Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, leading the United States Exploring Expedition, surveys the west coast of North America, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, the Columbia River, San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River, in 1841.

He lands at Fort Nisqually, an important fur trading and farming post of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Puget Sound area, part of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, on May 11, 1840.

Wilkes holds the first American Independence Day celebration west of the Mississippi River in what is now Dupont, Washington on July 5, 1841.

The Pugets Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC) had been formed in 1840 as a subsidiary of the HBC to meet its contractual obligations with the Russian-American Company in the RAC-HBC Agreement.

Fort Nisqually and Cowlitz Farm are attached to the new venture, though it remains staffed and managed by HBC personnel.

In 1841 mostly Métis families from the Red River colony are hired by the PSAC to become pastoralists and farmers upon its two stations.

After traveling overland to Fort Vancouver by James Sinclair, fourteen Métis emigrant families from the Red River colony choose Fort Nisqually as their final destination.

The United States Exploring Expedition, led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, passes through the Ellice Islands and visits Funafuti, ...

...Vaitupu in 1841.

...Nukufetau and ...

The New Zealand Company establishes settlements in 1841 at Nelson and ...

...New Plymouth.

Edward Eyre follows his 1840 journey with the crossing of the Nullarbor Plain to Western Australia, arriving in Albany in 1841.

New South Wales has fallen into chaos by the time Britain intervenes and appoints resident magistrate George Grey colonial governor in 1841.

He imposes stringent measures and succeeds in restoring the economy to health.

Western Australia, which has experienced the same sort of rapid economic deterioration as New South Wales, also benefits from official intervention.

The Manchu-led Qing dynasty had consolidated its control of Tibet after defeating the Dzungar Khanate in the early eighteenth century.

From then until late into the nineteenth century, the Qing rule of the region is unchallenged.

South of the Himalayas, Ranjit Singh had established his empire in the Punjab region in 1799.

In 1808, Ranjit Singh had conquered Jammu, which was under control of the Hindu Rajput Dogra dynasty from Dougar Desh in Jammu and incorporated them into his empire as vassals.

Historians continue to debate the reasons for the invasion; some say control of Tibet would have given Gulab Singh a monopoly on the lucrative pashmina wool trade of Tibet, others believe that he aimed to establish a land bridge between Ladakh and Nepal to create a Sikh-Gorkha alliance against the British.