Directory

1859 CE

Construction begins on the first railway in northern India as tracks are laid between the modern-day locations of Allahabad and Kanpur. September 2 – The solar storm of 1859, the largest geomagnetic solar storm on record, causes the Northern lights to be visible as far south as Montería, Colombia and knocks out telegraph communication (this is also called the Carrington event). John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 21 – José Mariano Salas (1797–1867) becomes Conservative interim President of Mexico.source
  • January 24 (O. S.) – Under the rule of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia are united under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire. It would be a principal step in forming the modern state of Romania.source
  • January 28 – The city of Olympia is incorporated in the Washington Territory of the United States of America.source
  • February 2 – Miguel Miramón (1832–1867) becomes Conservative interim President of Mexico.source
  • February 14 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.source
  • May 5 – Border Treaty between Brazil and Venezuela: The two countries agree their borders should be traced at the water divide, between the Amazon and the Orinoco basins.source
  • May 18 – The 1859 United Kingdom general election concludes. It is the first election fought by the new Liberal Party, in which they win a 28 seat majority, with Liberal leader Viscount Palmerston becoming prime minister.source
  • June 6 – The British Crown colony of Queensland in Australia is created, by devolving part of the territory of New South Wales (Queensland Day). Brisbane is declared the capital.source
  • August 16 – The Tuscan National Assembly formally deposes the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, ending an ascendancy of 109 years.source
  • September 17 – In San Francisco, Joshua Norton proclaims himself to be His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.source
  • November 10 – The Treaty of Zürich, reaffirming the terms of the Treaty of Villafranca, brings the Austro-Sardinian War to an official close.source
  • Count Camillo Benso di Cavour resigns, as president of Piedmont-Sardinia.source
  • The Rancho Rincon de Los Esteros Land Grant is confirmed to Rafael Alvisa (part of modern-day Santa Clara County, California).source

Conflict & Security

  • February 17 – French naval forces under Charles Rigault de Genouilly capture the city and Citadel of Saigon in Vietnam, beginning the Siege of Saigon.source
  • March 9 – The army of the Kingdom of Sardinia mobilizes against Austria, beginning the crisis which will lead to the Austro-Sardinian War.source
  • April 18 – Indian Rebellion revolutionary, Tantia Tope is hanged for the 1857 Rebellionsource
  • April 29 – Austrian troops begin to cross the Ticino River to Piedmont.source
  • May 20 – Austro-Sardinian War: Battle of Montebello – The Austrian army led by Karl von Urban faces the French-Sardinian combined forces.source
  • May 26 – Austro-Sardinian War: Battle of Varese – Giuseppe Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps confront and defeat Austrian forces, led by Field Marshal-Lieutenant Karl von Urban.source
  • May 30 – Austro-Sardinian War: Battle of Palestro – The Sardinians defeat the Austrian army.source
  • June 4 – Austro-Sardinian War: Battle of Magenta – The French and Sardinians defeat the Austrians.source
  • June 15 – Austro-Sardinian War: Battle of Treponti – The Austrian Field Marshall Karl von Urban defeats Giuseppe Garibaldi.source
  • June 24 – Austro-Sardinian War – Battle of Solferino: The Kingdom of Sardinia and the armies of Napoleon III of France defeat Franz Joseph I of Austria in northern Italy; the battle inspires Henri Dunant to found the Red Cross.source
  • July 11 – Austro-Sardinian War – By the preliminary treaty signed at Villafranca, Italy, Lombardy is ceded to the French (who immediately cede it to Sardinia), while the Austrians keep Venetia, and the French promise to restore the Central Italian rulers expelled in the course of the war. This brings the Austro-Sardinian War effectively to a close.source
  • October 16 – John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.source
  • October 18 – Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower John Brown at the Federal arsenal.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • May 26, June 2 – Geologist Joseph Prestwich and amateur archaeologist John Evans report (to the Royal Society and Society of Antiquaries of London, respectively) the results of their investigations of gravel-pits in the Somme valley and elsewhere, extending human history back to what will become known as the Paleolithic Era.source
  • June 8 – The discovery of the Comstock Lode in the western Utah Territory sets off the Rush to Washoe.source
  • June 30 – Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope for the first time.source
  • September – British merchant Thomas Blake Glover begins business in Nagasaki, Japan.source
  • The island of Timor is divided between Portugal and the Netherlands.source
  • Pike's Peak Gold Rush begins in the Colorado Territory.source

Religion & Belief

  • February 4 – German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovers the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai, in the Khedivate of Egypt and arranges for its presentation to his patron, Tsar Alexander II of Russia at Saint Petersburg.source
  • May 22 – Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies is succeeded by his 23-year-old son, Francis II of the Two Sicilies.source
  • July 28 The Bishop Cotton school (Shimla) (BCS) was founded on July 28, 1859,source

Economy & Finance

  • Nillmij, a predecessor of Aegon, Dutch-based worldwide insurance company, is founded in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia).source
  • The Society for Promoting the Employment of Women is founded.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 3 – Construction begins on the first railway in northern India as tracks are laid between the modern-day locations of Allahabad and Kanpur.source
  • April 25 – Ground is broken for the Suez Canal, in Egypt.source
  • May 4 – The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge, linking the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England.source
  • July 11 – The chimes of Big Ben ring for the first time in London.source
  • August 28–September 2 – The solar storm of 1859, the largest geomagnetic solar storm on record, causes the Northern lights to be visible as far south as Montería, Colombia and knocks out telegraph communication (this is also called the Carrington event).source
  • November 1 – The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lighted for the first time (its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for 19 miles).source
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson publishes the first set of Idylls of the King.source
  • Tidskrift för hemmet, the first women's magazine in the Nordic countries, begins publication in Sweden.source

Science & Discovery

  • March 26 – French amateur astronomer Edmond Modeste Lescarbault claims to have noticed a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury (later named Vulcan).source
  • June 18 – Aletschhorn, the second summit of the Bernese Alps, is first ascended.source
  • November 24 – The French Navy's La Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.source
  • November 24 – English naturalist Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species, a book which argues for the gradual evolution of species through natural selection (it immediately sells out its initial print run).source
  • November – Bernhard Riemann publishes On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude. In his paper there is an incidental comment that later becomes the Riemann Hypothesis, one of the most important unsolved problems in Mathematics.source
  • Karl Marx publishes A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.source
  • John Stuart Mill publishes On Liberty.source
  • George Eliot publishes Adam Bede.source

Health & Medicine

  • District nursing begins in Liverpool, England, when philanthropist William Rathbone employs Mary Robinson to nurse the sick poor in their own homes.source

Crime & Justice

  • February 27 – United States Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton Key (U.S. District Attorney) for having an affair with his wife.source
  • December 2 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • April 28 – American ship Pomona is wrecked off the Irish coast, with 424 dead.source
  • August 27 – Edwin Drake drills the first oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, starting the Pennsylvania oil rush.source
  • October 26 – The steamship Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, Wales, with 454 dead.source

Climate & Environment

  • June 17 – The only recorded simoom ever in North America hits Goleta and Santa Barbara, California.source

Culture & Society

  • February 12 – The Mekteb-i Mülkiye School is founded in the Ottoman Empire.source
  • March 21 – Pennsylvania issues the charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first organization of its kind in the United States, and founder of the nation's first zoo.source
  • April 13 – The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is founded by Peter Cooper, a New York industrialist, inventor and philanthropist.source
  • April 30 – A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is published in England.source
  • May 31 – Big Ben, the Great Clock at the Palace of Westminster, London, is started.source
  • July 1 – The first intercollegiate baseball game is played, between Amherst and Williams Colleges.source
  • July 8 – Charles XV succeeds his father Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (as Charles IV).source
  • July 30 – Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps, is first ascended.source
  • November 15 – The first Zappas Olympics open in Greece.source
  • December 10 – The Ateneo de Manila University is founded, as the Escuela Municipal de Manila.source
  • The University of Michigan Law School is founded.source
  • The Mary Institute is founded in Missouri.source

Births

  • January 11 – George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, British statesman, Viceroy of India (d. 1925)source
  • January 27 – Wilhelm II, last Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia (d. 1941)source
  • February 1 – Victor Herbert, Irish-born composer (Babes In Toyland) (d. 1924)source
  • February 5 – Louis Cheikho, Lebanese Jesuit Chaldean priest and venerable (d. 1927)source
  • February 14 – George Washington Gale Ferris Jr., American inventor of the Ferris wheel (d. 1896)source
  • March 9 – Alexandru Averescu, Romanian general and politician, 24th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1938)source
  • April 17 – Willis Van Devanter, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1941)source
  • July 13 – Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, British co-founder of the London School of Economics (d. 1947)source
  • August 4 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1952)source
  • September 17 – William H. Bonney (Billy The Kid), American outlaw, gunfighter (d. 1881)source
  • October 6 – Frank Seiberling, American inventor, co-founder of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (d. 1955)source
  • October 18 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1941)source
  • October 20 – John Dewey, American philosopher, psychologist and educator (d. 1952)source
  • November 24 – Cass Gilbert, American architect (Woolworth Building, United States Supreme Court building) (d. 1934)source

Deaths

  • January 28 – F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1782)source
  • February 13 – Eliza Acton, English poet, cookery writer (b. 1799)source
  • April 16 – Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian (b. 1805)source
  • May 6 – Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and geographer (b. 1769)source
  • May 13 – Bakht Khan, commander-in-chief of Indian rebel forces in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (b. 1797)source
  • June 11 – Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, Austrian diplomat (b. 1773)source
  • June 15 – The so-called Pig War border dispute between the Americans and the British, over the San Juan Islands, begins by the death of the namesake pig.source
  • July 30 – Richard Rush, United States Attorney General under James Madison, United States Secretary of the Treasury under President John Quincy Adams (b. 1780)source
  • August 2 – Horace Mann, American educator, abolitionist (b. 1796)source
  • August 4 – John Vianney, French saint known as the Curé de Ars (b. 1786)source
  • August 28 – Sultan Abd al-Rahman of Morocco (b. 1788)source
  • October 12 – Robert Stephenson, English civil engineer (b. 1803)source
  • November 28 – Washington Irving, American author (b. 1783)source
  • December 2 – John Brown, American abolitionist (hanged) (b. 1800)source