January 22, 1849 – Second Anglo-Sikh War: The Siege of Multan ends after nine months when the last Sikh defenders of Multan, Punjab, surrender.

January 23, 1849 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Geneva Medical College of Geneva, New York, becoming the United States’ first female doctor.

January 31, 1849 – Corn Laws are abolished in the United Kingdom (following legislation in 1846).

February 9, 1849 – New Roman Republic established

February 28, 1849 – Regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States begins with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, 4 months 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.

April 25, 1849 – The Governor General of Canada, Lord Elgin, signs the Rebellion Losses Bill, outraging Montreal’s English population and triggering the Montreal Riots.

May 17, 1849 – A large fire nearly burns St. Louis, Missouri to the ground.

June 5, 1849 – Denmark becomes a constitutional monarchy by the signing of a new constitution.

July 3, 1849 – The French enter Rome in order to restore Pope Pius IX to power. This would prove a major obstacle to Italian unification.

November 16, 1849 – A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor.

January 10, 1849 – Robert Crosbie, Canadian theosophist (d. 1919)

January 12, 1849 – Jean Béraud, French painter (d. 1935)

January 18, 1849 – Sir Edmund Barton, 1st Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1920)

January 22, 1849 – August Strindberg, Swedish writer (d. 1912)

February 2, 1849 – Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, Slovak poet (d. 1921)

February 13, 1849 – Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt German impostor who became famous as The Captain of Köpenick (Der Hauptmann von Köpenick) (d. 1922)

February 18, 1849 – Alexander Kielland, Norwegian author (d. 1906)

March 28, 1849 – James Darmesteter, French author and antiquarian (d. 1894)

July 12, 1849 – Sir William Osler, Canadian physician and author (d. 1919)

December 30, 1849 – John Milne, English seismologist and geologist (d. 1913)