Editing 1838 (section)

=== January–March ===
* [[January 10]] – A fire destroys [[Lloyd's Coffee House]] and the [[Royal Exchange, London|Royal Exchange]] in London.
* [[January 11]] – At [[Morristown, New Jersey]], [[Samuel Morse]], [[Alfred Vail]] and [[Leonard Gale]] give the first public demonstration of Morse's new invention, the [[telegraph]].<ref>Russell W. Burns, ''Communications: An International History of the Formative Years'' (Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2004) p84</ref>
* [[January 21]] – The first known report about the [[Lowest temperature recorded on Earth|lowest temperature on Earth]] is made, indicating {{convert|-60|°C|°F|abbr=on}} in [[Yakutsk]].
* [[January 23]] – A [[1838 Vrancea earthquake|7.5 earthquake]] strikes the Romanian district of [[Vrancea County|Vrancea]] causing damage in [[Moldavia]] and  [[Wallachia]], killing 73 people.
* [[February 6]] – Boer explorer [[Piet Retief]] and 60 of his men are massacred by King [[Dingane kaSenzangakhona]] of the [[Zulu people]], after Retief accepts an invitation to celebrate the signing of a treaty, and his men willingly disarm as a show of good faith.<ref>Dominique Lapierre, ''A Rainbow in the Night: The Tumultuous Birth of South Africa'' (Da Capo Press, 2009)</ref>
* [[February 17]] – [[Weenen massacre]]: Zulu [[impi]]s massacre about 532 [[Voortrekkers]], [[Khoikhoi]] and [[Sotho people|Basuto]] around the site of [[Weenen]] in South Africa.
* [[February 24]] – U.S. Representatives [[William J. Graves]] of Kentucky and [[Jonathan Cilley]] of Maine face each other in a duel with rifles at 80 yards near  [[Bladensburg, Maryland]]. On the third attempt, Congressman Cilley is fatally wounded and bleeds to death.<ref>"Cilley-Graves Duel", in ''Historical Dictionary of the Jacksonian Era and Manifest Destiny'', by Mark R. Cheathem and Terry Corps (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) p98</ref>
* [[March 13]] – A combination of rain and melting snow causes the [[Danube River]] to overflow its banks, washing away villages in western [[Hungary]] and inundating the twin cities that become [[Budapest]]. More than 150 people are drowned and Europe's nations come to Hungary's aid to prevent the spread of famine and disease.<ref>Kinga Frojimovics, Géza Komoróczy, ''Jewish Budapest: Monuments, Rites, History'' (Central European University Press, 1999) p58</ref>
* [[March 31]] – The first installment of ''[[Nicholas Nickleby]]'', the new novel by [[Charles Dickens]], is released as the opener of a 20-part serialization in London.<ref>Catherine Delafield, ''Serialization and the Novel in Mid-Victorian Magazines'' (Routledge, 2016) p6</ref>