Known as the "Year Without a Summer" or "Eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death" in the northern hemisphere due to global cooling caused by the Mount Tamboravolcanic eruption that had occurred in 1815.
July 17 - The French passenger ship Medusa runs aground off the coast of Senegal, with 140 lives lost in the botched rescue that takes weeks, leading to a scandal in the French government.