Robert Wyly (1807 - 1854)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Robert's lifetime.

In 1807, in the year that Robert Wyly was born, on March 2nd, the U.S. Congress passed an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States . . . from any foreign kingdom, place, or country" This Federal law, proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1806, took effect on January 1,1808. However, historians estimate that over 50,000 slaves were brought to the U.S. after the Act since the U.S. did not include Spanish Florida and Texas - and therefore places where slaves could be brought in.

In 1817, he was merely 10 years old when King Ferdinand VII of Spain - who ruled Cuba - issued a royal decree that made the production and sale of tobacco a legal endeavor in Cuba. The decree created the birth of the Cuban cigar industry.

In 1827, when he was 20 years old, on May 25th, Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru received a French patent for the invention of the first fountain pen with a replaceable ink cartridge. The fountain pen would make inkwells obsolete. Poenaru's patent used a barrel made from a large swan quill (part of the feather).

In 1830, Robert was 23 years old when 10,000 chests of opium were sold in China - one chest was 60–65 kilograms, about 140 pounds, and was worth nearly $740 in US dollars. This worked out to a trade of roughly 7.5 million US dollars in 1830.

In 1854, in the year of Robert Wyly's passing, the fashion house Louis Vuitton was founded in Paris by Louis Vuitton Malletier. Beginning with trunks - and soon new ingenious flat topped trunks that could be stacked - the company now produces trunks and leather goods as well as clothing, watches, shoes, jewelry, sunglasses, books and other accessories.