Directory

1865 CE

Electric equipment and mobile brand Nokia founded in Tampere, Finland. The Mimosa sets sail with emigrants from Wales for Patagonia. The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: 2 mi/h km/h in town and 4 mi/h km/h in the country.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 31 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (conditional prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude) passes narrowly, in the House of Representatives.source
  • February 6 – The municipal administration of Finland is established.source
  • February 22 – Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.source
  • March 3 – The U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.source
  • May 1 – The Treaty of the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed, following the outbreak of the Paraguayan War.source
  • Jefferson Davis meets with his Confederate Cabinet (14 officials) for the last time, in Washington, Georgia, and the Confederate Government is officially dissolved.source
  • July 26 – The New Zealand Parliament first meets in Wellington on a permanent basis, making it de facto the national capital.source
  • August 16 – The Dominican Republic regains independence from Spain.source
  • October 25 – Florida drafts its constitution in Tallahassee.source
  • November 11 – Duar War between Britain and Bhutan ends with the Treaty of Sinchula, in which Bhutan cedes control of its southern passes to Britain in return for an annual subsidy.source
  • December 11 – The United States Congress creates the United States House Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Banking and Commerce, reducing the tasks of the House Committee on Ways and Means.source
  • December 17 – Leopold II becomes King of the Belgians, following the death (on December 10) of his father, King Leopold I.source
  • December 18 – Secretary of State William H. Seward declares the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution ratified by three-quarters of the states, including those in secession. As of December 6, slavery is legally outlawed in the last two slave states of Kentucky and Delaware, and the remaining 45,000 slaves are freed.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 13 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Fisher – Union forces launch a major amphibious assault against the last seaport held by the Confederates, Fort Fisher, North Carolina.source
  • February 3 – American Civil War: Hampton Roads Conference: Union and Confederate leaders discuss peace terms.source
  • March 19–21 – American Civil War : Battle of Bentonville: Union troops compel Confederate forces to retreat from Four Oaks, North Carolina.source
  • March 25 – American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union, although it is retaken the same day. Lee's army suffers heavy casualties: about 2,900, including 1,000 captured in the Union counterattack. Confederate positions are weakened. After the battle, Lee's defeat is only a matter of time.source
  • April 1 – American Civil War – Battle of Five Forks: In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.source
  • April 9 – American Civil War: Confederate States Army General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, effectively ending the war.source
  • April 14 – Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: President of the United States Abraham Lincoln is shot while attending an evening performance of the farce Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.source
  • April 14 – United States Secretary of State William H. Seward and his family are attacked in his home, by Lewis Powell.source
  • April 18 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his entire cabinet arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a contingent of 1,000 soldiers.source
  • April 26 – American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston surrenders to Union Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, at Durham Station, North Carolina.source
  • May 4 – American Civil War: Lieutenant General Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General Edward Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, effectively ending all Confederate resistance east of the Mississippi River.source
  • May 10 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by the Union Army near Irwinville, Georgia.source
  • May 12–13 – American Civil War – Battle of Palmito Ranch: In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war with casualties, ends with a Confederate victory.source
  • May 29 – American Civil War: President of the United States Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation of general amnesty for most citizens of the former Confederacy.source
  • June 2 – American Civil War: Confederate forces west of the Mississippi River under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, under terms negotiated on May 26, becoming the last to do so.source
  • June 11 – Battle of the Riachuelo: The Brazilian Navy squadron defeats the Paraguayan Navy.source
  • June 19 – American Civil War: Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, Texas, and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation (an event celebrated in modern times each year as Juneteenth).source
  • June 23 – American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory, Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant Rebel army.source
  • July 7 – Following Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, the four conspirators condemned to death during the trial are hanged, including David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt. Her son, John Surratt, escapes execution by fleeing to Canada, and ultimately to Egypt.source
  • October 11 – Morant Bay rebellion: Paul Bogle leads hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the British governor Edward John Eyre with 400 executed.source
  • November 6 – American Civil War: The CSS Shenandoah, last remnant of the Confederate States of America and its military, surrenders in Liverpool after fleeing westward from the Pacific.source
  • November 10 – Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate superintendent of Andersonville Prison (Camp Sumter) is hanged, becoming the second of two combatants, and only serving regular soldier, to be executed for war crimes committed during the American Civil War.source
  • November 17 – Chincha Islands War: Action of 17 November 1865 – A Spanish gunboat is captured by the Chilean tugboat Independencia off Tomé, in the Bay of Concepción, Chile.source
  • November 26 – Chincha Islands War: Battle of Papudo – The Spanish ship Covadonga is captured by the Chileans and the Peruvians, north of Valparaíso, Chile.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • May 17 – French missionary Father Armand David first observes Père David's deer in Peking, China.source
  • May 28 – The Mimosa sets sail with emigrants from Wales for Patagonia.source
  • June 25 – James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton, England.source
  • July 14 – First ascent of the Matterhorn: The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time, by a party of 7 led by the Englishman Edward Whymper; 4 die in a fall during the descent.source
  • July 27 – Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.source

Religion & Belief

  • July 2 – The Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London, by William and Catherine Booth.source

Economy & Finance

  • January 4 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City.source
  • May 12 – Electric equipment and mobile brand Nokia founded in Tampere, Finland.source
  • The National Temperance Society and Publishing House is founded by James Black in the U.S.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • February 21 – John Deere receives a United States patent for ploughs.source
  • March – Hamm's Brewery opens in St. Paul, Minnesota.source
  • April 6 – German chemicals producer Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik (BASF) is founded in Mannheim.source
  • April 21 – German chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim, to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.source
  • May 17 – The International Telegraph Union is founded.source
  • July 5 – The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: 2 mi/h km/h in town and 4 mi/h km/h in the country.source
  • July 5 – The U.S. Secret Service is founded.source
  • July 23 – The departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.source
  • July 31 – The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.source

Science & Discovery

  • February 8 & March 8 – Gregor Mendel reads his paper on Experiments on Plant Hybridization at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia, subsequently taken to be the origin of the theory of Mendelian inheritance.source
  • June 26 – Jumbo, a young male African elephant, arrives at London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.source
  • June–August – English polymath Francis Galton first describes eugenics.source

Crime & Justice

  • April 26 – Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.source
  • In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the country takes place.source
  • July 21 – Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots "Little Dave" Davis Tutt dead over a poker debt, in what is regarded as the first true western fast draw showdown.source
  • September 26 – Champ Ferguson becomes the first person (and one of only two) to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges, arising from the murder of 53 people. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz for war crimes.source
  • December 24 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form the Ku Klux Klan in the American South, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate carpetbaggers and scalawags, as well as to repress the freedpeople.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • February – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns, as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.source
  • April 27 – The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, mostly Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.source
  • July 30 – The steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California coast, killing 225 passengers and crew.source
  • August 25 – The Shergotty meteorite Mars meteorite falls in Sherghati, Gaya, Bihar in India.source
  • October 26 – The paddlewheel steamer sinks off the Georgia coast, with a cargo of $400,000 in coins.source
  • A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon, destroys about one million acres (4,000 km 2 ) of timber.source

Climate & Environment

  • March 25 – The Claywater Meteorite explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin; fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg lb are recovered.source

Culture & Society

  • March 4 – Washington College and Jefferson College are merged to form Washington & Jefferson College in the United States.source
  • April 27 – Governor of New York Reuben Fenton signs a bill formally creating Cornell University.source
  • May 23 – Grand Review of the Armies: Union Army troops parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.) to celebrate the end of the American Civil War.source
  • June 10 – Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde debuts at the Munich Court Theatre.source
  • July 4 – Lewis Carroll publishes his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England (first trade editions in December).source
  • July 27 – Businessman Asa Packer establishes Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.source
  • September 19 – Union Business College (now Peirce College) is founded in Philadelphia.source
  • December 21 – The Kappa Alpha Order is founded at Washington College, Lexington, Virginia.source
  • Nottingham Forest Football Club, an association football based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, England, is founded.source

Births

  • January 28 – Lala Lajpat Rai ("The Lion of Punjab"), a leader of the Indian independence movement (d. 1928)source
  • January 31 – Henri Desgrange, French cycling enthusiast, founder of the Tour de France (d. 1940)source
  • April 1 – Richard Adolf Zsigmondy, Austrian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1929)source
  • April 9 – Charles Proteus Steinmetz, German-American engineer, electrician (d. 1923)source
  • April – Richard Rushall, British sea captain and businessman (d. 1953)source
  • May 25 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)source
  • May 25 – John Mott, American YMCA leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1955)source
  • June 13 – W. B. Yeats, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1939)source
  • June 19 – Alfred Hugenberg, German businessman, politician (d. 1951)source
  • July 15 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, Irish-born British publisher; founder of the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror (d.1922)source
  • July 23 – Edward Terry Sanford, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1930)source
  • July 26 – Philipp Scheidemann, 11th Chancellor of Germany (d. 1939)source
  • September 13 – William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, British field marshal (d. 1951)source
  • December 30 – Rudyard Kipling, Indian-born English writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)source

Deaths

  • January 19 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French philosopher, anarchist (b. 1809)source
  • February 6 – Isabella Beeton, British cook, household management expert (b. 1836)source
  • March 1 – Anna Pavlovna of Russia, queen consort of the Netherlands (b. 1795)source
  • April 2 – A. P. Hill, American Confederate general (b. 1825)source
  • April 28 – Sir Samuel Cunard, Canadian businessman, founder of the Cunard Line (b. 1787)source
  • May 10 – William Armstrong, American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson (b. 1782)source
  • August 13 – Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian physician (b. 1818)source
  • September 2 – William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician (b. 1805)source
  • September 25 – Andrés de Santa Cruz, Peruvian military officer, seventh President of Peru and President of Bolivia (b. 1792)source
  • October 16 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, teacher, philosopher and sociologist (b. 1781)source
  • October 18 – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)source
  • October 24 – Paul Bogle, Jamaican activist, Baptist deacon and leader of the Morant Bay rebellion. (executed) (b. 1820)source
  • November 10 – Henry Wirz, Swiss-born American Confederate military officer, prisoner-of-war camp commander (executed) (b. 1823)source
  • November 12 – Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist, biographer (b. 1810)source