). February 19 – Captain William Smith of British merchant brig Williams sights Williams Point, the northeast extremity of Livingston Island in the South Shetlands, the first land discovered south of latitude 60° S. February 22 – Adams–Onís Treaty: Spain cedes Florida to the United States, in exchange for the American renunciation of any claims on Texas that it might have from the Louisiana Purchase, and $5 million. March 1 – U.S. naval vessel is launched in Washington, D.C. March 6 – McCulloch v. Maryland: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the Bank of the United States is constitutional. March 20 – Burlington Arcade opens in London. March 23 – In Mannheim, Duchy of Baden, German dramatist August von Kotzebue is assassinated by Karl Ludwig Sand. April–June April 6–June 21 – French slave ship Le Rodeur sails from Bonny in West Africa to Guadeloupe in the West Indies; in the course of the transatlantic voyage many onboard become blind, and thirty slaves are thrown overboard as a consequence. April 7 (N.S.) (March 26 O.S.) – The Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire emancipates its peasants from serfdom. May 22 – The leaves port at Savannah, Georgia, on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, although only a fraction of the trip will be made under steam. The ship arrives at Liverpool, England, nearly a month later, on June 20. May 22 – The city of Memphis, Tennessee, is founded. June 16 – The 7.7–8.2 Rann of Kutch earthquake kills at least 1,543 people in the modern-day Indian state of Gujarat at