1846 in the United States

Incumbents

Federal Government">Federal government of the United States">Federal Government

• President: James K. Polk
• Vice President: George M. Dallas
• Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: John Wesley Davis
• Congress: 29th

  Governors

• Governor of Alabama: Joshua L. Martin
• Governor of Arkansas: Thomas Stevenson Drew
• Governor of Connecticut: Roger Sherman Baldwin , Isaac Toucey
• Governor of Delaware:
• * until March 2: Thomas Stockton
• * March 2-May 3: Joseph Maull
• * May 3-May 6: vacant
• * starting May 6: William Temple
• Governor of Florida: William Dunn Moseley
• Governor of Georgia: George W. Crawford
• Governor of Illinois: Thomas Ford , Augustus C. French
• Governor of Indiana: James Whitcomb
• Governor of Iowa: James Clarke , Ansel Briggs
• Governor of Kentucky: William Owsley
• Governor of Louisiana: Alexandre Mouton , Isaac Johnson
• Governor of Maine: Hugh J. Anderson
• Governor of Maryland: Thomas Pratt
• Governor of Massachusetts: George N. Briggs
• Governor of Michigan: John S. Barry , Alpheus Felch
• Governor of Mississippi: Albert G. Brown
• Governor of Missouri: John C. Edwards
• Governor of New Hampshire: John H. Steele , Anthony Colby
• Governor of New Jersey: Charles C. Stratton
• Governor of New York: Silas Wright
• Governor of North Carolina: William Alexander Graham
• Governor of Ohio: Mordecai Bartley , William Bebb
• Governor of Pennsylvania: Francis R. Shunk
• Governor of Rhode Island: Charles Jackson , Byron Diman
• Governor of South Carolina: William Aiken, Jr. , David Johnson
• Governor of Tennessee: Aaron V. Brown
• Governor of Texas: Anson Jones , James Pinckney Henderson
• Governor of Vermont: William Slade , Horace Eaton
• Governor of Virginia: James McDowell , William Smith

  Lieutenant Governors

• Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Reuben Booth , Noyes Billings
• Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: John Moore , Joseph Wells
• Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: vacant, Paris C. Dunning
• Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: Archibald Dixon
• Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana: Trasimond Landry
• Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: John Reed, Jr.
• Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Origen D. Richardson , William L. Greenly
• Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: James Young
• Lieutenant Governor of New York: Addison Gardiner
• Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: Byron Diman , Elisha Harris
• Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina: J. F. Ervin , William Cain
• Lieutenant Governor of Texas: Albert Clinton Horton
• Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: Horace Eaton , Leonard Sargeant

  Events

• January 4 – The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom.
• January 30 – The City of Milwaukee is incorporated in Wisconsin, merging Juneautown, Kilbourntown and Walker's Point following the Milwaukee Bridge War of 1845. Solomon Juneau is elected first mayor.
• February 11 – Many Mormons begin their migration west from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Great Salt Lake, led by Brigham Young.
• February 18 – In Austin, Texas, the newly formed Texas state government is officially installed.
• February 27 – The Liberty Bell is cracked while being rung for George Washington's birthday.
• April 26 – Mexican–American War: Open conflict begins over border disputes of Texas' boundaries.
• May 8 – Mexican–American War – Battle of Palo Alto: Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande at Palo Alto, Texas in the first major battle of the war.
• May 14 – Mexican–American War: The United States declares war on Mexico.
• May 23 – The Associated Press is founded in New York City.

• June 14 – Mexican–American War: The California Republic declares independence from Mexico.
• June 15 – Bear Flag Revolt: American settlers in Sonoma, California start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.
• June 16 – The Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
• June 20 – The first officially recorded baseball game using modern rules developed by Alexander Cartwright is played in Hoboken, New Jersey.
• July 8 – Battle of Monterey: Acting on instructions from Washington, D.C., Commodore John Drake Sloat orders his troops to occupy Monterey and Yerba Buena thus beginning the United States annexation of California.
• August 11 – Establishment of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..
• September 21–24 – Battle of Monterrey: General Pedro de Ampudia and the Mexican Army of the North are defeated by General Zachary Taylor's Army of Occupation, comprising U. S. Regulars, U. S. Volunteers and Texas Rangers. The battle ends after three days of fighting with 120 U. S. soldiers killed, 360 wounded, and 43 missing. The Mexicans suffer 367 killed and wounded.
• November 31 – The Donner Party becomes snowbound.
• December 29 – Iowa is admitted as the 29th U.S. state.

  Undated

• The portion of the District of Columbia that was ceded by Virginia in 1789 is re-ceded to it.
• Elias Howe patents the sewing machine.
• Stevens Linen Works business established in Dudley, Massachusetts.
• Grinnell College, then called Iou University, is founded in Grinnell, Iowa Territory.

  Ongoing

• Mexican–American War

  Births

• January 9 - Verner Clarges, silent film actor
• January 26 - Benjamin Franklin Keith, vaudeville theatre owner
• January 27 - Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., founder of the Kentucky Derby
• February 2 - Francis Marion Smith, borax magnate
• February 26 - William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, frontiersman, later showman
• March 4 - Franklin J. Drake, admiral
• March 15 - James D. Moffat, 3rd president of Washington & Jefferson College
• March 22 - James Timberlake, lawman
• April 13 - Lucius E. Johnson, railroad executive
• April 14 - Henry Overholser, businessman
• May 18 - Anna Morton, Second Lady of the United States as wife of Levi P. Morton
• May 22 - Rita Cetina Gutiérrez, teacher, poet and activist
• June 8 - Lucien Baker, U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1895 till 1901
• June 11 - William Louis Marshall, general, engineer
• June 13 - Rose Cleveland, Acting First Lady of the United States
• June 30 - Frances Margaret Milne, author and librarian
• July 5 - Christian Reid, author
• July 26 - Texas Jack Omohundro, frontier scout, actor and cowboy
• August 2 - Abram J. Buckles, soldier and jurist
• August 5 - Louise Manning Hodgkins, educator, author and editor
• August 15 - Albert J. Hopkins, U.S. Senator from Illinois from 1903 to 1909
• August 18 - Robley Dunglison Evans, admiral
• August 23 - Alexander Milne Calder, sculptor
• August 25 - John Thornton, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1910 to 1915
• September 4 - Daniel Burnham, architect and urban designer
• September 7 - John Porter Merrell, admiral
• September 14 - George B. Selden, patent lawyer and inventor
• September 25 - Watson Heston, cartoonist
• October 6 - George Westinghouse, entrepreneur, engineer
• October 26 - Lewis Boss, astronomer
• November 25 - Carrie Nation, temperance advocate
• December 1 - William Henry Holmes, anthropologist, archaeologist, geologist and museum director

  Full date unknown

• Neil Burgess, comedian
• John Denny, buffalo soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• Pugsey Hurley, British-born burglar, river pirate and underworld figure in New York City
• Peter Remondino, Italian-born physician, author, first president of the San Diego Board of Health, and co-founder of San Diego's first private hospital
• Mary Foot Seymour, businesswoman and writer
• Thomas Shaw, buffalo soldier and Medal of Honor recipient
• Thomas Wakeman, founder of the first Sioux Indian YMCA
• James E. Ware, architect, originator of the "dumbbell plan" for New York City tenements

  Deaths

• January 5 - Alfred Thomas Agate, artist, painter, and miniaturist
• March 24 - William Lee D. Ewing, U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1834
• May 10 - Jane Irwin Harrison, Acting First Lady of the United States
• May 13 - Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, poet
• August 11 - John Caspar Wild, landscape painter and lithographer
• August 15 - Samuel Humphreys, naval architect
• September 4 - James Alexander, Jr., U.S. Representative from Ohio from 1837 to 1839
• September 15 - Jacques Dupré, Louisiana State Representative, State Senator and Governor
• September 16 - Samuel A. Foote, 28th Governor of Connecticut from 1834 to 1835, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1827 to 1833
• October 3 - Benjamin Waterhouse, physician
• November 13 - William Findlay, 4th Governor of Pennsylvania from 1817 to 1820, U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1821 to 1827
• December 30 - Alexander Barrow, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1841 to 1846