January–March •
January 9 •
Revolt of Rajab Ali: British forces finally defeat Rajab Ali Khan of
Chittagong. •
Anson Jones, the last president of the
Republic of Texas, commits suicide. •
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. •
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. and its first indigenous president. At the same time, the
conservatives installed
Félix María Zuloaga as a rival president. 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. •
February •
Queen Victoria announces her choice of
Ottawa as capital of the
Province of Canada. •
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. •
February 13 –
Richard Francis Burton and
John Hanning Speke become the first Europeans to discover
Lake Tanganyika. •
March 13 –
Felice Orsini is executed by
guillotine for the attempted assassination of
Napoleon III of France. •
March 21 –
Indian Rebellion: British troops retake
Lucknow. •
March 30 –
Hymen Lipman patents a
pencil with an attached
eraser in the United States.
April–June •
April 16 – The
Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish
learned society, is wound up. •
April 19 – The United States signs a treaty with the
Yankton Sioux Tribe. •
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. •
May 11 –
Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd
U.S. state. •
May 13 –
John Ruskin begins a tour of Europe; he considers it a significant turning point in his life. •
May 14 –
David Livingstone's 6-year
Second Zambesi expedition arrives at the African coast. •
May 19 – "
Bleeding Kansas: The
Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces in the U.S. state of
Kansas. •
May 28 - The
Treaty of Aigun is signed by
Yishan and
Nikolay Muravyov-Amursky on behalf of the
Qing Dynasty and the
Russian Empire. •
May–July –
Mahtra War: Peasants in the
Governorate of Estonia,
Russian Empire revolt against ongoing
serfdom, which was officially abolished in
1816. •
May (unknown date) –
Japanese
trading company Itochu founded in
Toyosato, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. •
June 2 –
Comet Donati, the first comet to be photographed, is discovered by
Giovanni Battista Donati, and remains visible for several months afterwards. •
June 13–
17 – The
Treaty of Tientsin is signed, ending the first part of the
Second Opium War. •
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. •
June 17 – The
Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad opens, operating 95 miles from
Goldsboro,
North Carolina, to
New Bern, North Carolina. •
June 18 – The Queen of Jhansi,
Rani Lakshmibai, dies at 30 at
Gwalior, having been mortally wounded in combat against the British. •
June 19 – A six-minute earthquake destroys much of
Mexico City and devastates
Texcoco. •
June 20 –
Indian Rebellion of 1857: The last rebels surrender in
Gwalior. •
June 23 – Police of the
Papal States seize Jewish boy
Edgardo Mortara, and take him away to be raised as a Catholic.
July–September •
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. •
July 8 – A peace treaty ends the
Indian Rebellion. •
July 12 –
The Advertiser, a daily newspaper still in circulation, begins publication in
Adelaide, Australia. •
July 17 – The
Lutine bell is salvaged, and subsequently hung in
Lloyd's of London. •
July 28 – In
Bengal, India, British officer
William James Herschel uses the hand impression of Rajyadhar Konai, as a
contract fingerprint signature. •
July 29 – The United States and Japan sign the
Treaty of Amity and Commerce, negotiated by
Townsend Harris. •
July •
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour goads Austria into attacking
Sardinia. •
Pike's Peak Gold Rush:
Fifty-Niners stream into the
Rocky Mountains of the western United States. •
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. • 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. •
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. •
August 7 – A football match, played under an unknown set of rules, is held between
Melbourne Grammar School and
Scotch College. •
August 8 – Ottoman Penal Code decriminalized homosexual sex between consenting adults in the
Ottoman Empire •
August 11 – The
Eiger is first ascended. •
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. •
August 21 – The first of the
Lincoln–Douglas debates is held in
Illinois. : A commemorative stamp for the first
transatlantic telegraph cable. •
August – The first
aerial photography is carried out by
Nadar, from a
moored balloon in France. •
September 11 –
Dom, the third-highest summit in the Alps, is first ascended. •
September –
Cochinchina Campaign: French warships, under
Charles Rigault de Genouilly, attack and occupy
Da Nang,
Vietnam.
October–December •
October 21 –
Jacques Offenbach's
operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, featuring music associated with the
can-can, is first performed in Paris. •
October 28 –
Macy's department store, founded by
R. H. Macy, opens for business in New York City. •
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. •
November 16 – The 2,400,000th day of the
Epoch of the
Julian day is reached. •
November 17 • The city of
Denver, Colorado, is founded. • Modified
Julian Day zero starts on this date. •
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). •
December 24 —
Manuel Robles Pezuela (1817–1862) becomes Conservative president of Mexico. •
December 29 – The Northern Railway Company is established in Madrid, Spain, with a purpose to construct the Northern Railway. •
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 unknown • The
Russian Empire changes its
flag. •
William M. Tweed begins his 13-year term as "
Boss" of
Tammany Hall. • The
haute couture firm of
Worth and Bobergh is established in Paris. •
The Miners Association is established in
Cornwall, England, UK. •
Feudalism and
serfdom in
Bulgaria are abolished in the Ottoman Empire (practically in
1880). • Squibb Pharmacy, as predecessor of
Bristol Myers Squibb, a worldwide
pharmaceutical brand, is founded in
New York, United States. == Births ==