date: January 31

text: January 31 – The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York.


date: February 28

section: Culture & Society

text: February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: March 16

text: March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published in Boston, Massachusetts.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – St. Mary School for Boys (the future University of Dayton) opens its doors in Dayton, Ohio.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: August 28

text: August 28 – Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin (including the Bridal Chorus) premieres under the direction of Franz Liszt, in Weimar.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.

source_section: Events › October–December


date: October 19

text: October 19 – The Phi Kappa Sigma international fraternity is founded, at the University of Pennsylvania.


text: Undergraduates at Exeter College, Oxford arrange a "foot grind" (a cross-country steeplechase), the first organised university athletic event.


text: Bingley Hall, the world's first purpose-built exhibition hall, opens in Birmingham, England.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: Stephen Foster's parlor ballad "Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway" is published in the United States.

source_section: Events › April–June


text: German physicist Rudolf Clausius publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat ("On the Moving Force of Heat") which first states the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics.


date: January 6

section: Births

text: January 6 – Eduard Bernstein, German social democratic theoretician, politician (d. 1932)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Charles Doolittle Walcott, American invertebrate paleontologist (d. 1927)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, British prince and Governor General of Canada (d. 1942)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Henry Cabot Lodge, American statesman (d. 1924)


date: May 27

text: May 27 – Thomas Neill Cream, Scottish-Canadian serial killer (d. 1892)


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Frederic William Maitland, English jurist and historian (d. 1906)


date: June 6

text: June 6 – Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1918)


date: June 24

text: June 24 – Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British field marshal, statesman (d. 1916)


date: June 27

text: June 27 – Lafcadio Hearn, Greco-Japanese author (d. 1904)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Annie Armstrong, American missionary leader (d. 1938)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Frances Xavier Cabrini, American saint (d. 1917)


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Robert Love Taylor, American congressman, senator and Governor from Tennessee (d. 1912)


date: August 25

text: August 25 – Charles Richet, French physiologist, Nobel Prize winner (d. 1935)


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist (d. 1896)


date: January 2

section: Deaths

text: January 2 – Manuel de la Peña y Peña, interim President of Mexico (b. 1789)

source_section: Deaths › January–March


date: February 1

text: February 1 - Abraham Lincoln’s second son, Edward Baker Lincoln, died at the age of three after 52 days for struggling with tuberculosis (consumption) before his fourth birthday in Springfield, Illinois.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty of China (b. 1782)


text: March 31 – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (b. 1782)


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Raja Nara Singh, regent of Manipur (b. 1792)

source_section: Deaths › April–June


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Joseph Plumb Martin, American Revolutionary soldier, narrative author (b. 1760)


date: June 16

text: June 16 – William Lawson, British explorer of New South Wales (b. 1774)


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge (b. 1774)

source_section: Deaths › July–September


date: July 9

text: July 9 – The Báb, Persian founder of the Bábí Faith (executed by a firing squad) (b. 1819)


text: July 9 – Zachary Taylor, 65, 12th President of the United States (b. 1784)


text: July 9 – Jean-Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti (b. 1776)


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist (b. 1810)


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Honoré de Balzac, French author (b. 1799)


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Richard Mentor Johnson, 9th Vice President of the United States (b. 1780)

source_section: Deaths › October–December


date: January 23

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: January 23 – The flip of a coin, subsequently named the Portland Penny, determines whether a new city in the Oregon Territory will be named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Victor Hugo uses the phrase United States of Europe, in a speech to the French National Assembly.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Port Phillip District separates from New South Wales to become the Colony of Victoria (Australia).


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Virginia closes its Reform Constitutional Convention, deciding that all white men have the right to vote.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – In what amounts to a coup d'etat, President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte of France dissolves the French National Assembly, and declares a new constitution to extend his term. A year later he declares himself as Emperor Napoleon III, ending the Second Republic.


date: January 11

section: Conflict & Security

text: January 11 – Hong Xiuquan officially begins the Taiping Rebellion in China, one of the bloodiest revolts that would lead to 20 million deaths.


text: July 1 – Battle of Ras Tanoura, a collision occurs between the Bahrain blockading force off Kateef and the Arab fugitives at Kenn Island, who surprised and attacked the Bahrain fleet. Mubarak bin Abdulla bin Ahmed, along with his brother Rashid and Busher bin Rahma Al Jalahma were all killed in the battle.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – The first Parsi-Muslim riot begins in Bombay, India.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Mutineers take control of the Chilean penal colony of Punta Arenas in the Strait of Magellan.


date: November 26

text: November 26–27 – Morocco: French naval forces bombard the Moroccan city of Salé, in retaliation for looting of a French cargo ship.


date: December 26

text: December 26–27 – A British Royal Navy warship bombards Lagos Island; Oba Kosoko is wounded, and flees to Epe.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – 1851 Chilean Revolution: At the Battle of Loncomilla, Chilean rebels are defeated, ending the revolution.


text: Nian Rebellion in China, 1851–68.

source_section: Events › Ongoing


text: Naga raids on the East India Company, 1851–65.


date: March 27

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: March 27 – The first European men reportedly see Yosemite Valley.


date: April 9

text: April 9 – San Luis, the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Colorado, is founded by settlers from Taos, New Mexico.


date: August 3

text: August 3 – The filibustering Lopez Expedition sails from New Orleans, Louisiana heading to seize Spanish-ruled Cuba.


date: August 22

text: August 22 – The yacht America wins the first America's Cup race, off the coast of England.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – Narciso López is executed in Havana following the failure of his expedition in Cuba.


date: September 30

text: September 30 – HSwMS Eugenie leaves from Karlskrona, Sweden to begin its voyage as the first Swedish Royal Navy vessel to circumnavigate the world.


date: November 13

text: November 13 – The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle.


date: April 20

section: Religion & Belief

text: April 20 – Ramón Castilla loses power in Peru.


date: June 2

section: Economy & Finance

text: June 2 – Castle & Cooke, the predecessor of Dole Food Company, is founded in Hawaii.


date: April 8

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: April 8 – Western Union is founded, as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London is opened by Queen Victoria.


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Isaac Singer is granted a United States patent for his improved sewing machine.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway officially opens in Russia.


text: November 13 – The first protected submarine telegraph cable is laid, across the English Channel.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – The first railway begins operation in India, hauling canal construction material in Roorkee.


date: February 12

section: Science & Discovery

text: February 12 – Edward Hargraves claims to have found gold in Australia.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Total solar eclipse visible in Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Northern Europe, the first solar eclipse to be photographed.


date: July 29

text: July 29 – Annibale de Gasparis, in Naples, Italy discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Ariel and Umbriel, moons of Uranus, are discovered by William Lassell.


date: April 25

section: Health & Medicine

text: April 25 – Placer County, California, is formed from parts of Sutter and Yuba Counties with Auburn as the county seat.


text: June 2 – Maine passes the Maine Liquor Law, the first state-wide prohibition in the United States.


date: February 15

section: Crime & Justice

text: February 15 – In Boston, Massachusetts, members of the anti-slavery Boston Vigilance Committee rescue fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins from a courtroom, following his arrest by U.S. marshals.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Serial poisoner Hélène Jégado is arrested in Rennes, France. Her trial opens on December 6; she is eventually sentenced to death and executed by guillotine.


date: February 1

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: February 1 – Brandtaucher, the oldest surviving submersible craft, sinks during acceptance trials in the German port of Kiel, but the designer, Wilhelm Bauer, and the two crew escape successfully.


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Black Thursday occurs in Australia as bushfires sweep across the state of Victoria, burning about a quarter of its area.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., burns.


date: March 30

section: Climate & Environment

text: March 30 – A United Kingdom Census is taken. The population has reached 21 million. 6.3 million live in cities of 20,000 or more in England and Wales, and cities of 20,000 or more account for 35% of the total English population. It also shows that a legacy of the Great Irish Famine is that the population of Ireland has fallen to 6,575,000 – a drop of 1,600,000 in ten years, many having emigrated.


text: Mid-May to mid-July – Great Flood of 1851: Extensive flooding sweeps across the Midwestern United States. The town of Des Moines is virtually washed away, and many rainfall records hold for 160 years.


text: 1851–1855 Yellow River floods in China.


text: Great Famine (Ireland), 1845–52.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Christian Female College, modern-day Columbia College, receives its charter from the Missouri General Assembly.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – Northwestern University is founded in Illinois.


date: March 11

text: March 11 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto is first performed at La Fenice in Venice.


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Santa Clara College is chartered in Santa Clara, California.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Mongkut is crowned as King (Rama IV) of Siam, at the Grand Palace in Bangkok.


text: May 15 – Alpha Delta Pi sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia (U.S.)


text: May 15 – The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – The Immortal Game, a famous chess match, is played between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky, during a break in the first international tournament, held in London.


date: July 10

text: July 10 – The University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College, in Santa Clara, California.


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – The New York Times is founded in New York City.


date: October 15

text: October 15 – The city of Winona, Minnesota is founded.


date: October

text: October – The Reuters news service is founded in London


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after being first published on October 18 in London, by Richard Bentley, in three volumes as The Whale.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.


date: December 29

text: December 29 – The first YMCA in the United States opens in Boston, Massachusetts.


date: January 11

text: January 11 – Soeria Atmadja, Sundanese noble and politician, Regent of Sumedang (1881 - 1919) (d. 1921)

source_section: Births › January–June


date: January 19

text: January 19 – David Starr Jordan, American ichthyologist, educator, eugenicist, and peace activist (d. 1931)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Léon Bourgeois, French statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1925)


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Sir Oliver Lodge, British physicist (d. 1940)


date: July 8

text: July 8 – Arthur Evans, British archaeologist (d. 1941)

source_section: Births › July–December


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Doc Holliday, American gambler, gunfighter (d. 1887)


date: September 13

text: September 13 – Walter Reed, American army physician, bacteriologist (d. 1902)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Evgeny Aleksandrovich Radkevich, Russian general (d. 1930)


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Hardwicke Rawnsley, English clergyman, poet, writer of hymns and conservationist (d. 1920)


date: November 10

text: November 10 – José Maria de Yermo y Parres, Mexican Roman Catholic priest and saint (d. 1904)


date: November 13

text: November 13 – Klemens Bachleda, Polish Tatra guide and mountain rescuer (d. 1910)


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Melvil Dewey, American librarian, inventor of Dewey Decimal Classification (d. 1931)


date: December 24

text: December 24 – Noël Édouard, vicomte de Curières de Castelnau, French general (d. 1944)


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Asa Griggs Candler, American businessman, politician (d. 1929)


date: January 10

text: January 10 – Karl Freiherr von Müffling, Prussian field marshal (b. 1775)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: January 27

text: January 27 – John James Audubon, French-American naturalist, illustrator (b. 1785)


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, German mathematician (b. 1804)


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Guillaume Dode de la Brunerie, Marshal of France (b. 1775)


date: April 2

text: April 2 – Nangklao (Rama III), King of Siam (Thailand) (b. 1788)


date: April 15

text: April 15 – Andrés Quintana Roo, Mexican politician and lawyer, husband of Leona Vicario (b. 1787)


date: May 14

text: May 14 – Manuel Gómez Pedraza, 6th President of Mexico, 1832-1833 (b. 1789)


date: June 9

text: June 9 – John Brown Russwurm, Americo-Liberian journalist and governor of the African Republic of Maryland (b. 1799)


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, British politician (b. 1771)


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Sylvester Graham, American nutritionist, inventor (b. 1794)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: September 14

text: September 14 – James Fenimore Cooper, American writer (b. 1789)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – Madame Royale Marie Thérèse of France (b. 1778)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, Montenegrin statesman, religious leader and poet (b. 1813)


date: December 19

text: December 19 – J. M. W. Turner, English painter (b. 1775)


date: January 14

text: January 14 – President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte proclaims a new constitution for the French Second Republic.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: January 17

text: January 17 – The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Transvaal.


date: June 30

text: June 30 – The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to grant the British colony self-government with a representative constitution.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – American statesman Henry Clay is the first to receive the honor of lying in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.

source_section: Events › July–September


text: September 11 – Revolution of 11 September 1852 in Argentina: Buenos Aires Province declares independence.


date: October 7

text: October 7 – After learning that U.S. President Fillmore has sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open trade with Japan, Nicholas I of Russia sends Rear Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin to lead the Pallada on a similar mission (Putyatin arrives on August 21, 1853, one month after Perry).

source_section: Events › October–December


date: November 2

text: November 2 – 1852 United States presidential election: Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeats Whig Winfield Scott of Virginia.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour becomes the Piedmontese prime minister.


date: November 11

text: November 11 – The new Palace of Westminster opens in London as the home of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.


date: November 21

text: November 21–22 – The New French Empire is confirmed by plebiscite: 7,824,000 for, 253,000 against.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – Napoleon III becomes Emperor of the French.


text: The Devil's Island penal colony opens in the colony of French Guiana.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: February 3

text: February 3 – Battle of Caseros, Argentina: The Argentine provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes, allied with Brazil and members of Colorado Party of Uruguay, defeat Buenos Aires troops under Juan Manuel de Rosas.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Archibald Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton, is appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – The Second Anglo-Burmese War begins.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: April 18

text: April 18 – Taiping Rebellion in China: Taiping forces begin the siege of Guilin.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – Taiping Rebellion: The siege of Guilin is lifted.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces enter Hunan.


date: October 16

text: October 16 – After nearly five years' imprisonment in France, former Algerian Emir Abdelkader El Djezairi is released by orders of then-president Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.


date: October 31

text: October 31 – General Joaquin Solares of Guatemala leads an invasion of neighboring Honduras, beginning a war that lasts until February 13, 1856.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – The French capture Laghouat.


date: December 23

text: December 23 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hanyang and begins the siege of Wuchang.


date: December 29

text: December 29 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hankou.


text: Germans are encouraged to immigrate to Chile.


text: The French Catholic De La Salle Brothers arrive from Europe in Singapore, aboard La Julie, and sail up to Penang in the Straits Settlements, to found the first Lasallian educational institutions in Asia.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – The Helsinki Cathedral (known as St. Nicholas' Church at time) is officially inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland.


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Phi Mu sorority is founded in Macon, Georgia.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – Boston missionary Reverend Benjamin Galen Snow lands on the island of Kosrae in the Caroline Islands (Micronesia) first to bring the gospel to the island.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Henry Wells and William Fargo create Wells Fargo & Company.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – The first British public toilet for women opens in Bedford Street, London.


date: February 16

text: February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established in South Bend, Indiana.


date: March 2

text: March 2 – The first American experimental steam fire engine is tested.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – French engineer Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip, from Paris to Trappes.


date: November 23

text: November 23 – The first roadside pillar boxes in the British Isles are brought into public use in Saint Helier, on Jersey in the Channel Islands, at the suggestion of English novelist Anthony Trollope, at this time an official of the British General Post Office.


date: December

text: December – The Western Railroad is chartered to build a railroad from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to the coal fields of Egypt, North Carolina.


text: The semaphore line in France is superseded by the telegraph.


text: Smith & Wesson is founded as a firearms manufacturer in the United States.


text: In Hawaii, sugar planters bring over the first Chinese laborers on 3- or 5-year contracts, giving them 3 dollars per month plus room and board for working a 12-hour day, 6 days a week.


text: The grooved rail is developed by Alphonse Loubat.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Annibale de Gasparis discovers the asteroid Psyche from the north dome of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – Annibale de Gasparis discovers the asteroid Massalia from the north dome of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples.


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The conjecture of the four color theorem is first proposed, as student Francis Guthrie of University College London presents the question of proving, mathematically, that no more than four colors are needed to give separate colors to bordering shapes on a map (the theorem is not proven for almost 123 years, until 1976).


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Nine men representing various Jewish charitable organizations come together to form what will become Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – sinks near Cape Town, British Cape Colony. Only 193 of the 643 on board survive, after troops stand firm on the deck so as not to overwhelm the lifeboats containing women and children.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Henry Clay steamboat disaster in Riverdale, Bronx, claims several lives, including Stephen Allen.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – A magnitude 7.5 to 8.8 earthquake strikes near the Banda Islands, Dutch East Indies, triggering a deadly tsunami.


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Phi Kappa Psi fraternity is founded in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, at Jefferson College.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published in book form in Boston, Massachusetts.


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", in Rochester, New York.


date: August 3

text: August 3 – The first American intercollegiate athletic event, the Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, is held.


date: November

text: November – Leo Tolstoy's debut novel Childhood is published under the initials L. N., in this month's issue of the Saint Petersburg literary journal Sovremennik (and later in book form).


text: Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary, produces the first translation of the Bible in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, which is published with the parallel text of the Syriac Peshitta, by the American Bible Society.


text: Loyola College is chartered in Baltimore, Maryland.


text: Mills College is founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in Benicia, California.


text: Antioch College is founded in Yellow Springs, Ohio (its first president is Horace Mann).


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Charles Taze Russell (Pastor Russell), American Protestant reformer, evangelist, forerunner of Jehovah's Witnesses (d. 1916)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: February 26

text: February 26 – John Harvey Kellogg, American Adventist doctor and health reformer (d. 1943)


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1934)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: June 25

text: June 25 – Antoni Gaudí, Spanish modernist architect (d. 1926)


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Blessed Michael J. McGivney, American priest and founder of the Knights of Columbus (d. 1890).

source_section: Births › July–September


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1911)


date: September 8

text: September 8 – Gojong, 26th king of the Korean Joseon dynasty, first emperor of Korea (d. 1919)


date: September 12

text: September 12 – H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1928)


date: September 28

text: September 28 – Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1907)


text: September 28 – John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, British field marshal, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I (d. 1925)


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer, resident in England (d. 1924)


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: December 19

text: December 19 – Albert A. Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931)


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Leonardo Torres Quevedo, Spanish engineer, one of pioneers of computing and the radio control, inventor of El Ajedrecista (The Chess Player) (d. 1936)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind, inventor of braille (b. 1809)


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (b. 1809)


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Auguste de Marmont, French general, nobleman and marshal (b. 1774)


date: April 17

text: April 17 – Étienne Maurice Gérard, French general, statesman and marshal, 11th Prime Minister of France (b. 1773)


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Louisa Adams, First Lady of the United States (b. 1775)


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Margaret Taylor, First Lady of the United States (b. 1788)


date: August

text: August – Táhirih, Iranian Baha'i theologian, poet and feminist (b. 1814)


date: September 14

text: September 14 – Augustus Pugin, English architect (b. 1812)


date: September 20

text: September 20 – Philander Chase, American founder of Kenyon College (b. 1775)


date: October 15

text: October 15 – Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, German gymnastics educator (b. 1778)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Georg August Wallin, Finnish orientalist, explorer and professor (b. 1811)


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Gideon Mantell, English geologist, palaeontologist (b. 1790)


date: November 27

text: November 27 – Augusta Ada King (née Byron), Countess of Lovelace, early English computer pioneer (b. 1815)


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Junius Brutus Booth, English-born stage actor, father of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth (b. 1796)


date: January 20

text: January 20 – The United Kingdom proclaims its annexation of Lower Burma, ending the Second Anglo-Burmese War.


date: March 29

text: March 29 – Manchester is granted city status in the United Kingdom.


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Japan allows Commodore Perry to come ashore and begin negotiations.


date: August 12

text: August 12 – New Zealand acquires self-government.


date: November 3

text: November 3 – Troops of William Walker capture La Paz in Baja California Territory and declare the (short-lived) Republic of Sonora.


date: November 15

text: November 15 – Maria II of Portugal is succeeded by her son Pedro V as King of Portugal.


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan is ordered to assist the governor of Hunan in organizing a militia force to search for local bandits.


date: January 12

text: January 12 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army occupies Wuchang.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces assemble at Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang for the march on Nanjing.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Taiping Rebellion: A rebel army of around 750,000 seizes Nanjing, killing 30,000 Imperial troops.


date: May 5

text: May 5 – Perpetual Maritime Truce comes into force between the United Kingdom and the rulers of the Sheikhdoms of the Lower Gulf, later known as the Trucial States.


date: June 27

text: June 27 – Taiping Rebellion: The Northern Expeditionary Force crosses the Yellow River.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Iesada succeeds his father Ieyoshi as Japanese shōgun. The Late Tokugawa shogunate (the last part of the Edo period in Japan) begins.


date: October 4

text: October 4–5 – Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire begins war with Russia.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Crimean War: The Ottoman army crosses the Danube into Vidin/Calafat, Wallachia.


date: October 30

text: October 30 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force comes within 3 mi km of Tianjin.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – Crimean War: Battle of Oltenitza – Turkish forces defeat the Russians.


date: November 30

text: November 30 (November 18 O.S.) – Crimean War: Battle of Sinop – The Russian fleet destroys the Turkish fleet.


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital, aboard the Cassini.


date: July 8

text: July 8 – U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives in Edo Bay, Japan, with a request for a trade treaty.


date: March

text: March – The clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. is founded in San Francisco (US).


date: September 20

text: September 20 – Otis Elevator, as predecessor of Otis Worldwide, is founded in the United States.


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Compagnie Générale des Eaux, predecessor of Vivendi and Veolia, a global media conglomerate, is founded in Paris, France.


text: The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China is incorporated in London by Scotsman James Wilson, under a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria.


text: 1853–1873 – More than 130,000 Chinese laborers come to Cuba.


date: February 12

text: February 12 – The city of Puerto Montt is founded in the Reloncaví Sound, Chile.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Indian Railways: The first passenger railway in India opens from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, 22 mi km.


date: May 12

text: May 12–October 31 – The Great Industrial Exhibition is held in Dublin, Ireland.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – The first plat for Seattle, Washington, is laid out.


date: June 30

text: June 30 – Georges-Eugène Haussmann is selected as préfect of the Seine (department) to begin the re-planning of Paris.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – The Swiss watch company Tissot is founded.


date: August 24

text: August 24 – Potato chips are first prepared, by George Crum at Saratoga Springs, New York, according to popular accounts.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – C. Bechstein's piano factory is founded, one of three established in a "golden year" in the history of the piano (Julius Blüthner and Steinway & Sons being the others).


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys approximately 77,000 km2 sqmi of land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.


text: Isambard Kingdom Brunel accepts John Scott Russell's tender for construction of the passenger steamer.


text: Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest sports stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, officially opens.


text: The world's first public aquarium opens, as a feature of the London Zoo.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – English missionary Hudson Taylor first leaves for China.


date: October 4

text: October 4 – On the east coast of the United States, Donald McKay launches the Great Republic, the world's biggest sailing ship, which at 4,500 tons is too large to be successful.


text: French diplomat Arthur de Gobineau begins publication of his An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines), an early example of scientific racism.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Prince Leopold, the youngest son and the eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, is born in Buckingham Palace; he has inherited haemophilia. During the labour, Victoria chooses to use chloroform, thereby encouraging the use of anesthesia in childbirth.


text: Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood independently invent a practical hypodermic syringe.


text: An outbreak of yellow fever kills 7,790 people in New Orleans.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Outlaw and bandit Joaquin Murrieta is killed in California.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – U.S. President-elect Franklin Pierce's only living child, Benjamin "Benny" Pierce, is killed in a train accident.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – Saint Paul Fire and Marine, as predecessor of The Travelers Companies, a worldwide insurance service, founded in Minnesota, United States.


text: January 6 – Florida Governor Thomas Brown signs legislation that provides public support for the new East Florida Seminary, leading to the establishment of the University of Florida.


date: January 19

text: January 19 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premieres at Teatro Apollo in Rome.


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata premieres at La Fenice in Venice, but is poorly received at this time.


date: June 22

text: June 22 – Guimarães is elevated to city status by Queen Maria II of Portugal.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – The first true International Meteorological Organization is established in Brussels, Belgium.


text: August 24 – The Royal Norwegian Navy Museum is founded at Karljohansvern in Horten, perhaps the world's first naval museum.


date: October 25

text: October 25 – In Munich, the art museum Neue Pinakothek opens.


text: Wheaton Academy is founded as an evangelical high school in West Chicago, Illinois.


date: January 28

text: January 28 – José Martí, Cuban revolutionary (d. 1895)


text: February 22 – Annie Le Porte Diggs, Canadian-born state librarian of Kansas (d. 1916)


text: April 7 – Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, member of the British royal family (d. 1884)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)


date: July 24

text: July 24 – William Gillette, American actor, playwright and stage-manager (d. 1937)


date: July 29

text: July 29 – Ioan Culcer, Romanian general and politician (d. 1928)


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Lillie Langtry, Jersey-born stage actress and royal mistress (d. 1929)


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, wife of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (d. 1920)


date: October 26

text: October 26 – Tokugawa Akitake, Japanese daimyō, the last lord of Mito Domain, younger brother of the last shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu (d. 1910)


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Teresa Carreño, Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer and conductor (d. 1917)


date: December 23

text: December 23 – William Henry Moody, 35th United States Secretary of the Navy, 45th United States Attorney General and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1917)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Mihály Bertalanits, Slovene (Prekmurje Slovene) poet in the Kingdom of Hungary (b. 1788)


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil, daughter of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (b. 1831)


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Anastasio Bustamante, 4th President of Mexico (b. 1780)


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States (b. 1798)


date: April 18

text: April 18 – William R. King, 13th Vice President of the United States (b. 1786)


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Lucas Alamán, Mexican statesman, historian (b. 1792)


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Tokugawa Ieyoshi, 12th shōgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan (b. 1793)


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, Polish philosopher (b. 1776)


date: August 19

text: August 19 – George Cockburn, British naval commander (b. 1772)


date: August 23

text: August 23 – Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)


date: August 29

text: August 29 – Charles James Napier, British army general and colonial administrator (b. 1782)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – François Arago, French Catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician (b. 1786)


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Jan Cock Blomhoff, Dutch director of Dejima, Japan (b. 1779)


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Georg Friedrich Grotefend, German epigraphist, philologist (b. 1775)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – The British recognize the independence of the Orange Free State in Southern Africa; its official independence is declared six days later in the Orange River Convention.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Slavery is abolished in Venezuela.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government (the Tokugawa shogunate), opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – Mohamed Sa'id Pasha succeeds his nephew Abbas as the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan, then a province of the Ottoman Empire.


date: October 9

text: October 9–11 – United States diplomats in Europe meet and draft the Ostend Manifesto, setting out a rationale for the U.S. to acquire Cuba from Spain.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Sa'id Pasha officially abolishes slavery in Egypt.


text: The Republican Party is formed by anti-slavery opponents of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in Ripon, Wisconsin.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Mexican troops force William Walker and his troops to retreat to Sonora.


date: February 27

text: February 27 – Britain sends Russia an ultimatum to withdraw from two Romanian provinces it has conquered, Moldavia and Wallachia.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – In the United States:


date: March 27

text: March 27 – Crimean War: The United Kingdom declares war on Russia.


date: March 28

text: March 28 – Crimean War: France declares war on Russia.


date: May 5

text: May 5–15 – Hokkien–Teochew Riots in Singapore.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – Taiping Rebellion: United States diplomatic minister Robert McLane arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the .


date: June 21

text: June 21 – Battle of Bomarsund in Åland off the coast of Finland: British Royal Navy seaman's mate Charles Davis Lucas throws a live Russian artillery shell overboard by hand before it explodes, for which he is awarded the first Victoria Cross in 1857.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – The Bienio progresista revolutionary coup occurs in Spain.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – Battle of Bomarsund: Russian troops on the island of Bomarsund, in Åland, surrender to French–British troops.


date: August 19

text: August 19 – John Lawrence Grattan leads 29 United States troops and a civilian interpreter in attack on Lakota village over dispute involving emigrant cow. Grattan's command was annihilated.


date: September 20

text: September 20 – Crimean War: Battle of Alma – The French–British alliance wins the first major land engagement of the war.


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Crimean War: Battle of Balaclava – The allies gain an overall victory, except for the disastrous cavalry Charge of the Light Brigade, from which only 200 of 700 men survive.


date: November 5

text: November 5 – Crimean War: Battle of Inkerman – The Russians are defeated.


date: December 3

text: December 3 – The Eureka Stockade Miners' Rebellion breaks out in Ballarat, Victoria (Australia).


text: The Mute Rebellion breaks out in Sweden.


text: Florence Nightingale and her team of 38 trained volunteer nurses, having set out on October 21 from England, arrive at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari in the Ottoman Empire, to care for British Army troops wounded in the Crimean War.


date: January 4

text: January 4 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.


date: March 11

text: March 11 – A Royal Navy fleet sails from Britain, under Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – English lawyer Alfred Wills and party set out for the first ascent of the Wetterhorn in Switzerland, regarded as the start of the "golden age of alpinism".


text: The Icelandic trade is opened to merchants other than Danes.

source_section: Events › Undated


text: Ignacy Łukasiewicz drills the world's first oil well in Poland, in Bóbrka near Krosno County.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Pope Pius IX in the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus defines ex Cathedra the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without original sin.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – The Plan de Ayutla calls for liberal reforms and the ouster of President Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico.


date: March

text: March – The British East India Company annexes Jhansi State in India under the doctrine of lapse.


text: The French fashion label Louis Vuitton is founded.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – The North Carolina General Assembly in the United States charters the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad, to run from Goldsboro through New Bern, to the newly created seaport of Morehead City, near Beaufort.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Major streets are lit by coal gas for the first time by the San Francisco Gas Company; 86 such lamps are turned on this evening in San Francisco, California.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.


text: March 1 – German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears; 2 years later his remains are found in the canal near Charlottenburg.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Australia's first telegraph line, linking Melbourne and Williamstown, Victoria, opens.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduates at Annapolis, Maryland.


date: June

text: June – The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern United States inhabitants from Chicago to Rock Island, Illinois, by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to Saint Paul, Minnesota, by steamboat.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – James Ambrose Cutting takes out the first of his three United States patents for improvements to the wet plate collodion process (Ambrotype photography).


date: July 7

text: July 7 – The Bombay Spinning and Weaving Company is established as the first cotton mill in India by Cowasjee Nanabhoy Davar and associates.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, by Aaron Lufkin Dennison, relocates to Waltham, to become the Waltham Watch Company, pioneer in the American system of watch manufacturing.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal Company is formed.


text: The Boston Public Library opens to the public.


text: The future Waterbury Clock Company (Incorporated on March 27, 1857) is founded as a department within the Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Company in Waterbury, Connecticut, the predecessor of Timex Group USA in timepiece manufacturing.


text: A Russian fort is established at the modern-day site of Almaty.


text: Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale University is the first person to fractionate petroleum into its individual components, by distillation.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – Hard Times begins serialisation in Charles Dickens' magazine, Household Words.


date: August 31

text: August 31–September 8 – An epidemic of cholera in London kills over 10,000. Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak (that killed 500) to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is perhaps born.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – The iron clipper runs aground off the east coast of Ireland, on her maiden voyage out of Liverpool, bound for Australia, with the loss of at least 300 out of 650 on board.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – The United States packet ship Powhattan is wrecked off the New Jersey shore, with more than 200 victims.


date: September 27

text: September 27 – SS Arctic disaster: The American paddle steamer sinks after a collision with the much smaller French ship , 50 miles (80 km) off the coast of Newfoundland, with approximately 320 deaths.


date: October 6

text: October 6 – The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead in England is ignited by a spectacular explosion.


date: November 14

text: November 14 – Great Storm of 1854 in the Black Sea: 19 British transport and other ships (plus 2 French) supporting the Crimean War are wrecked with the loss of at least 287 men.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – The Teutonia Männerchor in Pittsburgh is founded to promote German culture.


date: May 18

text: May 18 – The Catholic University of Ireland (forerunner of University College Dublin) is founded.


date: July 6

text: July 6 – In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the U.S. Republican Party is held.


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Wood's despatch is sent by Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax to Lord Dalhousie, Governor General of India, proposing radical improvements to the Indian educational system.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – The Age newspaper is founded in Melbourne, Australia.


text: Bryant & Stratton College is founded as a business institute in the United States.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – James George Frazer, Scottish social anthropologist (d. 1941)


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Aletta Jacobs, Dutch physician and women's suffrage activist (d. 1929)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Charles Webster Leadbeater, British theosophist (d. 1934)


date: March 14

text: March 14 – Paul Ehrlich, German physician and scientist, recipient of the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1915)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Hertha Ayrton, English engineer, mathematician and inventor (d. 1923)


date: April 29

text: April 29 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician, physicist (d. 1912)


text: April 29 – Paul von Rennenkampf, Russian nobleman, statesman, and general (d. 1918)


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Robert Borden, Canadian lawyer and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Canada, leader in World War I (d. 1937)


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Leoš Janáček, Czech composer (d. 1928)


date: July 12

text: July 12 – George Eastman, American photographic inventor (Kodak) (d. 1932)


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Karl Kautsky, Czech Marxist theoretician (d. 1938)


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Mary G. Charlton Edholm, American social purity and temperance reformer (d. 1935)


date: November 5

text: November 5 – Paul Sabatier, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)


date: November 30

text: November 30 – Paul Vinogradoff, born in Russia British legal historian (d. 1925)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – William Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, British general and politician (b. 1768)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Ann Walker, English landowner and philanthropist (b. 1803)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Charles Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry (b. 1778)


date: March 27

text: March 27 – William Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, English politician (b. 1768)


date: April 22

text: April 22 – Nicolás Bravo, 3-time President of Mexico (b. 1786)


text: April 29 – Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, British general (b. 1768)


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Samuel Wilson, American thought to be the real-life basis for Uncle Sam (b. 1766)


date: August 9

text: August 9 – Johann succeeds to the throne of Saxony, on the death of his brother.


date: August 20

text: August 20 – Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German philosopher (b. 1775)


date: September 12

text: September 12 – Jarvis W. Pike, former mayor of Columbus, Ohio (b. 1795)


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Jacques Leroy de Saint-Arnaud, French general, Marshal of France, Minister of War (b. 1798)


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Martín Perfecto de Cos, General of the Mexican Army (b. 1800)


date: December 15

text: December 15 – Kamehameha III, King of Hawaii (b. c. 1814)


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Ramón Castilla begins his third term as President of Peru.


date: January 26

text: January 26 – The Point No Point Treaty is signed in the Washington Territory.


date: January 29

text: January 29 – Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, over the management of the Crimean War.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – The United States Congress appropriates $30,000 to create the U.S. Camel Corps.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Elections are held for the first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourian 'Border Ruffians' cross the border in large numbers to elect a pro-slavery body.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – Van Diemen's Land is separated administratively from the Australian province of New South Wales and granted self-government.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – In Australia, the province of Victoria (named for then reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria) to the southeast is separated administratively from the earlier larger province of New South Wales to the north.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – The Quinault Treaty, in which the Quinault and Quileute tribes cede their land to the United States, is signed.


date: July 2

text: July 2 – The Kansas territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee, and begins passing proslavery laws.


date: July 16

text: July 16 – The Australian Colonies are granted self-governing status by the United Kingdom.


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Van Diemen's Land is officially renamed Tasmania.


date: December 11

text: December 11 – Ignacio Comonfort (1812–1863) becomes President of Mexico.


date: March 17

text: March 17 – Taiping Rebellion: A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui.


date: April 3

text: April 3 – The Nepalese invasion of Tibet (west of China) to the north across the Himalaya Mountains (tallest and most rugged in the world) starts the Nepalese–Tibetan War (1855–1856).


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Battle of Kaba: The Kingdom of Tonga in the islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean (Polynesia, Melanesia / Oceania), intervenes in the war between the self-proclaimed Tui Viti (King) of the island of Fiji, Cakobau, and his rivals the Confederation of Rewa. It results in Rewa's defeat and the tenuous unification of Fiji under Cakobau.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Emperor of the French Napoleon III, with Empress Eugénie, begins a 6-day state visit to Britain.


date: September 9

text: September 9 (August 28 O.S.) – Crimean War: Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) – Sevastopol falls to French and British troops.


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Crimean War: Battle of Kinburn – Combined French and British forces subdue Russian shore forts. The successful use of French floating batteries makes this the first use of modern ironclad warships in action.


date: November 15

text: November 15 – The Hejaz rebellion takes place in Hejaz against the Ottoman Empire, triggered by a firman of 1854 against the slave trade, which is condemned by the ulema of Mecca as influenced by Westerners and contrary to Islamic law.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins, with events leading to the 'Wakarusa War' between antislavery and proslavery forces.


date: May 3

text: May 3 – American adventurer William Walker and a group of armed mercenaries (filibusters) sail from San Francisco in California south to Central America to attempt to conquer Nicaragua.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Thomas Cook escorts his first party of excursionists from England to tour the European continent, travelling via Belgium and enabling the tourists to visit the Paris Exposition.


date: September 29

text: September 29 – The Port of Iloilo in the Philippines is opened to international trade, by Queen Isabella II of Spain. This year also the ports of Sual (modern-day Pangasinan) and Zamboanga City are opened to international trade.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Scottish missionary explorer David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls, in modern-day Zambia–Zimbabwe.


text: Palm oil sales from West Africa to the United Kingdom reach 40,000 tons.


date: July

text: July – Bank of Toronto incorporated in Canada (in 1955 it will merge with The Dominion Bank to become Toronto-Dominion Bank).


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Ottawa, Ontario, is incorporated as a city.'


date: January 23

text: January 23 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in modern-day Minneapolis, a predecessor of the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.


date: January 27

text: January 27 – The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the Western North Carolina Railroad, to build a rail line from Salisbury to the western part of the state.


date: June 15

text: June 15 – Stamp duty revenue tax is removed from British newspapers, creating free mass media thereafter in the United Kingdom.


date: June 29

text: June 29 – The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London.


text: October 17 – Henry Bessemer files his patent in the United Kingdom for the Bessemer process of steelmaking.


text: Samuel Colt incorporates his business as the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company and opens a new factory, the Colt Armory, in Hartford, Connecticut.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – The Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, requested by Napoleon III for the Exposition Universelle (opening May 15), first appears.


date: August 1

text: August 1 – Monte Rosa, the second-highest summit in the Alps, is first ascended.


text: The cocaine alkaloid is first isolated by German chemist Friedrich Gaedcke.


date: May 17

text: May 17 – Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, is dedicated (originally named as the Jews' Hospital) in New York City; it opens to patients on June 5.


text: The third plague pandemic breaks out in Yunnan, China. This bubonic plague pandemic eventually spreads to all inhabited continents, and ultimately leads to more than 12 million deaths in India and China (estimated 15 million worldwide) making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history. The pandemic is considered active until 1960.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – The Great Gold Robbery is made from a moving train between London Bridge and Folkestone in England, one of the first crimes of its kind.


text: January 23 – The 8.2–8.3 Wairarapa earthquake claims between five and nine lives near the Cook Strait area of New Zealand.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia.


date: February 12

text: February 12 – Michigan State University (the "pioneer" land-grant college) is established.


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Pennsylvania State University is founded, as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.


date: March 16

text: March 16 – Bates College is founded by abolitionists in Lewiston, Maine.


text: May 15 – The Exposition Universelle (an early World's fair) officially opens in Paris (continues to November 15).


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Walt Whitman's poetry collection Leaves of Grass is published in Brooklyn.


date: August 18

text: August 18 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, with Prince Albert, begins a 10-day state visit to Paris, the first visit of a reigning British monarch to France since 1413. While there, she visits the Exposition Universelle.


date: September 3

text: September 3 – The last Bartholomew Fair is held in London, England.


date: September 27

text: September 27 – Alfred Tennyson reads from his new book Maud and other poems, at a social gathering in the home of Robert and Elizabeth Browning in London; Dante Gabriel Rossetti makes a sketch of him doing so.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's fictional poem The Song of Hiawatha is published in Boston.


date: December 22

text: December 22 – The Metropolitan Board of Works is established in London.


date: February 17

text: February 17 – Otto Liman von Sanders, German general (d. 1929)


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Andrew Mellon, American banker, philanthropist (d. 1937)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Hardy Richardson, American baseball player (d. 1931)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, Bengali yogi, author of The Holy Science (d. 1936)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Ella Stewart Udall, American telegraphist (d. 1937)


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Isabella Ford, English socialist, feminist, trade unionist and writer (d. 1924)


date: June 14

text: June 14 – Robert M. La Follette, American politician (d. 1925)


date: September 9

text: September 9 – Houston Stewart Chamberlain, British-born German writer (d. 1927)


date: September 15

text: September 15 – Orishatukeh Faduma, Guyana-born African-American Christian missionary, educator and advocate for African culture (d. 1946)


date: September 25

text: September 25 – James P. Parker, United States Navy commodore (d. 1942)


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Templin Potts, American naval officer; 11th Naval Governor of Guam (d. 1927)


date: November 6

text: November 6 – E. S. Gosney, American philanthropist, eugenicist (d. 1942)


date: December 29

text: December 29 – William Thompson Sedgwick, American teacher, epidemiologist and bacteriologist (d. 1921)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Diponegoro, Leader of Javanese Rebellion (b. 1785)


date: January 10

text: January 10 – Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist, dramatist (b. 1787)


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)


date: March 8

text: March 8 – William Poole, infamous member of New York City's Bowery Boys Gang (b. 1821)


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816)


date: June 28

text: June 28 – FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788)


date: July 12

text: July 12 (June 30 O.S.) – Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (b. 1802)


date: August 7

text: August 7 – Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Helen Hunt Jackson, American activist (b. 1830)


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Feargus O'Connor, British political radical, Chartist leader (b. 1794)


date: September 20

text: September 20 – José Trinidad Reyes, Honduran Father, national hero, and founder of Autonomous National University of Honduras (b. 1797)


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian-Polish poet, writer (b. 1798)


date: December 6

text: December 6 – William Swainson, English naturalist, artist (b. 1789)


date: February 2

text: February 2 – Dallas, Texas, is incorporated as a city.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War.


date: March

text: March – Nepalese–Tibetan War: The signing of the Treaty of Thapathali concludes the war.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – The Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law abolishes privateering, and regulates the relationship between neutral and belligerent shipping on the high seas.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – The province of Isabela is created in the Philippines, in honor of Queen Isabella II of Spain.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Natal becomes a British Crown colony.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – American mercenary William Walker effectively takes control of Nicaragua.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – 1856 United States presidential election: Democrat James Buchanan defeats former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of Know Nothings and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party, to become the 15th President of the United States.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – The Coup of 1856 leads to Luxembourg's unilateral adoption of a new, reactionary constitution, as King-Grand Duke William III signs the new constitution without the Chamber of Deputies' consent.


date: December 1

text: December 1 – Under the County and Borough Police Act, in any county or area of England and Wales where a police force has not already been established, the Justices of the Peace must from this date take steps to create one according to nationally defined standards.


date: January 24

text: January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in "Bleeding Kansas" to be in rebellion.


date: January 26

text: January 26 – First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the suppress an indigenous uprising, in response to Governor Stevens' declaration of a "war of extermination" on Native communities.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – The Nawab of Oudh, Wajid Ali Shah, is exiled to Metiabruz and the state is annexed by the British East India Company.


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Filibuster War: Battle of Santa Rosa: – Costa Rican troops rout Walker's soldiers.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Taiping Rebellion: Suspecting treachery on the part of East King Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai garrisons Anhui and begins his march back to the Heavenly Capital, having defeated a strong Xiang Army detachment.


date: May 3

text: May 3 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gives Norfolk Island to the population of the colony at Pitcairn Island, most being descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty. They first settle on Norfolk Island on June 8. Women's suffrage, as practiced on Pitcairn, is extended to Norfolk Island.


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Pottawatomie massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Battle of Black Jack: Antislavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat proslavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at Nanjing.


date: July 14

text: July 14–15 – In Spain, General Leopoldo O'Donnell takes control of the government, bringing an end to the bienio progresista.


date: August 30

text: August 30 – Battle of Osawatomie: Proslavery forces defeat antislavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Taiping Rebellion: Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang assassinate Yang Xiuqing.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – The Second Opium War between several Western powers and China begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – Anglo-Persian War: War is declared between Great Britain and Persia.


date: November 11

text: November 11 – Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at the Heavenly Capital once more with 100,000 men, and demands that Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang be executed. Shi subsequently becomes head of the government.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – American Old West: On the Sonoita River in modern-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan, in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Bushehr surrenders to the British.


text: The Tintic War breaks out in Utah.


date: January 23

text: January 23 – The American sidewheel steamer SS Pacific leaves Liverpool (England) for a transatlantic voyage on which she will be lost with all 186 on board.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – The iron-hulled paddle steamer concludes a 9-day 16 hour westbound transatlantic crossing, at an average 13.11 knots (24.28 km/h), regaining the Blue Riband for the Cunard Line.


date: May 20

text: May 20 – David Livingstone arrives at Quelimane on the Indian Ocean, having completed a 2-year transcontinental journey across Africa from Luanda.


date: June 9

text: June 9 – 500 Mormon handcart pioneers leave Iowa City and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.


date: August

text: August – Pre-human remains are found in the Neanderthal Valley in Prussia.


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Christchurch, New Zealand, is chartered as a city.


date: September 1

text: September 1 – Seton Hall University is founded in South Orange, New Jersey, by the first bishop of the Diocese of Newark, James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of future U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of the first American-born Catholic saint, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. Seton Hall University is the oldest and largest Catholic diocesan university in the United States and the first institution named in honor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.


text: St. Paul's School, Belgaum, is founded by the Jesuits in Belgaum, India.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – General Mills is founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, as the Minneapolis Milling Company.


text: Global financial services business Credit Suisse is founded as La Schweizerische Kreditanstalt.


date: January 29

text: January 29 – The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Building workers agitate for the eight-hour day in Melbourne, Australia.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – The Great Train Wreck (the worst railroad calamity in the world to date) occurs near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.


date: September 7

text: September 7 – The Saimaa Canal was inaugurated.


text: Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.


text: Mauveine, the first synthetic organic dye, is discovered by William Henry Perkin, while attempting to synthesize quinine. This eventually leads to the birth of the chemical industry.


date: January 8

text: January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch in California.


text: The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India officially gives 'Peak XV' (later to be named Mount Everest) the height of 29002 ft m. 'Peak IX' (Kangchenjunga), previously thought to be the world's highest, is confirmed as 28156 ft m.


text: Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Caning of Charles Sumner: United States Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made attacking pro-slavery Southerners, especially elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. Sumner is unable to return to duty for three years while he recovers; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.


text: The British Guiana 1c magenta postage stamp is issued in British Guiana in limited numbers; the one surviving specimen will become regarded as the world's rarest stamp.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance is founded in the United States. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials, and disbands itself on August 18.


text: Charles III of Monaco grants a concession to Napoléon Langlois and Albert Aubert to establish a German-style casino at Monte Carlo.


date: February 12

text: February 12 – American clipper ships Driver and Ocean Queen leave Liverpool and London respectively; both will be lost without trace in the Atlantic, perhaps due to ice, killing 374 and 123 respectively.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – Fire destroys the Covent Garden Theatre in London.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – Sacking of Lawrence: Lawrence, Kansas, is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces.


date: April

text: April – The Xhosa cattle-killing movement and famine begins in Cape Colony.


date: August 10

text: August 10 – The Last Island hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana, leaving 400 dead. The whole island is broken up into several smaller islands by the storm.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – 1856 Heraklion earthquake: A powerful earthquake rocks the Mediterranean, killing hundreds on the island of Crete and many more in the Middle East.


text: January 29 – Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross as a British military decoration.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Auburn University is first chartered, as the East Alabama Male College.


date: February 18

text: February 18 – The American Know Nothing Party convenes in Philadelphia to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Maryland Agricultural College (modern-day University of Maryland, College Park) is chartered.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Nelson College is founded in Nelson, New Zealand.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – Theta Chi international college fraternity is founded at Norwich University in Vermont.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – The Chicago Historical Society Museum is established at 1601 N. Clark Street, Chicago.


date: April 30

text: April 30 - The founding of the Associação Naval de Lisboa by King Pedro V, the oldest nautical association in the Iberian Peninsula.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – Niagara University is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – The National Portrait Gallery, London, is established.


text: The National Dress Reform Association is founded in the United States to promote "rational" dress for women.


text: Legal protection of widow remarriage is extended in India.


date: February 9

text: February 9 – Hara Takashi, Japanese politician, 10th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1921)


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Frederick Winslow Taylor, American inventor and efficiency expert (d. 1915)


date: April 26

text: April 26 – Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1930)


date: May 6

text: May 6 – Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist (d. 1939)


date: May 15

text: May 15 – L. Frank Baum, American author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker (The Wizard of Oz) (d. 1919)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)


date: August 3

text: August 3 – Alfred Deakin, 2nd Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Ivan Franko, Ukrainian poet, critic, journalist and political activist (d. 1916)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – William Thomas Turner, British ship's captain with Cunard Steamship Company (d. 1933)


date: November 13

text: November 13 – Louis Brandeis, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1941)


date: November 29

text: November 29 – Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1921)


date: December 11

text: December 11 – Georgi Plekhanov, Russian revolutionary, Marxist theoretician (d. 1918)


date: December 18

text: December 18 – J. J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)


date: December 22

text: December 22 – Frank B. Kellogg, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)


date: January 4

text: January 4 – Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury, British politician (b. 1773)


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Janko Drašković, Croatian politician, reformer (b. 1770)


date: February 17

text: February 17 – Heinrich Heine, German writer (b. 1797)


date: May 3

text: May 3 – Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (b. 1803)


date: June 23

text: June 23 – Ivan Kireyevsky, Russian literary critic, philosopher (b. 1806)


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Max Stirner, German philosopher (b. 1806)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Edward Vernon Utterson, English lawyer, literary antiquary, collector and editor (b. 1775/1776)


date: July 29

text: July 29 – Robert Schumann, German composer, pianist (b. 1810)


date: August 6

text: August 6 – Robert Lucas de Pearsall, English composer; setting of "In dulce jubilo" (b. 1795)


date: August 14

text: August 14 – William Buckland, English geologist, palaeontologist (b. 1784)


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, Brazilian politician (b. 1801)


date: October 19

text: October 19 – William Sprague III, American politician from Rhode Island (b. 1799)


date: October 29

text: October 29 – Carel Sirardus Willem van Hogendorp, Acting Governor-General of Dutch East Indies (b. 1788)


date: November 23

text: November 23 – Manuela Sáenz, Colombian national heroine (b. 1797)


date: February 5

text: February 5 – The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States is promulgated.


date: March 14

text: March 14 – Youssef Bey Karam is assigned, by the people of Ehden and Bsharri, to be the region's ruler.


date: August 28

text: August 28 – The Matrimonial Causes Act makes divorce without parliamentary approval legal in the United Kingdom.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – The Indus Valley Region (i.e., Pakistan Region) is incorporated as part of British India, for the next 90 years until 1947.


date: November 30

text: November 30 – President of Mexico Ignacio Comonfort is succeeded by Félix María Zuloaga.


date: December 7

text: December 7 – U.S. Consul in Japan Townsend Harris meets the Shogun in Edo in a diplomatic reception, the first ever meeting between the Shogun and a foreign diplomat.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa as the capital of Canada.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – France and the United Kingdom formally declare war on China, in the Second Anglo-Chinese War.


text: March 3 – The largest slave auction in U.S. history is held, dubbed The Weeping Time. Over a 2-day period (starting March 2), Pierce M. Butler sells 436 men, women, children, and infants, all of whom are kept in stalls meant for horses at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia, for weeks beforehand.


date: March 8

text: March 8 – 12 – Spirit Lake Massacre, near Okoboji and Spirit lakes in the northwestern territory of Iowa near the Minnesota border.


date: March

text: March – The Austrian garrison leaves Bucharest.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – The Anglo-Persian War ends.


date: April 8

text: April 8 – Mangal Pandey is hanged for mutiny against the British East India Company army; the execution is a precursor event to the Indian Rebellion of 1857.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: The 3rd Light Cavalry of the British East India Company's army rebels against its British officers, thus beginning the rebellion.


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: Indian combatants capture Delhi from the British East India Company.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Second Anglo-Chinese War: Battle of Fatshan Creek – The British Royal Navy defeats the Cantonese fleet of Qing dynasty China.


date: June 12

text: June 12 – U.S. mercenary William Walker is overthrown as ruler of Nicaragua by Honduran general Florencio Xatruch.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – At a ceremony in London, Queen Victoria awards the first 66 Victoria Crosses to British troops, for actions during the Crimean War.


date: July 1

text: July 1–November 19 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: Siege of Lucknow.


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: The second massacre at Kanpur takes place.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – The Mountain Meadows massacre occurs in Utah.


date: September 20

text: September 20 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: British forces recapture Delhi, compelling the surrender of Bahadur Shah II, the last Mughal emperor.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: British troops win 24 Victoria Crosses in action this day.


date: December 28

text: December 28 – Second Anglo-Chinese War: 2nd Battle of Canton – British and French forces begin an assault on the Qing dynasty Chinese city of Canton (Guangzhou).


date: December

text: December – The Reform War in Mexico begins.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – The Utah Expedition leaves Fort Leavenworth, effectively beginning the Utah War.


text: The Mormons abandon Las Vegas.


text: The first commercial tea plantation in the British Raj is opened in the Mulnicherra Estate in Sylhet.


text: Suzumoto Vaudeville Theater officially opens in Ueno region, Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in Japan.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Spanish financial group, Banco Santander founded in Cantabria, Spain.


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Banco de Bilbao, as predecessor of BBVA is founded in Spain.


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Panic of 1857: New York banks close, and do not reopen until December 12.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating.


date: September

text: September – The Panic of 1857 begins: Speculation in U.S. railroad shares, and the collapse on August 24 of the New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, following widespread embezzlement, trigger a financial crisis which will extend to Europe.


date: December 20

text: December 20 – Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria issues a decree, Es ist Mein Wille, which leads to the demolition of the city walls of Vienna, allowing the construction of the Ringstraße.


text: U.S. composer James Lord Pierpont composes "Jingle Bells", originally entitled "The One Horse Open Sleigh".


text: Bustling tourist attraction Sunny Lane in Falmouth, United Kingdom, is built.


text: Bucharest becomes the world's first city to have its streets illuminated by kerosene lamps.


text: Kuala Lumpur, the future capital of Malaysia, is founded as a tin mining settlement.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – Elisha Otis' first elevator is installed (at 488 Broadway, New York City).


date: March 25

text: March 25 – The phonautograph is patented by French typesetter Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. It is the earliest known device for recording sound.


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Elizabeth Blackwell opens a hospital, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.


text: U.S. politician William Daniel proposes the Local Option for Prohibition.


text: Liberia annexes the Republic of Maryland as native groups (notably Grebo people and Kru people) continually attack and kill settlers in Cape Palmas.


date: May 5

text: May 5 – October 17 – The Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition is held in Manchester, one of the largest such displays of all time.


text: July 18 – Prison hulks are used for the last time in the United Kingdom.


date: October 24

text: October 24 – 28 enslaved people escape their enslavers in Maryland.


text: La Tène culture artifacts are discovered in Switzerland, by Hansli Kopp.


date: August 20

text: August 20 – The Dunbar wrecks near the entrance to Sydney Harbour, Australia, with the loss of 121 lives.


date: September 12

text: September 12 – The sinks off the coast of North Carolina with the loss of 425 lives.


date: September 22

text: September 22 (September 10 O.S.) – Russian ship of the line Lefort sinks in the Gulf of Finland during a sudden squall with the loss of 826 lives; 30 other ships are wrecked in the same storm.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – The 7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake shakes Central and Southern California, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).


date: December 16

text: December 16 – The 7.0 Basilicata earthquake shakes the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Southern Italy) with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing about 10,000 people.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The biggest Estonian newspaper, Postimees, is established by Johann Voldemar Jannsen.


date: January 24

text: January 24 – The University of Calcutta is established in Calcutta, as the first multidisciplinary modern university in South Asia. The University of Bombay is also established in Bombay, British India, this year.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – The National Deaf Mute College (later renamed Gallaudet University) is established in Washington, D.C., becoming the first school for the advanced education of the deaf.


date: March 6

text: March 6 – Dred Scott v. Sandford: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that blacks are not citizens and slaves can not sue for freedom, driving the U.S. further towards the American Civil War (the ruling is not overturned until the 14th Amendment is adopted in 1868).


date: April 14

text: April 14 – Princess Beatrice, the fifth daughter and the youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, is born.


date: April 18

text: April 18 – The Spirits' Book (Le Livre des Esprits), one of the Five Fundamental Works of Spiritism, is published by French educator Allan Kardec.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – First horse race run at Longchamp Racecourse in Paris.


date: June 6

text: June 6 – Sophia of Nassau marries the future King Oscar II of Sweden–Norway.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is officially opened by Queen Victoria.


text: October 24 – Sheffield F.C., the world's first association football team, is founded in Sheffield, United Kingdom by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest


text: San Jose State, the first public U.S. university west of the Mississippi River, opens in San Francisco as Minn's Evening School.


text: Illinois State University, the first public university in Illinois, is established in Normal, Illinois.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – George Jackson Churchward, British chief mechanical engineer of the Great Western Railway(d. 1933)


date: February 22

text: February 22 – Robert Baden-Powell, English founder of the Scouting movement (d. 1941)


text: March 6 – George Dayton, American businessman, founder of Target Corporation (d. 1938)


date: March 7

text: March 7 – Julius Wagner-Jauregg, Austrian neuroscientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1940)


text: April 14 – Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, youngest child of Queen Victoria (d. 1944)


date: May 13

text: May 13 – Ronald Ross, English physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1932)


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Clara Zetkin, German-born Marxist theorist, activist and women's rights advocate (d. 1933)


date: July 24

text: July 24 – Henrik Pontoppidan, Danish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Ballington Booth, British-born American Salvation Army officer, co-founder of Volunteers of America (d. 1940)


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Henry Fairfield Osborn, American geologist, paleontologist and eugenist (d. 1935)


date: September 5

text: September 5 – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Russian scientist, inventor (d. 1935)


date: September 18

text: September 18 – John Hessin Clarke, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1945)


date: November 27

text: November 27 – Charles Scott Sherrington, English physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1952)


date: December 3

text: December 3 – Joseph Conrad, Polish-British novelist (d. 1924)


date: January 27

text: January 27 – Dorothea Lieven, Baltic-German diplomat in Russian services (b. 1785)


date: February 10

text: February 10 – David Thompson, British-Canadian explorer (b. 1770)


date: February 16

text: February 16 – Elisha Kent Kane, American explorer of the Arctic regions (b. 1820)


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Dominic Savio, Italian adolescent saint (b. 1842)


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Eugène François Vidocq, French criminal, private detective (b. 1775)


text: May 13 – Parley P. Pratt, early American Latter Day Saint movement leader (murdered) (b. 1807)


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician (b. 1789)


date: May 29

text: May 29 – Archduchess Sophie of Austria, first child of Emperor Franz Joseph I and Empress Elisabeth of Austria (b. 1855)


date: June 10

text: June 10 – John Walbach, French baron and officer in the United States Army, with a military career spanning over 57 years (b. 1766)


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Henry Lawrence, British soldier, statesman (b. 1806)


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Stefano Franscini, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1796)


date: July 29

text: July 29 – Charles Lucien Bonaparte, French naturalist, ornithologist (b. 1803)


text: September 5 – Auguste Comte, French philosopher (b. 1798)


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Joseph von Eichendorff, German poet (b. 1788)


date: April 19

text: April 19 – The United States signs a treaty with the Yankton Sioux Tribe.


text: May 11 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.


date: May 28

text: May 28 - The Treaty of Aigun is signed by Yishan and Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky on behalf of the Qing Dynasty and the Russian Empire.


date: June 13

text: June 13–17 – The Treaty of Tientsin is signed, ending the first part of the Second Opium War.


date: June 16

text: June 16 – Abraham Lincoln accepts the Republican Party nomination for a seat in the United States Senate, delivering his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.


text: July 29 – The United States and Japan sign the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, negotiated by Townsend Harris.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – The Government of India Act, passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, transfers the territories of the British East India Company and their administration to the direct rule of the British Crown, through a Secretary of State for India.


date: August 8

text: August 8 – Ottoman Penal Code decriminalized homosexual sex between consenting adults in the Ottoman Empire


date: December 24

text: December 24 — Manuel Robles Pezuela (1817–1862) becomes Conservative president of Mexico.


text: Queen Victoria announces her choice of Ottawa as capital of the Province of Canada.


text: Feudalism and serfdom in Bulgaria are abolished in the Ottoman Empire (practically in 1880).


text: William M. Tweed begins his 13-year term as "Boss" of Tammany Hall.


text: Benito Juárez becomes the Liberal President of Mexico and its first indigenous president. At the same time, the conservatives installed Félix María Zuloaga as a rival president.


text: The Russian Empire changes its flag.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Revolt of Rajab Ali: British forces finally defeat Rajab Ali Khan of Chittagong.


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Orsini affair: Piedmontese revolutionary Felice Orsini and his accomplices fail to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris, but their bombs kill eight and wound 142 people. Because of the involvement of French émigrés living in Britain, there is a brief anti-British feeling in France, but the emperor refuses to support it.


date: March 13

text: March 13 – Felice Orsini is executed by guillotine for the attempted assassination of Napoleon III of France.


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Indian Rebellion: British troops retake Lucknow.


date: April 28

text: April 28–May 1 – Battle of Grahovac: The Ottomans are decisively defeated by Montenegrin forces. The Bawani Imli massacre, (April 28) where 52 Indian freedom fighters were hanged to death on a tamarind tree by British colonial forces.


date: May 19

text: May 19 – "Bleeding Kansas: The Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces in the U.S. state of Kansas.


date: May

text: May–July – Mahtra War: Peasants in the Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire revolt against ongoing serfdom, which was officially abolished in 1816.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: The last rebels surrender in Gwalior.


date: July 8

text: July 8 – A peace treaty ends the Indian Rebellion.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – In Bengal, India, British officer William James Herschel uses the hand impression of Rajyadhar Konai, as a contract fingerprint signature.


date: September

text: September – Cochinchina Campaign: French warships, under Charles Rigault de Genouilly, attack and occupy Da Nang, Vietnam.


date: December 7

text: December 7 — Mexican Conservative interim president Félix María Zuloaga proclaims the Plan of Tacubaya to abolish the Reform Laws, setting off a three-year civil war (1857–1860).


text: Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour goads Austria into attacking Sardinia.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika.


date: May 13

text: May 13 – John Ruskin begins a tour of Europe; he considers it a significant turning point in his life.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – David Livingstone's 6-year Second Zambesi expedition arrives at the African coast.


text: May (unknown date) – Japanese trading company Itochu founded in Toyosato, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.


date: August 11

text: August 11 – The Eiger is first ascended.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Macy's department store, founded by R. H. Macy, opens for business in New York City.


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Paraguay expedition: Seventeen U.S. Navy warships, under the command of William Shubrick, depart from Uruguay on a mission to demand concessions from Paraguay, and to go to war if necessary.


date: June 23

text: June 23 – Police of the Papal States seize Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara, and take him away to be raised as a Catholic.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Modified Julian Day zero starts on this date.


text: The haute couture firm of Worth and Bobergh is established in Paris.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser in the United States.


date: June 17

text: June 17 – The Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad opens, operating 95 miles from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to New Bern, North Carolina.


date: July 12

text: July 12 – The Advertiser, a daily newspaper still in circulation, begins publication in Adelaide, Australia.


date: August 5

text: August 5 – Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable, after several unsuccessful attempts. The service ends on September 1, due to weak current.


date: August 16

text: August 16 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable, by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Dom, the third-highest summit in the Alps, is first ascended.


date: December 29

text: December 29 – The Northern Railway Company is established in Madrid, Spain, with a purpose to construct the Northern Railway.


text: Pike's Peak Gold Rush: Fifty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States.


date: February 11

text: February 11 – Lourdes apparitions: Pauper girl Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes, fourteen, has a vision at the grotto of Massabielle, the first in a series of eighteen events which will come to be regarded as Marian apparitions.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Comet Donati, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by Giovanni Battista Donati, and remains visible for several months afterwards.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – A joint presentation of papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, announcing a theory of evolution by natural selection, are read at London's Linnean Society.


date: August

text: August – The first aerial photography is carried out by Nadar, from a moored balloon in France.


date: November 16

text: November 16 – The 2,400,000th day of the Epoch of the Julian day is reached.


date: April 16

text: April 16 – The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – A bill is passed to create a modern sewage system in London as a result of the Great Stink, when the heat of the summer made the smell from sewage in the Thames unbearable.


text: Prince Wilhelm of Prussia becomes regent for his brother, King Frederick William IV, who has suffered a stroke. After Prince William's term acting as a regent for the King had been extended three times, the ailing Frederick William signed a regency charter for him on 7 October 1858, based on an expert opinion from the royal personal physicians.


text: Squibb Pharmacy, as predecessor of Bristol Myers Squibb, a worldwide pharmaceutical brand, is founded in New York, United States.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – The Lutine bell is salvaged, and subsequently hung in Lloyd's of London.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.


text: The Miners Association is established in Cornwall, England, UK.


date: June 19

text: June 19 – A six-minute earthquake destroys much of Mexico City and devastates Texcoco.


date: January 25

text: January 25 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional, after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, to Prince Friedrich of Prussia in St James's Palace, London.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – A football match, played under an unknown set of rules, is held between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College.


date: August 21

text: August 21 – The first of the Lincoln–Douglas debates is held in Illinois.


date: October 21

text: October 21 – Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring music associated with the can-can, is first performed in Paris.


date: November 12

text: November 12 – Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein, succeeds to the throne aged 18; he will rule until his death in 1929, the second-longest in European royal history and the longest precisely documented tenure of any monarch without a regent since antiquity.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – The city of Denver, Colorado, is founded.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – John Joseph Montgomery, American glider pioneer (d. 1911)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: February 18

text: February 18 – Wilhelm Schmidt, German pioneer of superheated steam for use in locomotives (d. 1924)


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Max Planck, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1947)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Philogone Segard, French radical anarchist linked to Ravachol (d. 20th century)


date: June 16

text: June 16 – William D. Boyce, founder of the Boy Scouts of America (d. 1929)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Charles W. Chesnutt, African-American author, essayist, political activist (d. 1932)


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Franz Boas, German anthropologist (d. 1942)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Emmeline Pankhurst, English suffragette, mother of Christabel, Sylvia and Adela Pankhurst (d. 1928)


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician, pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1930)


date: August 13

text: August 13 – G. E. M. Skues, Newfoundland-born British inventor of nymph fly fishing (d. 1949)


date: September 16

text: September 16 – Bonar Law, Canadian-born Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1923)

source_section: Births › September–October


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Saitō Makoto, Japanese admiral, 19th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1936)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)

source_section: Births › November–December


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Katharine Drexel, American Roman Catholic saint (d. 1955)


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, Austrian field marshal (b. 1766)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Vicente Ramón Roca, 3rd President of Ecuador (b. 1792)


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, American naval officer (b. 1794)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – José de la Riva Agüero, Peruvian soldier and politician, 1st President of Peru and 2nd President of North Peru (b. 1783)


date: June 18

text: June 18 – Rani of Jhansi, Indian queen of Jhansi and independence activist (b. 1828)


text: June 18 – The Queen of Jhansi, Rani Lakshmibai, dies at 30 at Gwalior, having been mortally wounded in combat against the British.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Jane Marcet, British science writer (b. 1769)


text: June 28 – Auguste de Montferrand, French architect (b. 1786)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Chief Oshkosh, Menominee chief (b. 1795)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: September 9

text: September 9 – Thomas Assheton Smith II, English politician, cricketer (b. 1776)


date: September 17

text: September 17 – Dred Scott, African-American slave (b. c. 1795)


date: November 3

text: November 3 – Harriet Taylor Mill, British philosopher, women's rights advocate (b. 1807)


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Robert Owen, British social reformer (b. 1771)


date: December 17

text: December 17 – Mustafa Reşid Pasha, Ottoman statesman (b. 1800)


date: January 21

text: January 21 – José Mariano Salas (1797–1867) becomes Conservative interim President of Mexico.

source_section: Events › January–March