Events in History in 1858

Feb 13 Sir Richard Burton & John Speake explore Lake Tanganyika, Africa

Feb 21 Edwin T Holmes installs 1st electric burglar alarm (Boston, Massachusetts)
Feb 22 Dion Boucicault's "Jessie Brown" premieres in NYC
Mar 2 Frederick Cook of New Orleans, patents a cotton-bale metallic tie

Mar 5 Abolitionists establish "Crispus Attucks Day" in Boston

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 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 John Brown holds antislavery convention

May 10 Abolitionist John Brown meets Harriet Truman at a Constitutional Convention convened in Chatham, Ontario
May 11 Minnesota admitted as 32nd US state
May 22 Confederación Granadina (now Colombia) forms
May 28 Dion Boucicault's "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

Jun 16 Abraham Lincoln says "A house divided against itself cannot stand" accepting Illinois Republican Party's nomination for the Senate

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 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 Nadar takes 1st airborne photo (in a balloon)
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
Aug 5 Cyrus W Field completes 1st transatlantic telegraph cable
Aug 11 First ascent of the Eiger in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland
Aug 15 Regular mail to Pacific coast begins

Aug 16 Britain's Queen Victoria telegraphs US President James Buchanan

Aug 17 1st bank in Hawaii opens
Aug 18 Netherlands & Japan sign trade agreement
Aug 21 1st Lincoln-Douglas debate (Illinois)
Aug 24 Richmond "Daily Dispatch" reports 90 blacks arrested for learning
Aug 26 First news dispatch by telegraph.
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 John Holden hits 1st recorded HR (Bkln vs NY)
Sep 10 George Mary Searle discovers the asteroid 55 Pandora
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 In Paris, the Can-Can is 1st performed
Oct 26 Hamilton Smith patents rotary washing machine
Oct 28 R. H. Macy & Co opens 1st store, (6th Ave-NYC) Gross receipts $11.06
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
Dec 18 Passy, at Paris: 1st "Samedi soir" i/d villa of lovers Rossini