1801 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 1 - Legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland completed under the Act of Union 1800, bringing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
• January 1 - Giuseppe Piazzi discovers the first (and largest) asteroid Ceres.
• January 20 - John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the United States.
• February 3 - William Pitt the Younger resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• February 9 - The Treaty of Lunéville ends the war (Second Coalition) between France and Austria.
• February 17 - An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
• February 27 - Washington, DC is placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Congress.
• March 4 - Thomas Jefferson succeeds John Adams as the President of the United States of America.
• March 21 - Second Battle of Abukir: a British army under Ralph Abercromby defeats the French troops.
• March 23 - The Russian Tsar Paul I is murdered. He is succeeded by his son Alexander I of Russia.
• April 2 - First Battle of Copenhagen - British fleet under admiral Hyde Parker, along with Admiral Horatio Nelson with them, attacks Copenhagen. Armed Neutrality of the North dissolved.
• May - The pascha of Tripoli declares war on United States by having the flagpole on the consulate chopped down.
• June 27 - Cairo falls to British troops.
• July 6 - Battle of Algeciras: The French fleet beats the British fleet.
• July 18 - Napoleon signs the Concordat of 1801 with the pope.
• November 16 - First edition of New York Evening Post

• Aachen is officially annexed by France.
• A census in London revealed it to have 860,035 residents
• First census in France
• Joseph-Marie Jacquard developed a loom where the pattern being woven was controlled by punch cards.
• The ultraviolet radiation is discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter

Ongoing events

• French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-Second Coalition/Egyptian Campaign
• Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)-Second Coalition/Egyptian Campaign

Births

• February 1 - Thomas Cole, American artist (d. 1848)
• May 11 - Henri Labrouste, architect (d. 1875)
• June 1 - Brigham Young, American relgious leader and colonizer (d. 1877)
• June 14 - Heber C. Kimball, Mormon church leader (d. 1868)
• June 30 - Frederic Bastiat, French philosopher
• July 29 - George Bradshaw, English publisher
• October 12 - Friedrich Frey-Herosé, member of the Swiss Federal Council (d. 1873)
• November 3 - Karl Baedeker, German author and publisher (d. 1859)
• November 3 - Vincenzo Bellini, Italian composer (d. 1835)
• November 10 - Vladimir Dal, Russian lexicographer (d. 1872)

Deaths

• February 7 - Daniel Chodowiecki, German painter
• March 23 - Tsar Paul of Russia
• March 25 - Novalis, German poet (b. 1772)
• March 28 - Ralph Abercromby, British general
• April 2 - Thomas Dadford Junior, British canal engineer
• June 4 - Frederick Muhlenberg, first speaker of the United States House of Representatives
• September 19 - Johann Gottfried Koehler, German astronomer