Assassination Attempt on Napoleon III
Jan 14 French Emperor Napoleon III escapes attempt on his life by Felice Orsini, an Italian patriot who was later executed
Music Premiere
Jan 25 Felix Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" first played, at wedding of Queen Victoria's daughter Princess Victoria, to crown prince of Prussia
Event of Interest
Feb 13 Sir Richard Burton & John Speake explore Lake Tanganyika, Africa
- Feb 21 Edwin T. Holmes installs 1st electric burglar alarm (Boston, Massachusetts)
Jessie Brown
Feb 22 Dion Boucicault's play "Jessie Brown" premieres in NYC
- Mar 2 Frederick Cook of New Orleans, patents a cotton-bale metallic tie
Event of Interest
Mar 5 Abolitionists establish "Crispus Attucks Day" in Boston
Religious History
Mar 14 Ellen G. White receives a vision while attending a funeral service in Lovett's Grove, near Bowling Green, Ohio
- Mar 18 Dutch Van der Brugghen government resigns
- Mar 23 Streetcar patented (E A Gardner of Philadelphia)
- Mar 30 Pencil with attached eraser patented (Hyman L Lipman of Philadelphia)
- Apr 10 "Big Ben", a 13.76 tonne bell, is recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry
- Apr 12 1st US billiards championship, Michael J Phelan wins in Detroit
John Brown Meets Harriet Tubman
Apr 14 Abolitionist John Brown meets Harriet Tubman at a Constitutional Convention convened in Chatham, Ontario
- Apr 15 Battle of Azimghur, Mexicans defeat Spanish loyalists
- Apr 16 The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up
- May 4 War of Reform (Mexico); Liberals establish capital at Vera Cruz
- May 8 American abolitionist John Brown holds antislavery convention
- May 11 Minnesota admitted as 32nd US state
- May 15 Royal Italian Opera opens in Covent Garden, London
- May 22 Confederación Granadina (now Colombia) forms
- May 28 Dion Boucicault's play "Foul Play" premieres in London
- May 30 Hudson's Bay Company's rights to Vancouver Island revoked
- Jun 2 Donati Comet 1st seen named after its discoverer
Event of Interest
Jun 16 Abraham Lincoln says "A house divided against itself cannot stand" accepting Illinois Republican Party's nomination for the Senate
Sports History
Jun 21 Louisiana chess prodigy Paul Morphy arrives in Europe
Event of Interest
Jul 1 The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society
- Jul 2 Partial emancipation of Russian serfs
- Jul 6 Lyman Blake patents shoe manufacturing machine
- Jul 17 Recovery of the bell of HMS Lutine from ship's wreck, hung from rostrum in Lloyd's of London's Underwriting Room
- Jul 20 Fee 1st charged to see a baseball game (50 cents) (NY beats Bkln 22-18)
- Jul 20 Gathering of Plombieres - Napoleon III meets Cavour
- Jul 23 Jewish Disabilities Removal Act passed by British Parliament
- Jul 26 Baron Lionel de Rothschild becomes the 1st Jewish person elected to the British Parliament
- Jul 28 First use of fingerprints as a means of identification is made by Sir William James Herschel of the Indian Civil Service
- Jul 28 French photographer and balloonist Nadar takes the 1st airborne photo, in a balloon, of French village of Petit-Becetre 80 meters in the air
- Jul 29 Treaty of Amity and Commerce/Harris Treaty signed between US and Japan opening Japanese ports to trade
- Aug 2 1st mailboxes installed in Boston and NYC streets
- Aug 2 Government of India transferred from East India Company to the British Crown
Event of Interest
Aug 5 First transatlantic telegraph cable lands at Trinity Bay, Newfoundland spearheaded by Cyrus West Field (will fail after 3 weeks)
Historic Invention
Aug 16 Britain's Queen Victoria telegraphs US President James Buchanan for 1st time by transatlantic telegraph cable, he replies "it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle."
- Aug 17 1st bank in Hawaii opens
- Aug 18 Netherlands & Japan sign trade agreement
- Aug 20 Rudolf Virchov's groundbreaking medical text "Cellular Pathology" is published in Berlin, establishing the basis for modern medical science [1]
- Aug 21 1st Lincoln-Douglas debate in Illinois
- Aug 24 Richmond "Daily Dispatch" reports 90 blacks arrested for learning
- Sep 1 1st transatlantic cable fails after less than 1 month
- Sep 8 Abraham Lincoln supposedly says in a speech "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time"
- Sep 10 George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora
- Sep 10 John Holden hits 1st recorded HR (Brooklyn vs NY)
- Sep 13 Hamburg-US ship Austria catches fire & sinks, 471 die
- Sep 16 1st overland mail for California
- Sep 28 Donati's comet becomes 1st to be photographed
- Oct 21 Jacques Offenbach's operetta " Orpheus in the Underworld" (Orphée aux Enfers) premieres in Paris, includes "Infernal Galop" (can-can tune)
- Oct 26 Hamilton Smith patents rotary washing machine in Pittsburgh
- Oct 28 R. H. Macy & Co opens 1st store, (6th Ave-NYC) Gross receipts $11.06
- Nov 9 1st performance of NY Symphony Orchestra
- Nov 17 Origin of Modified Julian Period
- Dec 12 1st Canadian coins circulated (1 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent & 20 cent)
- Dec 16 Dutch government decides to vacate Schokland Island