Events
January– March
January 1 – Ottawa , Ontario , is incorporated as a city.[ 1] [ 2] [ 3]
January 5 – Ramón Castilla begins his third term as President of Peru .
January 23
January 26 – The Point No Point Treaty is signed in the Washington Territory .
January 27 – The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
January 29 – Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , over the management of the Crimean War .
February 5 – Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
February 11 – Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II , Emperor of Ethiopia .
February 12 – Michigan State University (the "pioneer" land-grant college ) is established.
February 15 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the Western North Carolina Railroad , to build a rail line from Salisbury to the western part of the state.[ 4]
February 22 – Pennsylvania State University is founded, as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.
March 2 – Alexander II ascends the Russian throne, upon the death of his father Nicholas I .
March 3 – The United States Congress appropriates $30,000 to create the U.S. Camel Corps .[ 5]
March 16 – Bates College is founded by abolitionists in Lewiston, Maine .
March 17 – Taiping Rebellion : A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui .
March 30 – Elections are held for the first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourian 'Border Ruffians ' cross the border in large numbers to elect a pro-slavery body.
April– June
April 3 – The Nepalese invasion of Tibet (west of China ) to the north across the Himalaya Mountains (tallest and most rugged in the world) starts the Nepalese–Tibetan War (1855–1856).[ 6]
April 7 – Battle of Kaba : The Kingdom of Tonga in the islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean (Polynesia , Melanesia / Oceania ), intervenes in the war between the self-proclaimed Tui Viti (King) of the island of Fiji , Cakobau , and his rivals the Confederation of Rewa . It results in Rewa's defeat and the tenuous unification of Fiji under Cakobau.
April 16 – Emperor of the French Napoleon III , with Empress Eugénie, begins a 6-day state visit to Britain.[ 7]
April 18 – The Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 , requested by Napoleon III for the Exposition Universelle (opening May 15), first appears.[ 8]
May 1 – Van Diemen's Land is separated administratively from the Australian province of New South Wales and granted self-government.
May 3 – American adventurer William Walker and a group of armed mercenaries (filibusters ) sail from San Francisco in California south to Central America to attempt to conquer Nicaragua .
May 15
May 17 – Mount Sinai Hospital , New York, is dedicated (originally named as the Jews' Hospital) in New York City ; it opens to patients on June 5 .
May 22 – In Australia , the province of Victoria (named for then reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria ) to the southeast is separated administratively from the earlier larger province of New South Wales to the north.
June 15 – Stamp duty revenue tax is removed from British newspapers, creating free mass media thereafter in the United Kingdom .
June 29 – The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London .
July– September
July – Bank of Toronto incorporated in Canada (in 1955 it will merge with The Dominion Bank to become Toronto-Dominion Bank ).[ 10]
July 1 – The Quinault Treaty , in which the Quinault and Quileute tribes cede their land to the United States, is signed.
July 2 – The Kansas territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee , and begins passing proslavery laws.
July 4
Thomas Cook escorts his first party of excursionists from England to tour the European continent, travelling via Belgium and enabling the tourists to visit the Paris Exposition.[ 11]
Walt Whitman 's poetry collection Leaves of Grass is published in Brooklyn .
July 16 – The Australian colonies are granted self-governing status by the United Kingdom.
August 1 – Monte Rosa , the second-highest summit in the Alps, is first ascended.
August 18 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, with Prince Albert, begins a 10-day state visit to Paris,[ 12] the first visit of a reigning British monarch to France since 1413 . While there, she visits the Exposition Universelle.[ 11]
September 3 – The last Bartholomew Fair is held in London, England.
September 9 (August 28 O.S. ) – Crimean War : Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) – Sevastopol falls to French and British troops.
September 27 – Alfred Tennyson reads from his new book Maud and other poems , at a social gathering in the home of Robert and Elizabeth Browning in London; Dante Gabriel Rossetti makes a sketch of him doing so.[ 13]
September 29 – The Port of Iloilo in the Philippines is opened to international trade , by Queen Isabella II of Spain.[ 14] This year also the ports of Sual (modern-day Pangasinan ) and Zamboanga City are opened to international trade.
Births
January– June
Caroline Rémy de Guebhard (b. April 27)
Effie Ellsler (b. September 17)
Flora Haines Loughead
January 5 – King C. Gillette , American razor inventor (d. 1932 )
January 20 – Ernest Chausson , French composer (d. 1899 )
January 21
February 6 – Barbara Galpin , American journalist (d. 1922 )
February 12 – Marie-Anne de Bovet , French writer (d. after 1935 )
February 13 – Paul Deschanel , President of France (d. 1922 )
February 15 – Abraham Grünbaum (activist) , German Jewish activist. (d. 1921 )
February 17 – Otto Liman von Sanders , German general (d. 1929 )
February 24 – Johannes von Eben , German general (d. 1924 )
March 4 – Luther Emmett Holt , American pediatrician (d. 1924 )
March 12 – Eduard Birnbaum , Polish-born German cantor (d. 1920 )
March 13 – Percival Lowell , American astronomer (d. 1916 )
March 24 – Andrew Mellon , American banker, philanthropist (d. 1937 )
March 25 – Grace Carew Sheldon , American journalist and businesswoman (d. 1921 )
March 29 – James O. Barrows , American stage and screen actor (d.1925 )
April 9
April 21 – Hardy Richardson , American baseball player (d. 1931 )
April 23 – Marco Fidel Suárez , 9th President of Colombia (d. 1927 )
April 27 – Caroline Rémy de Guebhard , French feminist (d. 1929 )
April 28 – Mario Nicolis di Robilant , Italian general (d. 1943 )
May 1 – Marie Corelli , English novelist (d. 1924 )
May 7 – Frédéric-Georges Herr , French general (d. 1932)
May 8 – Bohuslav Brauner , Czech chemist (d. 1935 )
May 9 – Julius Röntgen , German-Dutch classical composer (d. 1932 )
May 10 – Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri , Bengali yogi, author of The Holy Science (d. 1936 )
May 21
May 23 – Isabella Ford , English socialist, feminist, trade unionist and writer (d. 1924 )
May 28 – Emilio Estrada Carmona , 18th President of Ecuador (d. 1911 )
June 1 – Edward Angle , American dentist (d. 1930 )
June 2 – Archibald Berkeley Milne , British admiral (d. 1938 )
June 14 – Robert M. La Follette , American politician (d. 1925 )
June 18 – Alice Sudduth Byerly , American temperance activist (d. 1904 )
June 28 – Theodor Reuss , German occultist (d. 1923 )
July– December
July 26 – Ferdinand Tönnies , German sociologist (d. 1936 )
August 25 – Hugo von Pohl , German admiral (d. 1916 )
August 28 – Alexander Bethell , British admiral (d. 1932 )
August 31 – Vsevolod Rudnev , Russian admiral (d. 1913 )
September 5 – Henry Victor Deligny , French general (d. 1938 )
September 8 – Marieta de Veintemilla , Ecuadorian first lady, women's rights activist (d. 1907 )
September 9 – Houston Stewart Chamberlain , British-born German writer (d. 1927 )
September 15 – Orishatukeh Faduma , Guyana-born African-American Christian missionary, educator and advocate for African culture (d. 1946 )
September 17 – Effie Ellsler , American actress (d. 1942 )
September 25 – James P. Parker , United States Navy commodore (d. 1942 )
October 10 – Eduard von Capelle , German admiral (d. 1931 )
October 12 – Arthur Nikisch , Hungarian conductor (d. 1922 )
November 1 – Templin Potts , American naval officer; 11th Naval Governor of Guam (d. 1927 )
November 5
November 6 – E. S. Gosney , American philanthropist, eugenicist (d. 1942 )
November 8 – Nikolaos Triantafyllakos , Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1939 )
December 16 – Alice Mary Dowd , American educator, poet (d. 1943 )
December 29 – William Thompson Sedgwick , American teacher, epidemiologist and bacteriologist (d. 1921 )
Deaths
January– June
Carl Friedrich Gauss (d. February 23)
Tsar Nicholas I of Russia (d. March 2)
Søren Kierkegaard (d. November 11)
January 6 – Giacomo Beltrami , Italian explorer (b. 1779 )
January 8 – Diponegoro , Leader of Javanese Rebellion (b. 1785 )
January 10 – Mary Russell Mitford , English novelist, dramatist (b. 1787 )
January 15 – Henri Braconnot , French chemist, pharmacist (b. 1780 )
January 17 – Shūsaku Narimasa Chiba , Japanese swordsman (b. 1792 )
January 26 – Gérard de Nerval , French writer (b. 1808 )
February 6 – Josef Munzinger , Member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1791 )
February 23 – Carl Friedrich Gauss , German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777 )
March 2 – Emperor Nicholas I of Russia (b. 1796 )
March 6 – Bandō Shūka I , Japanese Kabuki actor (b. 1813 )
March 8 – William Poole , infamous member of New York City's Bowery Boys Gang (b. 1821 )
March 29 – Henri Druey , member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1799 )
March 31 – Charlotte Brontë , English author (b. 1816 )[ 25]
May 5 – Sir Robert Inglis , English politician (b. 1786 )
May 23 – Charles Robert Malden , English explorer (b. 1797 )
May 30 – Mary Reibey , Australian businesswoman (b. 1777 )
June 7 – Friederike Lienig , Latvian entomologist (b. 1790 )
June 28 – FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan , commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788 )
July– December
July 12 (June 30 O.S. ) – Pavel Nakhimov , Russian admiral (b. 1802 )
August 7 – Mariano Arista , President of Mexico (b. 1802 )
August 12 – Helen Hunt Jackson , American activist (b. 1830 )
August 30 – Feargus O'Connor , British political radical, Chartist leader (b. 1794 )
September 7 – William Barton Wade Dent , U.S. Congressman (b. 1806 )
November 11 – Søren Kierkegaard , Danish philosopher (b. 1813 )
September 20 – José Trinidad Reyes , Honduran Father, national hero, and founder of Autonomous National University of Honduras (b. 1797 )
November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz , Lithuanian-Polish poet, writer (b. 1798 )
December 6 – William Swainson , English naturalist, artist (b. 1789 )
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Funtecha, Henry. "Iloilo's position under colonial rule" . thenewstoday.info .
van Dulken, Stephen (2001). Inventing the 19th Century: the great age of Victorian inventions . London: British Library . pp. 30– 1. ISBN 0-7123-0881-4 .
Wilson, Herbert Wrigley (1896). Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895 . London: S. Low, Marston and Company.
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For birth and death date, see "Eliza Luella (Ella) Stewart Udall" . The First Fifty Years of Relief Society . Church Historian's Press. Archived from the original on November 13, 2022. Retrieved November 15, 2022 . For telegraphy, see McKoy, Kathleen L. (2000). Cultures at a Crossroads: An Administrative History of Pipe Spring National Monument . U. S. Department of the Interior , National Park Service , Intermountain Region. p. 35 – via Google Books.
"Charlotte Brontë | British author" . Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved April 17, 2019 .