On This Day

What Happened in March 1860

Historical Events

  • Mar 5 Parma, Tuscany, Modena and Romagna vote in referendums to join the Kingdom of Sardinia
  • Mar 7 22nd Grand National: Tommy Pickernell wins aboard Irish horse Anatis at 5/1
  • Mar 9 1st Japanese ambassador arrives in San Francisco en route to Washington

AgreementTreaty of Interest

Mar 17 Six years after the forcible ending of Japan's isolationist policy by US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry, the Japanese Embassy arrives in San Francisco to sign a Treaty of Friendship

Commodore of the US Navy Matthew C. Perry
Commodore of the US Navy
Matthew C. Perry
  • Mar 21 US extradition treaty with Sweden

Event of interestEvent of Interest

Mar 21 English novelist George Eliot finishes her novel "The Mill on the Floss" in Wandsworth, London

Writer George Eliot
Writer
George Eliot
  • Mar 24 Clipper Andrew Jackson arrives in San Francisco, 89 days out of New York
  • Mar 27 M L Byrn patents "covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew)
  • Mar 28 First Taranaki War: The Battle of Waireka begins in New Zealand

Music releaseTheater Premiere

Mar 29 Dion Boucicault's play "Colleen Bawn" premieres in NYC

Actor and Playwright Dion Boucicault
Actor and Playwright
Dion Boucicault

Famous Birthdays

  • Mar 2 Susanna M. Salter, 1st American female mayor and temperance leader (d. 1961)
  • Mar 3 John M. Ward, American Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher (perfect game 1880; Providence Grays, New York Gothams / Giants), born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania (d. 1925)
  • Mar 11 Thomas Hastings, American architect (NY Public Library), born in NYC, New York
  • Mar 12 Salvatore Di Giacomo, Italian poet and songwriter during "Golden Age of Neapolitan Song", born in Naples (d. 1934)
  • Mar 13 Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer, born in Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia (d. 1903)
  • Mar 15 Waldemar Haffkine, Ukrainian bacteriologist (1st to develop and use vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague), born in Odessa, Russian Empire (d. 1930)

Person of interestWilliam Jennings Bryan

Mar 19 William Jennings Bryan, American orator and statesman known as "The Great Commoner", born in Salem, Illinois (d. 1925)

US Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan
US Secretary of State
William Jennings Bryan
  • Mar 22 Alfred Ploetz, German physician (d. 1940)
  • Mar 27 Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar, born in Redding, Connecticut (d. 1924)
  • Mar 31 Isidor Traube, Hildesheim Hanover, German Chemist (founded capillary chemistry, research on liquids)

Famous Deaths

  • Mar 6 Justus Johann Friedrich Dotzauer, German cellist and composer (b. 1783)
  • Mar 14 Louis-Antoine Jullien, French conductor, dies at 47
  • Mar 17 Anna Brownell Jameson, Anglo-Irish historian and writer (Loves of the Poets), dies at 65
  • Mar 25 James Braid, Scottish surgeon (b. 1795)
  • Mar 28 Johann Ludwig Bohner, composer, dies at 73


What Happened in 1860