1861 in History

Events 1 - 100 of 262

• Jan 1 Porfirio Diaz conquers Mexico City

• Jan 2 South Carolina seizes inactive Ft Johnson in Charleston Harbor
• Jan 2 Colonel Charles Stone is put in charge of organizing DC militia
• Jan 3 Delaware legislature rejects proposal to join Confederacy
• Jan 3 US Fort Pulaski and Fort Jackson, Savannah, seized by Georgia
• Jan 4 US Ft Morgan, Mobile, seized by Alabama
• Jan 5 250 Federal troops are sent from New York to Ft Sumter
• Jan 5 Alabama troops seize Forts Morgan & Gaines at Mobile Bay
• Jan 6 Florida troops seize Federal arsenal at Apalachicola
• Jan 6 NYC mayor proposes NY become a free city, trading with North and South
• Jan 7 Florida troops takeover Fort Marion at St Augustine (US Civil War)
• Jan 9 A Union merchant ship, the Star of the West, is fired upon as it tries to deliver supplies to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
• Jan 9 Mississippi secedes from the Union (US Civil War)
• Jan 10 Fort Jackson & Fort Philip are taken over by LA state troops (US Civil War)
• Jan 10 US forts & property seized by Mississippi


• Jan 10 Florida secedes from the Union (US Civil War)
• Jan 11 Mexico City captured by Juarez (Lib) in War of Reform
• Jan 11 Alabama secedes from the Union (US Civil War)
• Jan 12 Florida state troops demand surrender of Fort Pickens (US Civil War)
• Jan 14 Fort Pikens, Florida, falls into state hands (US Civil War)

• Jan 19 Misssissippi troops take Fort Massachusetts and Ship Island (US Civil War)
• Jan 19 Georgia secedes from the Union (US Civil War)

• Jan 24 Federal troops from Ft Monroe are sent to Ft Pikens
• Jan 25 Arsenal Augustaseized by Confederacy in Georgia (US Civil War)
• Jan 26 Louisiana secedes from the Union (US Civil War)
• Jan 29 US state of Kansas admitted to the Union as the 34th state
• Jan 31 Friedrich Hebbel's "Siegfrieds Tod" premieres in Weimar
• Jan 31 State of Louisiana takes over US Mint at New Orleans (U.S Civil War)
• Feb 1 Dike breaks in Gelderland, Netherlands
• Feb 1 Texas secedes from the Union (which precipitates the American Civil War)
• Feb 2 The "Organized Incorporated Territory of Nevada" is created, lasting until October 31st, 1864
• Feb 4 Confederate constitutional convention meets for 1st time; Jefferson Davis elected President of Confederacy (US Civil War)
• Feb 5 Kinematoscope patented by Coleman Sellers, Philadelphia
• Feb 5 Louisiana delegation except Mr Bouligny withdraws from Congress (US Civil War)
• Feb 6 1st meeting of Provisional Congress of Confederate States of America (US Civil War)
• Feb 6 British Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy issues first storm warnings for ships
• Feb 8 Confederate States of America organizes in Montgomery, Alabama (US Civil War)
• Feb 9 Jefferson Davis & Alexander Stephens elected President & VP of the Confederate States of America (US Civil War)


• Feb 9 Tennessee votes against secession (US Civil War)

• Feb 11 US President-elect Abraham Lincoln takes train from Spingfield IL to Washington, D.C.
• Feb 11 US House unanimously passes resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state
• Feb 12 State troops seize US munitions in Napoleon, Arkansas, during the US Civil War
• Feb 13 First military action to result in Congressional Medal of Honor, Arizona
• Feb 13 Abraham Lincoln declared US President in Washington, D.C.
• Feb 13 Colonel Bernard Irwin attacks & defeats hostile Chiricahua Indians
• Feb 15 Ft Point completed & garrisoned (but has never fired cannon in anger)
• Feb 18 Confederate President Jefferson Davis inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama (US Civil War)

• Feb 19 Russian Tsar Alexander II abolishes serfdom [NS=Mar 3]
• Feb 20 Navy of the Confederate States (CSN) forms (US Civil War)
• Feb 21 Steeple of Chichester Cathedral collapses despite the desperate efforts of 70 workmen
• Feb 21 Navaho indians elect Herrero Grande as chief
• Feb 22 On a bet Edward Weston leaves Boston to walk to Lincoln's inauguration
• Feb 23 Dutch Premier Floris A van Hall resigns
• Feb 27 Russians shoot at Poles protesting Russian rule of Poland in Castle Square, Warsaw
• Feb 27 US Congress authorizes 1st stamped newspaper wrappers for mailing
• Mar 2 Government Printing Office purchases 1st printing plant, Washington
• Mar 2 US creates Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah territories
• Mar 3 Alexander II of Russia signs the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing serfs and granted them the full rights of free citizens [OS=Feb 19]
• Mar 4 Confederate States adopt "Stars & Bars" flag (US Civil War)
• Mar 4 Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated as the 16th US President
• Mar 4 US President Abraham Lincoln opens Government Printing Office
• Mar 6 Provisionary Confederate Congress establishes Confederate Army
• Mar 8 St Augustine Florida surrenders to Union armies
• Mar 9 Confederate currency authorized - $50, $100, $500, $1,000
• Mar 10 West African political leader El Hadj Umar Tall seizes the city of Segou, destroying the Bambara Empire of Mali
• Mar 11 Confederate convention in Montgomery adopts constitution (US Civil War)
• Mar 16 Arizona Territory votes to leave the Union (US Civil War)
• Mar 16 Confederate government appoints commissioners to Britain

• Mar 19 The First Taranaki War ends in New Zealand
• Mar 20 An earthquake completely destroys Mendoza, Argentina
• Mar 22 1st US nursing school chartered
• Mar 23 London's 1st tramcars, designed by Mr Train of NY, begins operating
• Mar 31 Confederacy takes over mint at New Orleans (US Civil War)
• Apr 5 Federals abandon Ft Quitman, Texas
• Apr 8 US mint at Dahlonega, Georgia, seized by confederacy (US Civil War)
• Apr 12 Fort Sumter in South Carolina is attacked by the Confederacy, beginning the American Civil War
• Apr 13 After 34 hours of bombardment, Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederates (US Civil War)
• Apr 14 Formal Union surrender of Fort Sumter (US Civil War)
• Apr 15 Federal army (75,000 volunteers) mobilized by US President Abraham Lincoln (US Civil War)
• Apr 16 US President Abraham Lincoln outlaws business with confederate states (US Civil War)
• Apr 17 Indianola TX - "Star of West" taken by Confederacy
• Apr 17 Virginia secedes from the Union (US Civil War)

• Apr 19 Baltimore riots - 4 soldiers, 9 civilians killed
• Apr 19 Lincoln orders blockade of Confederate ports (Civil War)
• Apr 23 Robert E Lee named commander of Virginia Confederate forces (US Civil War)
• Apr 23 Arkansas troops seize Ft Smith
• Apr 25 Battle of Lavaca, fought in Texas, Union victory (US Civil War)
• Apr 25 The Union Army arrives to reinforce Washington, D.C. (US Civil War)
• Apr 27 US President Abraham Lincoln suspends writ of habeas corpus (US Civil War)
• Apr 27 West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from Union (US Civil War)
• Apr 29 Maryland's House of Delegates votes against seceding from Union (US Civil War)
• Apr 30 US President Abraham Lincoln ordered Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory (US Civil War)

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• Jan 2 Helen Herron Taft, 1st lady (1909-12)
• Jan 6 George Exton Lloyd, Anglican bishop and theologian (d. 1940)
• Jan 12 James Mark Baldwin, American Philosopher and Psychologist, born in Columbia, South Carolina
• Jan 13 Max Nonne, German neurologist (d. 1959)
• Jan 14 Wilhelm von Polenz, German writer (Der Pfarrer von Breitendorf)
• Jan 18 Hans Goldschmidt, German chemist
• Feb 2 Mehmed VI, last sultan of Ottoman Empire (1918-22)
• Feb 2 Solomon R. Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist (Guggenheim Museum NYC), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (d. 1949)
• Feb 12 Lou [Andreas-]Salome, Russian/German author (Im Kampf um Gott)
• Feb 13 Uchimura Kanzo, religious writer (How I Became a Christian), born in Tokyo, Japan
• Feb 15 Alfred North Whitehead, Engl mathematician/philosopher (Adv of Ideas)
• Feb 15 Halford John Mackinder, Gainsborough Lincolnshire, geographer
• Feb 17 Princess Helena, Duchess of Albany (d. 1922)
• Feb 20 Nicolaas van Meeteren, Curacao, folklorist
• Feb 26 Ferdinand I, 1st tsar of modern Bulgaria (1908-18), born in Vienna, Austria
• Feb 27 Rudolph Steiner, Kraljevic Aust, founder (doctrine of anthroposophy)
• Mar 19 Lomer Gouin, Quebec politician (d. 1929)
• Apr 9 Charles Holroyd, English artist and curator, Director of the National Gallery (1906-16), born in Potternewton, Leeds (d. 1917)
• Apr 14 Bion Joseph Arnold, electrical engineer/inventor
• Apr 15 Bliss Carman, Canadian poet (d. 1929)
• Apr 19 Warden Oncle, [Edward Vermeulen], Flemish farmer/writer
• Apr 23 Edmund Allenby, Viscount Allenby, British Fieldmarshal, General at Battle of Megiddo, born in Brackenhurst, England (d. 1936)
• Apr 27 Johan M Skjoldborg, Danish writer (Dynaes-Digte)
• May 3 Emmett Dalton, American outlaw, member of the Dalton Gang in the American Old West, born in Belton, Missouri (d. 1937)
• May 6 Motilal Nehru, Indian lawyer and freedom fighter, born in Agra, British India (d. 1931)

• May 11 Frederick Russell Burnham, father of the international scouting movement (d. 1947)

• May 27 Victoria E Matthews, educator
• May 31 Emily Perkins Bissell, welfare worker (1st christmas seal drive, 1907)
• Jun 9 Floris H Verster, [van Wulverhorst], painter/cartoonist/etcher
• Jun 10 Joseph Cuypers, Dutch architect (St Bavo, Haarlem), born in Roermond, the Netherlands (d. 1949)
• Jun 10 Pierre Duhem, French naturalist, philosopher and historian, born in Paris (d. 1916)
• Jun 16 Scato Gocko de Vries, Dutch paleographer/librarian
• Jun 17 Omar Bundy, U.S. army general and soldier (d. 1940)
• Jun 18 Jose FdT Coelho, Portuguese writer (Os Meus Amores)

• Jun 20 Frederick Gowland Hopkins, British biochemist (Nobel Prize 1929), born in Eastbourne, England (d. 1947)
• Jun 22 Maximilian von Spee, German admiral (d. 1914)
• Jun 29 William James Mayo, American surgeon and co-founder (Mayo Clinic in Minnesota), born in Le Sueur, Minnesota (d. 1939)
• Jul 11 George W. Norris, U.S. Senator noted for his advocacy of political reform and of public ownership of hydroelectric-power plants, born in Sandusky, Ohio (d. 1944)
• Jul 23 Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg, Dutch politician of the Anti Revolutionary Party and Governor-General of Dutch Indies (1909-16), born in Rotterdam, Netherlands (d. 1935)
• Jul 25 Andrew Cowper Lawson, Scottish-Canadian Geologist who was the first person to identify and name the San Andreas Fault, born in Anstruther ,Scotland (d. 1952)
• Jul 29 Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, 1st wife of Theodore Roosevelt, born in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts (d. 1884)
• Jul 29 Sergei D Sazonov, Russian minister of Foreign Affairs (1910-16)
• Aug 2 Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, Bengali chemist (founder of Bengal Chemicals And Pharmaceuticals), born in Khulna, British India (d. 1944)

• Aug 8 William Bateson, English biologist (originator of term "genetics")
• Aug 10 Almroth Wright, Yorkshire England, bacteriologist
• Sep 10 Niels Hansen Jacobsen, Danish sculptor and ceramist (d. 1941)
• Sep 11 Juhani Aho, Finnish journalist and writer (Panu, Tuomio), born in Lapinlahti, Finland (d. 1921)
• Sep 17 Owen Seaman, poet/editor (Punch)
• Sep 20 Herbert Putnam, American Librarian of Congress, born in NYC, New York (d. 1955)
• Sep 23 Robert Bosch, German inventor and industrialist (d. 1942)
• Sep 28 Amélie of Orléans, Queen of Portugal, wife of Carlos I, born in Twickenham, London (d. 1951)
• Sep 30 William Wrigley Jr., American industrialist (Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company) (d. 1932)
• Oct 4 Frederic Remington, American artist and sculptor of American West, born in Canton, New York (d. 1909)

• Oct 14 Artur Gavazzi, Croatian geographer, born in Split, Austria-Hungary (d. 1944)
• Oct 16 J. B. Bury, Irish historian (d. 1927)
• Oct 29 Andrei Ryabushkin, Russian painter (d. 1904)
• Oct 30 Antoine Bourdelle, French sculptor (d. 1929)
• Nov 3 Johann Peter Kirsch, Luxembourg church historian/archaeologist
• Nov 7 Jeff Milton, American lawman, born in Marianna, Florida (d. 1947)
• Nov 10 Robert T. A. Innes, Scottish astronomer (Proxima Centauri), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (d. 1933)
• Nov 14 Frederick Jackson Turner, Wisc, historian/educator (Harvard U)
• Nov 18 Dorothy Dix, pseudonym of US journalist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (d. 1951)
• Nov 21 Joao da Cruz, Brazilian poet
• Nov 23 Konstantin Korovin, Russian painter (d. 1939)

• Nov 30 French Gailliard, Belgian painter (Zeustempel in Athens)
• Dec 5 Armando V Diaz, Italian marshal/minister of War (1922-24)
• Dec 8 Aristide Maillol, French painter/sculptor (Seated Woman)
• Dec 8 William C. Durant, American industry pioneer, founded General Motors, Frigidaire, born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1947)
• Dec 15 Charles Duryea, American inventor (Duryea Motor Wagon Company, first auto built in the US), born in Canton, Illinois (d. 1938)
• Dec 16 Antonio de La Gandara, French painter (d. 1917)
• Dec 19 Constance [Clara] Garnett, Russian-English translator, born in Brighton England
• Dec 19 Italo Svevo, Trieste Austria, Italian novelist (La Coscienza di Zeno)
• Dec 20 Ivana Kobilca, Slovenian painter (d. 1926)
• Dec 22 Erich Schaeder, German theologist (Theocentric Theology)
• Dec 25 Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, Indian founder of Banaras Hindu University (d. 1946)
• Dec 26 Friedrich Engel, German mathematician (group theory)

• Jan 2 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia (1840-61) and Germany (1849-61), dies at 65
• Jan 17 Lola Montez, Irish-born adventurer (b. 1821)
• Jan 31 Franciscus J van Vree, Dutch Catholic foreman, dies at 53
• Feb 10 Francis Danby, Exmouth, painter, dies
• Feb 18 Louis C Luzac, Dutch minister of Internal Affairs, dies at 74
• Feb 21 Lars Levi Laestadius, Swedish botanist and founder of Laestadianism, dies at 61
• Mar 10 Taras Shevchenko, Ukrainian national poet and painter, dies at 47
• Apr 4 John McLean, American Supreme Court Justice (1829-61) and Postmaster General, dies at 76

• Apr 11 Francisco González Bocanegra, Mexican poet (b. 1824)
• May 9 Peter Ernst von Lasaulx, German philosopher and writer (b. 1805)
• May 24 Elmer Ellsworth, US warrior (Chicago Zouaves), shot to death at 23
• May 24 James T Jackson, US landlord (doodde EE Ellsworth), shot dead)
• May 24 Elmer E. Ellsworth, American soldier, the first Union officer killed in the American Civil War, dies at 24
• Jun 1 John Q Marr, US Confederate captain, dies in battle at Fairfax Courthouse, the first Confederate death of the war
• Jun 3 Stephen A. Douglas, American politician, US senator from Illinois (Lincoln-Douglas debates), dies at 48
• Jun 5 John Garland, US Union colonel/brigadier general, dies in battle
• Jun 6 Giuseppe Concone, Italian singing teacher, dies at 59
• Jun 6 Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, Prime Minister of Italy (b. 1810)
• Jun 25 Abdulmejid I, 31st Sultan of Ottoman Empire, dies at 38

• Jul 2 Peter A de Genestet, vicar/poet, dies at 31
• Jul 7 John Willis Ellis, US governor of NC (1858-61), dies
• Jul 13 Robert Selden Garnett, US Confederate Brigadier General, dies at 41
• Jul 21 Francis Stebbins Bartow, Confederate colonel, dies in battle at 44
• Jul 22 Barnard Elliot Bee, US Confederate brigadier general, dies at 37
• Jul 25 Jonas Furrer, Swiss Federal Councilor (b. 1805)
• Aug 10 Nathaniel Lyon, American Brigadier-General (Union Army), 1st Union General to die in battle at 43
• Aug 12 Eliphalet Remington, American inventor, designer of the Remington rifle (b. 1793)
• Aug 17 Alcée Louis la Branche, American Politician (b. 1806)
• Aug 22 Xianfeng, Emperor of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty, dies at 30
• Sep 12 George N. Briggs, American lawyer and politician, 19th Governor of Massachusetts, dies at 65
• Oct 5 Antoni Melchior Fijałkowski, Polish bishop (b. 1778)
• Oct 6 Elias Canneman, liberal minister of Finance (1813-14), dies at 84
• Oct 21 Edward Dickinson Baker, US attorney/senator, dies in battle at 50
• Oct 21 John Breckinridge Grayson, Confederate brigadier general, dies
• Oct 25 Friedrich C von Savigny, German lawyer, dies at 82
• Nov 11 Pedro V van Alcantara, King of Portugal (1853-61), dies at 24
• Dec 14 Albert, Prince consort of England and husband of Queen Victoria, dies at 42

• Dec 26 Philip St. George Cocke, American Brigadier General (Confederate Army), commits suicide at 52

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