1859

Year 1859 (MDCCCLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1859

January - March

January 24 - Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza under the name Romania (see December 1, 1918 for the final unification, Transylvania and other regions are still missing at that time).
January 28 - The city of Olympia is incorporated in the state of Washington in the United States of America.
February 14 - Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
February 27 - U.S. Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton Key for having an affair with his wife.
March 9 - The army of Piedmont-Sardinia mobilizes against Austria, beginning the crisis which will lead to the Austro-Sardinian War.
March 26 - A French amateur astronomer claims to have noticed a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury - later named Vulcan.

April - June

April 20 - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is published.
April 25 - Ground is broken for the Suez Canal.
April 26 - Austro-Sardinian War: Giuseppe Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps confront Austrian forces led by Field Marshal-Lieutenant Carl Baron Urban at Varese.
April 28 - The Pomona is wrecked off the English coast, with 424 dead.
April 29 - Austrian troops begin to cross the Ticino River to Piedmont.
May 4 - The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge, linking the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England.
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.[1]
May 21 - The bell Big Ben is first activated in London.
May 22 - Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies is succeeded by his 23-year-old son Francis II of the Two Sicilies.
May 30 - Battle of Palestro: The Sardinians defeat the Austrian army.
June 4 - Austro-Sardinian War - Battle of Magenta: The French and Sardinians defeat the Austrians.
June 6 - The British Crown colony of Queensland in Australia is created by devolving part of the territory of New South Wales (Queensland Day).
June 15 - The so-called Pig War border dispute between the Americans and the British on the San Juan Islands begins by the death of the namesake pig.
June 18 - Aletschhorn, second summit of the Bernese Alps, is first ascended.
June 24 - Battle of Solferino: The Kingdom of Sardinia and the armies of Napoleon III of France defeat Franz Josef I of Austria in northern Italy; the battle inspires Henri Dunant to found the Red Cross.
June 30 - Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope for the first time.

July - September

July - Count Camillo Benso di Cavour resigns.
- Pike's Peak Gold Rush begins in the Colorado Territory.
July 1 - The first intercollegiate baseball game is played, between Amherst and Williams Colleges.
July 8
- Charles XV succeeds his father Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (as Charles IV).
- An armistice is declared between Austria and others.
July 11 - 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.
July 30 - Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps, is first ascended.
August 27 - Edwin Drake drills the first oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania.
August 28 - September 2 - A great geomagnetic solar superstorm causes the Northern lights aurora to be visible as far south as Cuba and knocks out telegraph communication (also called the Carrington event).
September 7 - The clock Big Ben becomes operational in London.

October - December

October 16 - John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.
October 18 - Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower Brown at the Federal arsenal.
October 26 - The steamship Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, Wales with 454 dead.
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).
November 10 - The Treaty of Zürich, reaffirming the terms of Villafranca, brings the Austro-Sardinian War to an official close.
November 24 - The French Navy's La Gloire ("Glory"), the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.
November 24 - British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, a book which argues that species gradually evolve through natural selection (it immediately sells out its initial print run).
December 2 - Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
December 4 - The Mekteb-i Mülkiye School is founded in the Ottoman Empire.
December 10 - The Ateneo de Manila University is founded.

Undated

District Nursing begins in Liverpool, England, when philanthropist William Rathbone employs Mary Robinson to nurse the sick poor in their own homes in the city.
The island of Timor is divided between Portugal and the Netherlands.
The Rincon de Los Esteros Land Grant is confirmed to Rafael Alvisa, (part of the present Santa Clara County, California).
The Codex Sinaiticus is found by Constantin von Tischendorf on his third visit to Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai.
Bernhard Riemann formulates the Riemann hypothesis, one of the most important open problems of contemporary mathematics.
Solar flares are first observed on the Sun by English astronomer Richard Carrington. First recorded major solar radiation storm, 1859 according to Dr. Phillip C. Plait (Phil Plait) in his latest book: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/213308765
Brisbane is declared the capital of newly-separated colony Queensland, Australia.
The University of Michigan Law School is founded.
1859-1860 - A French naval force seizes Saigon and 3 surrounding provinces in southern Vietnam, making it a French colony.

Ongoing events

Second Opium War (1856-1860)
Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)
Spanish-Moroccan War (1859) (until 1860)

Births

1859 in other calendars Gregorian calendar 1859
MDCCCLIX
Ab urbe condita 2612
Armenian calendar 1308
ԹՎ ՌՅԸ
Bahá'í calendar 15 – 16
Berber calendar 2809
Buddhist calendar 2403
Burmese calendar 1221
Byzantine calendar 7367 – 7368
Chinese calendar 戊午年十一月廿八日
(4495/4555-11-28)

— to —

己未年十二月初八日
(4496/4556-12-8)
Coptic calendar 1575 – 1576
Ethiopian calendar 1851 – 1852
Hebrew calendar 5619 – 5620
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat 1914 – 1915
- Shaka Samvat 1781 – 1782
- Kali Yuga 4960 – 4961
Holocene calendar 11859
Iranian calendar 1237 – 1238
Islamic calendar 1275 – 1276
Japanese calendar Ansei 6
(安政6年)
Korean calendar 4192
Thai solar calendar 2402