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The 1860s

1,956 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 19th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1860 CE179 entries

  • May 15 – Expedition of the Thousand – Battle of Calatafimi: Troops under Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat the army of Naples in Sicily.
  • 9 July – The Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses, the first nursing school based on the ideas of Florence Nightingale, is opened at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
  • October – John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant leave Zanzibar, to search for the source of the Nile River.

1861 CE203 entries

  • 20 February – storms damage the Crystal Palace in London and cause the collapse of the steeple of Chichester Cathedral.
  • March 3 (February 19 O.S.) – Emancipation reform of 1861: Alexander II abolishes serfdom in the Russian Empire.
  • July 25 – The Crittenden–Johnson Resolution is passed by the U.S. Congress, stating that the war is being fought to preserve the Union, and not to end slavery.

1862 CE191 entries

  • April 22 – Global financial group UBS is founded in Switzerland as the Bank in Winterthur.
  • April 25 – American Civil War: Capture of New Orleans – Forces under Union Admiral David Farragut occupy the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana, securing access to the Mississippi.
  • September 22 – American Civil War: Preliminary announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln: From January 1, 1863, slaves in the Confederate States will be considered free.

1863 CE205 entries

  • January 1 – Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation during the third year of the American Civil War, making the abolition of slavery in the Confederate States of America an official war goal. The signing proclaims the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's four million slaves and immediately frees 50,000 of them, with the rest freed as the Union Army advances. This event marks the start of America's Reconstruction Era.
  • January 2 – Master Lucius Tar Paint Company (Teerfarbenfabrik Meister Lucius), predecessor of Hoechst as a worldwide chemical manufacturing brand, is founded in a suburb of Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
  • November: Shortly after his government loses a vote of no-confidence, former premier Alfred Domett moves a resolution in Parliament that the Capital of New Zealand be moved closer to Cook Strait. This leads to the movement of the Capital to Wellington in 1865.

1864 CE194 entries

  • May 21 – The Russian Empire begins the Circassian genocide. More than 1.5 million Circassians are driven from their homeland to the Ottoman Empire, ending the Russo-Circassian War.
  • Battle of Brice's Crossroads – Confederate troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest defeat a much larger Union force, led by General Samuel D. Sturgis, in Mississippi.
  • November 4 – American Civil War: Battle of Johnsonville – At Johnsonville, Tennessee, troops under the command of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest bombard a Union supply base with artillery, and destroy millions of dollars' worth of material.

1865 CE202 entries

  • July 5 – The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country.
  • October 8 – The 6.3 MLa Santa Cruz Mountains earthquake shakes the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Area of California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe), causing $500,000 in damage.
  • 23 December — Convention between France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland forming the Latin Monetary Union signed in Paris.

1866 CE185 entries

  • April 4 – Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in the city of St Petersburg.
  • November 5 – House of Representatives elections: Despite President Andrew Johnson's Swing Around the Circle tour, the Republican Party wins in a landslide.
  • 12 December – the Oaks explosion in the Barnsley seam in Yorkshire kills 361 coal miners; a subsidiary explosion the following day kills 27 rescuers. This is the all-time worst colliery or mining disaster in England, and the worst mining accident in the U.K. until 1913.

1867 CE201 entries

  • January 8 – African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia.
  • March – The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is established (opened one year later).
  • October 27 – Italian unification: Giuseppe Garibaldi's troops march into the Papal States.

1868 CE205 entries

  • February 24 – Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Three days after his action to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the United States House of Representatives votes 126–47 in favor of a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, the first of three Presidents to be impeached by the full House. Johnson is later acquitted by the United States Senate.
  • 12 March – Henry James O'Farrell fires a revolver into the back of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (second son of Queen Victoria) while the latter is picnicking in the beachfront suburb of Clontarf. It was Australia's first attempted political assassination. O'Farrell first claimed that he was acting under instruction from Melbourne Fenians but later retracted the claims. He had problems with alcoholism and mental illness.
  • October 21 – The M6.3–6.7 Hayward earthquake affects the San Francisco Bay Area with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), causing damage from Santa Rosa to Santa Cruz.

1869 CE191 entries

  • July 26 – The Irish Church Act 1869 is given royal assent by Queen Victoria, disestablishing the Church of Ireland effective January 1, 1871.
  • November 6 – The first game of American football between two American colleges is played. Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4, in a forerunner to American football and College football.
  • November 6 – College of New Jersey (Princeton) defeat the Rutgers Queensmen (Rutgers) 6 to 4 in New Brunswick, N.J. in what is widely considered the first ever American football game with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, becoming known as "The Birthplace of College Football"