Directory

1860 CE

Expedition of the Thousand – Battle of Calatafimi: Troops under Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat the army of Naples in Sicily. Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and the Ottoman Empire form a commission to investigate the causes of the massacres of Maronite Christians, committed by Druzes in Lebanon earlier in the year. John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant leave Zanzibar, to search for the source of the Nile River.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 20 – Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour is recalled as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia.source
  • February 27 – Abraham Lincoln makes his Cooper Union speech in New York, which is largely responsible for his election to the presidency.source
  • March 22 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany is annexed to the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.source
  • April 2 – The first Italian Parliament meets at Turin.source
  • June 12 – (May 31 O.S.) – The State Bank of the Russian Empire is established.source
  • August 13 – José Ignacio Pavón (1791-1866) becomes unconstitutional interim President of Mexico, replacing Miguel Miramón. Two days later Miramón becomes president again.source
  • November 6 – 1860 United States presidential election: Abraham Lincoln elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office, defeating John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell.source
  • December 20 – American Civil War: South Carolina, led by Governor Francis Pickens, becomes the first state to secede from the United States.source
  • In Buenos Aires, leader Bartolomé Mitre subverts the Argentine Confederation and begins to establish a new centralist government, with the help of Uruguayan Colorado party leader Venancio Flores.source
  • China agrees, in an unequal treaty (the Convention of Peking) imposed on it, to allow missionaries to proselytize throughout the country.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 13 – Battle of Tétouan, Morocco: Spanish troops under General Leopoldo O'Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetuan defeat the Moroccan Army.source
  • February 26 – The Wiyot Massacre takes place at Tuluwat Island, Humboldt Bay in northern California.source
  • March 17 – The First Taranaki War begins at Waitara, New Zealand, when Māori refuse to sell land to British settlers.source
  • March 24 – Sakuradamon Incident: Rōnin samurai of the Mito Domain in Japan assassinate tairō (Chief Minister) Ii Naosuke outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle, disaffected with his role in the opening of Japan to foreign powers.source
  • March–August – The second rout of the Jiangnan Daying destroys the Qing dynasty's army of 180,000.source
  • April 4 – A new uprising erupts in Palermo.source
  • May 15 – Expedition of the Thousand – Battle of Calatafimi: Troops under Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat the army of Naples in Sicily.source
  • May 27 – Garibaldi's forces take Palermo, the capital of Sicily.source
  • July 20 – Battle of Milazzo: The forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat royal Neapolitan forces near Messina, bringing nearly all of Sicily under Garibaldi's control.source
  • September 7 – Giuseppe Garibaldi's forces capture Naples.source
  • September 10 – Piedmontese forces invade the Papal States, hoping to link up with Garibaldi in Naples.source
  • September 18 – Battle of Castelfidardo: The Piedmontese decisively defeat the Papal forces, allowing them to continue their march into Neapolitan territory, and effectively reducing the Papal States to the territory around Rome.source
  • September 24 – Battle of Guayaquil: Ecuadorian forces, led by Juan José Flores and Gabriel García Moreno, take the port of Guayaquil from Supreme Chief Guillermo Franco, who is backed by Peruvian forces.source
  • October 1 – Battle of Volturnus: Garibaldi defeats the last organized army of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.source
  • October 5 – Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and the Ottoman Empire form a commission to investigate the causes of the massacres of Maronite Christians, committed by Druzes in Lebanon earlier in the year.source
  • October 18 – The first Convention of Peking formally ends the Second Opium War.source
  • October 19 – A new Māori revolt begins in New Zealand.source
  • October 26 – Garibaldi again defeats the Neapolitan forces, advancing on Gaeta, the last remaining Neapolitan strong-point.source
  • October 26 – Meeting at Teano: Giuseppe Garibaldi gives Naples to King Victor Emmanuel II, recognizing him as King of Italy.source
  • November 3 – The combined forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi and King Victor Emmanuel II besiege King Francis II of the Two Sicilies in Gaeta, his last remaining stronghold.source
  • December 24 – Mexico's interim president Miguel Miramón flees the country after being defeated in battle.source
  • Christians and Druzes clash in Damascus, Syria.source
  • Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and Empress Eugénie visit Algiers and stay at the Casbah of Algiers.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • April 3 – In the U.S., the Pony Express begins its first run from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, with riders carrying a small Bible.source
  • May 6 – Expedition of the Thousand: Giuseppe Garibaldi and his troops depart from Quarto.source
  • August 22 – Assisted by the British Navy, the troops of Giuseppe Garibaldi cross from Sicily to the Italian mainland.source
  • October – John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant leave Zanzibar, to search for the source of the Nile River.source

Religion & Belief

  • December 7 – After a fiercely contested campaign, Monier Monier-Williams is elected as the new Boden Professor of Sanskrit, at Oxford University.source

Economy & Finance

  • TAG Heuer watchmaker founded in Bern Canton, Switzerland.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • December 29 – The world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled and armoured battleship, the (British) HMS Warrior, is launched.source
  • The Russian Empire has c. 1250 mi km of railroads.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 2 – The astronomer Urbain Le Verrier announces the discovery of a hypothetical planet Vulcan at a meeting of the French Academy of Sciences in Paris, France.source
  • April 9 – French typesetter Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville creates a recording of the French folk song Au clair de la lune with his phonautograph, producing the world's earliest known intelligible sound recording of the human voice (however, it was not rediscovered until 2008).source
  • December 1 – Charles Dickens publishes the first installment of Great Expectations in his magazine All the Year Round.source
  • Discovery of the chemical elements: Robert Bunsen discovers caesium and rubidium.source
  • German chemist Albert Niemann makes a detailed analysis of the coca leaf, isolating and purifying the alkaloid, which he calls cocaine.source

Health & Medicine

  • October 6 – Section 377 of the British Indian penal code was enacted in British India.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • January 10 – The Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts collapses, killing at least 77 workers.source
  • February 20 – Canadian Royal Mail steamer (1859) is wrecked on Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, on passage from the British Isles to the United States with all 205 onboard lost.source
  • May 1 – A Chondrite-type meteorite falls to earth in Muskingum County, Ohio, near the town of New Concord.source
  • September 7 – The is accidentally rammed and sunk in Lake Michigan, drowning at least 300 people.source
  • October 18–21 – Beijing's Old Summer Palace is burned to the ground by orders of British general Lord Elgin, in retaliation for mistreatment of several prisoners of war, during the Second Opium War.source

Climate & Environment

  • May 8 – In New Granada (modern-day Colombia) the southern state of Cauca secedes from the central government, in protest at the suggestion of increase of presidential powers; Magdalena and Bolívar join it; civil war erupts.source

Culture & Society

  • May 17 – The German association football club TSV 1860 München is founded.source
  • July 2 – Vladivostok is founded in Russia.source
  • July 11 – Mutsuhito (the future Emperor Meiji) becomes Crown Prince of Japan.source
  • September 3–5 – The First International Chemistry Congress is held in Karlsruhe, Baden.source
  • October 17 – The Open Championship, also known as the British Open, is played for the first time at Prestwick Golf Club in Ayrshire, Scotland. The event is won by Willie Park Srsource

Births

  • January 25 – Charles Curtis, American politician, 31st Vice President (d. 1936)source
  • February 28 – Carl Georg Barth, Norwegian-American mathematician, mechanical engineer (d. 1939)source
  • March 23 – Horatio Bottomley, British politician and businessman (d. 1933)source
  • April 7 – Will Keith Kellogg, American industrialist, founder of the Kellogg Company (d. 1951)source
  • May 2 – Theodor Herzl, Austrian founder of modern political Zionism (d. 1904)source
  • May 21 – Willem Einthoven, Dutch inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)source
  • July 16 – Otto Jespersen, Danish linguist, creator of Ido and Novial languages (d.1943)source
  • August 15 – Florence Harding, First Lady of the United States (d. 1924)source
  • September 6 – Jane Addams, American social worker, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1935)source
  • October 31 – Juliette Gordon Low, American founder of the Girl Scouts (d. 1927)source
  • December 7 – Joseph Cook, 6th Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1947)source
  • December 15 – Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1904)source
  • December 31 – Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, founder of Texaco (d. 1937)source
  • December 31 – John T. Thompson, United States Army officer, inventor of the Tommy gun (d. 1940)source

Deaths

  • January 5 – John Neumann, Saint and Roman Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia (b. 1811)source
  • January 10 – Ezequiel Zamora, leader of the Federalist Army in Venezuela (b. 1817)source
  • January 27 – Thomas Brisbane, Scottish astronomer (b. 1773)source
  • January 29 – Stéphanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden (b. 1789)source
  • March 25 – James Braid, Scottish surgeon (b. 1795)source
  • May 10 – Theodore Parker, American preacher, Transcendentalist, and abolitionist (b. 1810)source
  • May 12 – Sir Charles Barry, English architect (b. 1795)source
  • May 21 – Phineas Gage, improbable American head injury survivor (b. 1823)source
  • September 21 – Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (b. 1788)source
  • October 12 – Sir Harry Smith, English soldier, military commander (b. 1787)source
  • October 31 – Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, British admiral (b. 1775)source
  • November 1 – Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia), Empress Consort of Russian Emperor Nicholas I (b. 1798)source
  • December 2 – Ferdinand Christian Baur, German theologian (b. 1792)source
  • December 14 – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)source