- Jan 1 Canada begins using decimal currency system
- Jan 9 Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide
Assassination Attempt
Jan 14 French Emperor Napoleon III escapes attempt on his life by Felice Orsini, an Italian patriot who was later executed
Napoleon III
Event of Interest
Feb 13 Sir Richard Burton & John Speake explore Lake Tanganyika, Africa
Richard Francis Burton
Event of Interest
Mar 5 Abolitionists establish "Crispus Attucks Day" in Boston
Crispus Attucks
- Mar 9 Albert Potts of Philadelphia patents the street mailbox
Event of Interest
Mar 14 Ellen G. White receives a vision while attending a funeral service in Lovett's Grove, near Bowling Green, Ohio
Ellen G. White
Meeting of Interest
Apr 14 Abolitionist John Brown meets Harriet Tubman at a Constitutional Convention convened in Chatham, Ontario
John Brown
Harriet Tubman
- 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 11 Minnesota admitted as 32nd US state
- May 22 Confederación Granadina (now Colombia) forms
- 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
Abraham Lincoln
Event of Interest
Jul 1 The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society
Charles Darwin
Alfred Russel Wallace
- 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 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)
William Thomson
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."
Queen Victoria
James Buchanan
William Thomson
- Aug 17 1st bank in Hawaii opens
- Aug 18 Netherlands & Japan sign trade agreement
- 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 John Holden hits 1st recorded HR (Brooklyn 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 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 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