1856

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1820s  1830s  1840s  – 1850s –  1860s  1870s  1880s
Years:	1853 1854 1855 – 1856 – 1857 1858 1859

1856 in topic:

Subjects:     Archaeology – Architecture –

Art – Literature (Poetry) – Music – Science

Sports – Rail Transport

Countries:     Australia – Canada – China – France – Germany – Ireland – Mexico – Netherlands – New Zealand – Norway – South Africa – Spain – UK – USA

Leaders:   State leaders – Colonial governors

Category: Establishments – Disestablishments

Births – Deaths – Works

Year 1856 (MDCCCLVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Contents 1 Events of 1856 1.1 January–June 1.2 July–December 1.3 Undated 1.4 Ongoing events 2 Births 2.1 January–June 2.2 July–December 3 Deaths 4 Citations

Events of 1856

January–June

• January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch.
• January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion.
• January 26 – First Battle of Seattle (1856): Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after an all day battle with settlers.
• January 29
  • The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.^[1]
  • Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross.
• February – The Tintic War breaks out in Utah.
• February 1 – Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
• February 2 – Dallas, Texas is incorporated as a city.
• February 7 – The nawab of Oudh (Wajid Ali Shah) is exiled to Metiabruz.
• February 18 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• March 5 – Fire destroys the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
• March 6 – Maryland Agricultural College (present-day University of Maryland, College Park) is chartered.
• March 9 – National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
• March 20 – Costa Rican troops rout Walker's soldiers.
• March 24 – Taiping Rebellion: Suspecting treachery on the part of East King Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai garrisons Anhui and begins his march back to the Heavenly Capital, having defeated a strong Xiang Army dettachment.
• March 31 – The Treaty of Paris (1856) is signed, ending the Crimean War.

• April 7 – Nelson College is founded in Nelson, New Zealand.
• April 10 – The Theta Chi Fraternity is founded at Norwich University.
• May 1 – Isabela Province is created in the Philippines in honor of Queen Isabela II of Spain.
• May 14 – A committee of Vigilance is founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18.
• May 21 – Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces (the "Sacking of Lawrence").
• May 22 – Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate, for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). Sumner is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovered; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.
• May 24 – Pottawatomie Massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas.
• June 2 – Battle of Black Jack: Antislavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat proslavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
• June 9 – 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
• June 13 – Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at Nanjing.

July–December

• July 17 – The Great Train Wreck of 1856 (the worst railroad calamity in the world to date) occurs near Philadelphia, PA, USA.
• July 31 – Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
• August 10 – A hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana, leaving 400 dead. The whole island is broken up into several smaller islands by the storm.
• August 30 – Battle of Osawatomie: Proslavery forces defeat antislavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
• September 1 – Seton Hall University is founded by Archdiocese of Newark Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
• September 2 – Taiping Rebellion: Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang assassinate Yang Xiuqing.
• October 8 – The Second Opium War between several western powers and China begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River.
• November 1 – Anglo-Persian War: War is declared between Great Britain and Persia.
• November 4 – U.S. presidential election, 1856: Democrat James Buchanan defeats former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of "Know-Nothings" and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party, to become the 15th President of the United States.
• November 11 – Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at the Heavenly Capital once more with 100,000 men and demands that Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang be executed. Shi subsequently becomes head of the government.
• November 17 – American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
• November 21 – Niagara University is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.
• November 27 – The Coup of 1856 leads to Luxembourg's unilateral adoption of a new, reactionary constitution, as King-Grand Duke William III signs the new constitution without the Chamber of Deputies' consent.
• December 9 – Bushehr surrenders to the British.

Undated

• Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
• British Country and Borough Police Act extends London police model to all of England and Wales.
• Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
• Pre-human remains are found in the Neanderthal valley in Germany.
• The National Portrait Gallery, London opens.
• St. Paul's School, Belgaum is founded in Belgaum, India.
• Legal protection of widow remarriage is extended in India.
• Mauveine, the first synthetic organic dye, was discovered by William Henry Perkin while attempting to synthesize quinine. This eventually led to the birth of the chemical industry.

Ongoing events

• Anglo-Persian War (1856–1857)
• Crimean War (1853–1856)
• (First) Danube Commission formed. (1856–1938)
• Second Opium War (1856–1860)
• Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864)

Births

1856 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1856 MDCCCLVI
Ab urbe condita	2609
Armenian calendar	1305 ԹՎ ՌՅԵ
Bahá'í calendar	12 – 13
Bengali calendar	1263
Berber calendar	2806
Buddhist calendar	2400
Burmese calendar	1218
Byzantine calendar	7364 – 7365
Chinese calendar	乙卯年十一月廿四日 (4492/4552-11-24) — to — 丙辰年十二月初五日 (4493/4553-12-5)
Coptic calendar	1572 – 1573
Ethiopian calendar	1848 – 1849
Hebrew calendar	5616 – 5617
Hindu calendars
- Bikram Samwat	1912 – 1913
- Shaka Samvat	1778 – 1779
- Kali Yuga	4957 – 4958
Holocene calendar	11856
Iranian calendar	1234 – 1235
Islamic calendar	1272 – 1273
Japanese calendar	Ansei 3 (安政3年)
Korean calendar	4189
Thai solar calendar	2399

January–June

• January 11 – Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer (d. 1941)
• January 12 – John Singer Sargent, American-born artist (d. 1925)
• February 2 – Frederick William Vanderbilt, American railway magnate (d. 1938)
• February 14 – Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (d. 1931)
• February 21/28 – Maurycy Gottlieb, Ukrainian painter (d. 1879)
• February 29 – Frederic, Fictional character in The Pirates of Penzance
• March 4
  • Alfred William Rich, English watercolour painter and author (d. 1921)
  • Julius Drewe, English businessman, retailer and entrepreneur (d. 1931)
• March 8
  • Bramwell Booth, Salvation Army general (d. 1929)
  • Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
• March 16 – Napoléon Eugène Louis John Joseph, Prince Imperial, son of French Emperor Napoleon III (d. 1879)
• March 20
  • Sir John Lavery, Irish artist (d. 1941)
  • Frederick Winslow Taylor, American inventor and efficiency expert (d. 1915)
• April 5 – Booker T. Washington, American educator (d. 1915)
• April 12 – William Martin Conway, British art critic and mountaineer (d. 1937)
• April 23 – Granville T. Woods, African-American inventor (d. 1910)
• April 24 – Henri Philippe Pétain, French soldier and statesman (d. 1951)
• April 26 – Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1930)
• April 27 – Tongzhi Emperor of China (d. 1875)
• May 6
  • Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist (d. 1939)
  • Robert Peary, American Arctic explorer (d. 1920)
• May 15 – L. Frank Baum, American author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker (The Wizard of Oz) (d. 1919)
• June 14 – Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (d. 1922)
• Anna Sterky – Swedish politician, feminist and trade unionist

July–December

• July 23 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian political activist (d. 1920)
• July 10 – Nikola Tesla, Serbian inventor (d. 1943)
• July 11 – Georgiana Drew, American stage actress, married Maurice Barrymore in 1876, (d. 1893)
• July 26 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
• August 10 – William Willett, promoter of Daylight Saving Time (d. 1915)
• August 13 – Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
• August 15 – Ivan Franko, Ukrainian poet, critic, journalist and political activist (d. 1916)
• September 1 – Sergei Winogradsky, Russian scientist (d. 1953)
• September 3 – Louis Sullivan, American architect (d. 1924)
• September 18 – Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (d. 1931)
• November 13 – Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1941)
• November 21 – William Emerson Ritter, American biologist (d. 1944)
• November 22 – Heber J. Grant, seventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1945)
• November 24 – Bat Masterson, American lawman (d. 1921)
• November 29 – Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1921)
• December 11 – Georgi Plekhanov, Russian revolutionary and Marxist theoretician (d. 1918)
• December 13 – Svetozar Boroević, Austrian field marshal (d. 1920)
• December 18 – J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
• December 22 – Frank B. Kellogg, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
• December 25 – Hans von Bartels, German painter (d. 1913)
• December 28 – Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924)

Deaths

• January 14 – Janko Drašković, Croatian politician and reformer (b. 1770)
• January 16 – Thaddeus William Harris, American naturalist (b. 1795)
• January 31 – Khedrup Gyatso, 11th Dalai Lama (b. 1838)
• February 4 – Anna Gottlieb, operatic soprano (b. 1774)
• February 17 – Heinrich Heine, German writer (b. 1797)
• May 3 – Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (b. 1803)
• June 23 – Ivan Kireevsky, Russian literary critic and philosopher (b. 1806)
• July 9 – Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
• July 11 – Norberto Ramírez, Central American politician
• July 29
  • Karel Havlíček Borovský, Czech politician and writer (b. 1821)
  • Robert Schumann, German composer and pianist
• August 29 – Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, British Christian writer (b. 1778)
• August 30 – Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English writer (b. 1811)
• October 19
  • William Sprague III, American politician from Rhode Island (b. 1799)
  • Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman
• December 20 – Francesco Bentivegna, Italian revolutionary (b. 1820)
• date unknown – Chiba Shusaku Narimasa, swordsman (b. 1794)

Citations