James Wilson Marshall finds gold nuggets in a branch of the Sacramento River on property owned by John Augustus Sutter.  The discovery sets off the California Gold Rush the following year. (By John Osborne)

John A. Veatch discovered borax deposits, important in cleaning and other chemical uses, in mineral water drawn from the Tuscan Springs in Tehama County, California.  Commercial exploitation of this deposit, the first identified in the United States, began in 1864. (By John Osborne)

Sculptor Clark Mills' statue of General Andrew Jackson on horseback is unveiled in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C.  It is the first bronze equestrian statute erected in the United States. (By John Osborne)

Under editor Gustav Adolf Neumann, the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung switched from weekly to daily publication, making it the first daily German newspaper in the United States. (By John Osborne)

The Skater's Club of the City and County of Philadelphia opened its formal operation.  The first such ice skating club in the country, it had been informally constituted two weeks earlier at the Stigman's Hotel in Philadelphia. (By John Osborne)

Joseph Jenkins Roberts, born a free black in Norfolk, Virginia in 1809, and a migrant to Liberia in 1829, was sworn in as the first president of the newly independent Republic of Liberia.  He had served earlier as the governor of the colonial settlement and when Liberia became independent on July 26, 1847 he had been chosen as its first chief executive. (By John Osborne)