Timeline 1855-1859
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1855 Jan 5, King Camp Gillette, inventor (safety razor), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1855 Jan 9, The clipper ship Guiding Star disappeared in Atlantic and 480 died.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1855 Jan 21, John M. Browning, US weapons manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1855 Feb 6, Britain’s home secretary Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (70), became prime minister and served until his death in 1865.
(http://tinyurl.com/zz6g5eq)(Econ, 7/9/16, p.46)
1855 Feb 10, US citizenship laws were amended to include all children of US parents born abroad.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1855 Feb 11, Josephine Marshall Jewell Dodge, American educator, pioneer in the concept of day nurseries for children, was born.
(HN, 2/11/01)
1855 Feb 19, Nicholas I Pavlovich (58), tsar of Russia (1825-55), died. Alexander II became tsar of Russia.
(www2.sptimes.com/Treasures/TC.2.3.17.html)
1855 Feb 22, In Washington DC the Know-Nothing Party seized control of the Washington Monument Association and kept control for 3 years.
(ON, 3/00, p.10)
1855 Feb 24, US Court of Claims was formed for cases against the government.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1855 Feb, There was a run on the California bank in Columbia and rumors of a failure caused a run throughout the state.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T9)
1855 Mar 3, Congress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use. Sec. of War Jefferson Davis sent agents to northern Africa to purchase a small herd of camels and sent them to New Mexico to transport goods to California
(SC, 3/3/02)(SFC, 2/20/04, p.A22)
1855 Mar 3, Registration of letters was authorized by Congress.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1855 Mar 3, Architect Robert Mills (b.1781) designer of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., died. The structure, begun in 1848, was not completed until 1884.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.W18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mills_(architect))
1855 Mar 8, The first train crossed Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1855 Mar 13, Percival Lowell (d.1916), astronomer, was born. He predicted the discovery of the planet Pluto. He also wrote "The Soul of the Far East" and "Occult Japan." He predicted the existence of a planet beyond Neptune before Pluto was discovered by Tombaugh in 1930.
(NH, 12/96, p.22)(HN, 3/13/99)
1855 Mar 15, Louisiana established the 1st health board to regulate quarantine.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1855 Mar 24, Andrew Mellon, U.S. financier and philanthropist, was born. He developed interests in coal, railroads, steel and water power. He also donated his entire collection of paintings to the National Gallery of Art.
(HN, 3/24/00)
1855 Mar 24, Manhattan, Kansas, was founded as New Boston, Kansas.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1855 Mar 27, Abraham Gesner patented kerosene.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1855 Mar 30, First election in Territorial Kansas. Some 5,000 "Border Ruffians" invaded the territory from western Missouri and forced the election of a pro-slavery legislature.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1855 Mar 31, Charlotte Bronte (b.1816), English author (Jane Eyre), died. In 1994 Lyndall Gordon authored “Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life." In 2015 Clare Harmon authored “Charlotte Bronte: A Life."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB)(Econ, 10/31/15, p.78)
1855 Apr 18, Jean-Baptiste Isabey, painter, died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1855 Apr 21, The 1st train crossed the Mississippi River's 1st bridge.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1855 Apr 26, Composer Gioacchino Rossini left Italy.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1855 Apr 29, Anatol K. Liadov, Russian composer (Bewitched Lake) [OS], was born.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1855 May 3, Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1855 May 4, Camille Pleyel (66), Austrian piano builder, composer, died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1855 May 5, NYC regained Castle Clinton. It would be used for immigration.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1855 May 10, Anatoli Liadov, composer (Enchanted Lake), was born in St Petersburg, Russia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1855 Jun 1, William Walker (1824-1860), US adventurer, stormed into Granada, Nicaragua. On July 12, 1857, he declared himself president. Walker reestablished slavery and planned an 18-mile canal from Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific. (SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/walker.html)
1855 Jun 5, The anti-foreign, anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party held its 1st convention.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1855 Jun 13, Verdi's opera "Les Vepres Sicilenne" was produced (Paris).
(MC, 6/13/02)
1855 Jun 14, Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, reform movement leader, Governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Senator, Progressive Party presidential candidate, was born.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1855 Jun 15, Stamp duty on British newspapers was abolished.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1855 Jun 17, Heavy French-British shelling of Sebastopol killed over 2000.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1855 Jul 4, One of America's greatest poets -- Walt Whitman -- published the first edition of his famous "Leaves of Grass", a collection of 12 poems. Whitman published the edition himself and had about 1,000 copies printed. He later recalled about the publication, "I don't think one copy was sold, not a copy." The book was published in Philadelphia after the Boston district attorney cited 22 passages as violating a state law against obscenity. The book revealed the poet’s homosexuality in coded verse.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, BR p.7)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.9)
1855 Jul 4, The Whaling ship Candace, built in Boston in 1818, entered SF Bay and never left. In 2005 it was found at a SF construction site at Folsom and Spear streets.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.A1)
1855 Jul 18, In Philadelphia William Still, a leader in the Underground Railroad, liberated Jane Johnson and her 2 sons from Col. John H. Wheeler, the recently appointed US Minister to Nicaragua. Still was tried and acquitted. "The Underground Railroad" by William Still was published in 1871.
(ON, 10/01, p.5)
1855 Jul 30, Wilhelm von Siemens, German industrialist, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1855 Aug 4, John Bartlett, a Cambridge bookseller, published the 1st edition of "Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations."
(WSJ, 10/18/02, p.W17)(MC, 8/4/02)
1855 Sep 3, General William Harney defeated Little Thunder’s Brule Sioux at the Battle of Blue Water in Nebraska.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1855 Sep 6, Ferdinand B. Hummel, composer, was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1855 Sep 9, Sevastopol, under siege for nearly a year, fell to the Allies. France, England, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia (as Italy was then known) defeated the Russians at Sevastopol in the decisive battle of the Crimean War.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War)(SFC, 7/27/13, p.C2)
1855 Sep 27, George F. Bristow's "Rip Van Winkle," 2nd American opera, opened in NYC.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1855 Oct 9, Isaac Singer patented sewing machine motor.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 9, Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass., patented the 1st calliope.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 12, Arthur Nikisch, later conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, was born in Szent-Miklos, Hungary.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1855 Oct 13, Gottfried Rieger, composer, died at 91.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1855 Oct 18, Franz Liszt's "Prometheus," premiered.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1855 Oct 26, Charles Post, creator of breakfast cereals (Post Cereals), was born. [see Oct 25, 1854]
(MC, 10/26/01)
1855 Nov 5, Eugene V. Debs, American socialist leader and first president of the American Railway Union, was born.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1855 Nov 11, The 6.9 Ansei Edo earthquake hit near Edo (Tokyo), Japan. Some 8,000 casualties resulted with about 14,000 structures destroyed.
(www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/g/j/gjs4/2008_Shaken%20and%20Rectified.pdf)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.39)
1855 Nov 11, Soren A. Kierkegaard (b.1813), Danish philosopher and theologian, died. In 2005 Joakim Garff authored “Søren A. Kierkegaard: A Biography."
(www.connect.net/ron/kierkegaard.html)(WSJ, 2/3/05, p.D8)
1855 Nov 15, In San Francisco Charles Cora, a professional gambler, attended the opening of the American Theater with Belle Ryan, the city’s most beautiful and famous prostitute. US marshal William Richardson complained of Ryan’s presence, but management refused to eject her. Richardson later accosted the gambler on Montgomery Street and Cora shot him dead. A trial resulted in a hung jury but Cora remained in jail.
(SFC, 7/26/14, p.C5)(SFC, 8/24/19, p.C2)
1855 Nov 21, Franklin Colman, a pro-slavery Missourian, gunned down Charles Dow, a Free Stater from Ohio, near Lawrence, Kansas.
(HN, 11/22/02)
1855 Nov 26, Several thousand people staged a parade and banquet at South Park, SF, to celebrate the Allied victory over the Russians in the Crimean War, the capture of the Malakoff fortress in Sevastopol.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1855 Nov 26, Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (b.1798) died in Constantinople. He was a poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. Mickiewicz is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania (Adomas Mickevičius) and Belarus.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Mickiewicz)
1855 Nov, In San Francisco Charles Cora, a professional gambler, attended the opening of the American Theater with Belle Ryan, the city’s most beautiful and famous prostitute. US marshal William Richardson complained of Ryan’s presence, but management refused to eject her. Richardson later accosted the gambler on Montgomery Street and Cora shot him dead. A trial resulted in a hung jury but Cora remained in jail.
(SFC, 7/26/14, p.C5)
1855 Dec 12, Jean de Charpentier (b.1786), a German-Swiss geologist, died in Bex, Switzerland.
(ON, 10/08, p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Charpentier)
1855 Dec 14, Ice hockey was played by 2 military teams in Canada. [see 1875]
(http://library.thinkquest.org/10480/hockey.html)(CFA, ‘96, p.60)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1855 Dec 27, Paul Ehrenreich, German ethnologist and mythologist, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
c1855 Alexandre Marie Colin painted a portrait of Napoleon III.
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.D8)
1855 Eugene Delacroix painted "The Riding Lesson."
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1855 Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), French impressionist, moved to France from his native St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.
(WSJ, 1/14/97, p.A16)(Hem., 1/97, p.124)(WUD, 1994, p.1097)
1855 James McNeill Whistler, American painter and etcher, moved to France and England.
(WUD, 1994, p.1628)
1855 P.T. Barnum wrote "The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself."
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1855 Hinton Rowan Helper of North Carolina published “The Land of Gold: Reality vs. Fiction," in which he critically commented on California and San Francisco based on his three plus years in the state. “Suffice it to say that we know of no country in which there is so much corruption, villainy, outlawry, intemperance, licentiousness, and every variety of crime, folly and meanness." The book was republished in 1948 under the title “Dreadful California."
(SFC, 6/20/15, p.C1)
1855 Alexander Herzen, the father of Russian socialism, published "My Past and Thoughts." In 1998 Aileen M. Kelly published "Toward Another Shore," a collection of writings on the Russian Revolutionary tradition.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A10)
1855 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow composed his poem "Hiawatha."
(NH, 5/97, p.34)
1855 A novella by Herman Melville, "Benito Cereno" looked at the 1839 rebellion of the Amistad slave ship through the eyes of an American interloper.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A16)
1855 Frank Soule, John H. Gihon and James Nisbet authored their 800 plus-page “The Annals of San Francisco."
(https://archive.org/details/annalsofsanfranc00soul)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4,5)
1855 The Point Bonita Lighthouse was built for ships approaching the Golden Gate of San Francisco.
(G, Summer ‘97, p.5)
1855 The Hoyt House, overlooking the Hudson River in Dutchess County, N.Y., was designed by Calvert Vaux. It was acquired by the state in 1962 for $300,000. It became an orphan property of the state and in 1998 was offered to private benefactors on a 40-year lease.
(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.9)
1855 The Lawler House in Suisun City, Ca. was built at 718 Main St.
(Hem., Nov.’95, p.91)
1855 The Point Pinos Lighthouse on the Monterey Peninsula began operation.
(Hem., 1/96, p.26)
1855 Dwight L. Moody, Biblicist and later founder of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, embraced Jesus as his personal savior in a Boston shoe store.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A1)
c1855 Black cast iron furniture moved indoors.
(SFC, 7/17/96, z-1, p.7)
1855 Massachusetts issued the first state school vaccine mandate in the US for smallpox.
(SSFC, 9/26/21, p.A16)
1855 Marshall Field (21) moved to Chicago from Pittsfield, Mass. Potter Palmer, owner of a retail and wholesale operation, later sold his business to Marshall Field and bookkeeper Levi Z. Leiter. In 1947 John Tebbel authored "The Marshall Fields: A Study in Wealth." In 2002 Axel Madsen authored "The Marshall Fields: The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty."
(WSJ, 10/9/02, p.D8)
1855 The first white man, surveyor Henry Washington, arrived in the area of Twenty-Nine Palms of Southern California.
(Sp., 5/96, p.123)
1855 John Brown moved to Kansas to join the escalating fight between pro and anti slavery factions.
(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1855 In Oregon some 400 pioneers arrived via the Oregon Trail and established the first Christian communal society west of the Mississippi at Aurora.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T6)
1855 In the summer the first tourists visited Yosemite Valley.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.1)
1855 Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States, declined to accept an honorary degree from the University of Oxford, proclaiming, "I had not the advantage of a classical education, and no man should, in my judgment, accept a degree he cannot read."
(HNQ, 2/17/99)
1855 The US government signed a treaty with some American Indians that gave them permanent rights to their existing lands. The Makah tribe of Washington secured a right to hunt whales in exchange for ceding title to their land. In 1972 the Marine Mammals Protection Act prohibited the slaughter of whales without a permit.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, Par. p.5)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A9)(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.E4)
1855 Nez Perce elders agreed to sell most of their land to the US government. They retained some 10 thousand square miles as a reservation in the area where Washington, Oregon and Idaho meet. Gold was soon discovered in the area and in 1863 the US government called for a new deal.
(ON, 3/04, p.1)
1855 In northern California tensions between the Wintu Indians and miners brewed into the Battle of Castel Crags. This became one of several triggers for the Modoc War (1872-1873).
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G8)
1855 The US built the Panama Railroad.
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G4)
1855 George Calvert Yount (1794-1865) founded a town he named Sebastopol in Napa Valley, Ca. Another town already had that name and in 1867 it was renamed Yountville.
(http://www.westsong.com/yountville/)(SSFC, 12/5/04, Par p.8)
1855 Raphael Weill, a French Jew, came to San Francisco and in three years became a partner in the J.W. Davidson Dry Goods Store, one of the biggest dry goods dealers in California. By 1885, the store was all his. The store was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. In 1909 a Beaux Arts-style building on the corner of Sutter and Grant became the home to Raphael Weill & Company and commonly known as the White House. The White House department store closed in 1965. Raphael Weill was a founding member of the Bohemian Club.
(www.timeshutter.com/image/san-francisco-cal-white-house)
1855 A depression slowed progress in San Francisco when the money supply dwindled after banks had overextended in loans to unprofitable ventures.
(SFC, 5/19/96, City Guide, p.16)
1855 In SF the State Marine Hospital building became the City and County Hospital of San Francisco with Dr. Hugh Toland of South Carolina serving as surgeon.
(SSFC, 5/22/16, p.N10)
1855 George Hunzinger (d.1898) moved to New York from Germany and established himself as a cabinet maker. He patents included a material made by weaving flat wire covered with woven textile used for furniture seating. His family continued the business to 1925.
(SFC, 2/4/98, Z1 p.6)
1855 In Connecticut Thomas Day purchased the Hartford Courant newspaper. He wrote in one editorial: "We believe the Caucasian variety of the human species superior to the Negro variety; and we would breed the best stock." In 2000 the Courant apologized for running ads for the sale of slaves up to 1823.
(SFC, 7/6/00, p.C2)
1855 Anderson Preserve Co. incorporated. It sold Boston Market Catsup throughout the US.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.E4)
1855 Chicago Gas was incorporated.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1855 Organic chemist Benjamin Stillman laid the foundations for the Pennsylvania oil rush by his discovery that petroleum could be distilled into lubricants and kerosene for cooking and illumination. Suddenly there was a use for the crude oil that seeped to the surface, annoying farmers by ruining the land and polluting the water supply.
(HNPD, 10/4/98)
1855 Conical innersprings came into use in furniture seats.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1855 Dr. Philip Cammann of NYC improved the design of the Laennec stethoscope by adding rubber ear pieces and rubber tubing to conduct the sound. [see 1826]
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1855 Yellow Fever broke out in Norfolk, Va., after a steamship carrying mosquitoes in its cisterns docked from the West Indies.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, Par p.4)
1855 Sotos Ochado proposed an artificial language in which words for related subjects began with the same letter, e.g. words beginning with a would refer to inorganic objects, b the liberal arts etc.
(Wired, 8/96, p.86)
1855 Palaeoscincus, one of the armored dinosaurs, was discovered by Dr. Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden in the United States.
(T.E.-J.B. p.24)
1855 Afghan leader Dost Mohammad Khan signed a peace treaty with India.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
1855 Barbados built its Glendairy Prison.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Glendairy_Prison)
1855 A third pandemic of bubonic plague broke out in China. It killed 12 million people and eventually spread to every continent of the world.
(NG, 5/88, p.682)(SFC, 9/20/14, p.C1)
1855 The English Commons voted for an inquiry into the conduct of the Crimean campaign.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.67)
1855 In England Edward Agar led the Great Bullion Robbery of a mail train with a railroad guard as an accomplice. In 1998 Donald Thomas published "The Victorian Underworld," on the emergence of the urban criminal class in Britain.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, BR p.8)
1856 Thomas Burberry founded a clothing firm to sell raincoats.
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.76)
1855 London’s Smithfield livestock market closed and moved to Islington.
(Econ, 1/26/13, p.16)
1855 British traveler Richard Burton said Berbera is the true key of the Red Sea. The port, later part of Somaliland, marked the southern tip of the Ottoman Empire.
(Econ, 4/8/17, p.42)
1855 Napoleon III ordered up a list of the best wines of Bordeaux and ranked the best according to quality and price. Those at the top became known as the first growths and included Châteaux Haut-Brion, Lafite Rothschild, Latour, and Margaux. Mouton Rothschild was elevated in 1973.
(WSJ, 4/23/04, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/04, p.W6)
1855 Paris held the Exposition Universelle. A series of photographs of Charles Deburau as the mime Pierrot won a gold medal.
(Smith., 5/95, p.79-80)
1855 The World Alliance of the YMCA was established at the first International Conference held in Paris. Jean Henri Dunant (1828-1910), Swiss Calvinist, founded the Geneva branch of the YMCA in 1852. In 1855 he took part in the Paris meeting devoted to the founding of its international organization.
(http://www.ymca.int/index.php?id=15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dunant)
1855 Phylloxera, a pale yellow sap-sucking insect and a pest of commercial grapevines, was first described in France. It was originally native to eastern North America.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera)
1855 Some 240 cases of archeological material was lost when transport rafts were attacked and sunk by Arab brigands at Kurnah, where the Tigris and Euphrates join to form the Shatt-al-Arab.
(RFH-MDHP, p.218)
1855 David Livingstone, English physician and explorer, first saw the 328-foot waterfall on the Zambezi River. Livingstone named the falls, which straddled the Zambia and Zimbabwe border, Victoria Falls. The local name is Musi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders).
(SSFC, 5/29/05, p.F2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls)
1855-1875 The "raising of Chicago" took place. The town, built on mud, had begun to sink and forced new foundations and new drainage lines. The work was hailed as one of the wonders of the 19th century.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, Z1 p.2)
1855-1880 Edward "Ned" Kelly was an outlaw folk hero who was hung for his crimes. Inspired by tales of the American ironclad, the Monitor, Kelly wore an 80-pound suit of armor during his final crimes. In 2000 Peter Carey authored the novel "True History of the Kelly Gang."
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.E4)(WSJ, 1/05/00, p.W8)(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.1)
1855-1905 Fiona MacLeod (William Sharp), Scottish author and poet: "My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."
(AP, 9/15/98)
1855-1916 Josiah Royce, American philosopher: "Love is never merely an amiable tolerance of whatever form human frailty and folly may take."
(AP, 11/3/99)
1855-1920 Olive Schreiner, South African author and feminist: "My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those that are sad."
(AP, 7/24/98)
1855-1926 Eugene V. Debs, American socialist leader: "No man ever made a great speech on a mean subject."
(AP, 3/1/99)
1855-1930 George Edward Woodberry, American poet, critic and educator: "To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problem of contentment."
(AP, 8/15/97)
1856 Jan 5, Pierre J. David (67), [David d'Angers], French sculptor, died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1856 Jan 8, Dr. John A. Veatch discovered borax in Tuscan Springs, Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1856 Jan 12, John Singer Sargent (d.1925), American Gilded Age portrait painter (Wyndham Sisters), was born.
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.E1)(MC, 1/12/02)
1856 Jan 18, Daniel Nathan Hale Williams, surgeon (1st open heart operation), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1856 Feb 5, John Muir wrote about sawmills encroaching on Redwood forests and the problem of "sheep-men’s" fires in this day’s issue of the Sacramento Daily Union.
(SFEM, 5/18/97, p.28)
1856 Feb 14, Frank Harris, journalist, writer (My Life & Loves), was born in England.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine (b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz Journey."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)
1856 Feb 18, The American (Know-Nothing) Party abolished secrecy.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1856 Feb 19, Tin-type camera was patented by Hamilton Smith in Gambier, Ohio.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1856 Feb 25, Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), U.S. art collector, was born.
(HN, 2/25/98)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W10)
1856 Feb 29, Hostilities in Russo-Turkish war ceased.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1856 Mar 5, Covent Garden Opera House was destroyed in a fire.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1856 Mar 25, A.E. Burnside patented the Burnside carbine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed Peace of Paris ending the Crimean War.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1856 Apr 3, Gunpowder in church exploded killing 4,000 in Rhodes.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1856 Apr 5, Booker T. Washington, Black American educator, was born in Franklin County, Va. The former slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute. Booker Taliaferro Washington later became the 1st black on US stamp.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1856 Apr 11, Battle of Rivas; Costa Rica beat William Walker's invading Nicaraguans.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1856 Apr 18, Eureka, Ca., was founded in Humboldt County.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.F10)
1856 Apr 23, Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, Kansas shot pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones in the back.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1856 Apr 24, Henri Philippe Pétain, French Marshall, was born. He was known as the 'hero of Verdun' but collaborated with the Nazis after the fall of France in 1940 and convicted of treason in 1945. Petain was executed in 1951.
(HN, 4/24/99)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.84)
1856 Apr 26, Some 20 settlers of Honey Lake Valley, California, met at the cabin of Isaac Roop and formed "the independent Territory of Nataqua." They named the cabin Fort Defiance, chose Peter Lassen as their surveyor and selected Susanville, named after Roop's daughter, as the territorial capital.
(SFC, 2/27/04, p.D4)
1856 Apr 28, Yokut Indians repelled an attack on their land by 100 would-be Indian fighters in California.
(HN, 4/28/00)
1856 Apr 29, A peace treaty between England and Russia was signed.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1856 May 22, Charles Cora, a gambler, and James Casey, a member of the SF Board of supervisors, were hanged by the SF Committee of Vigilance led by merchant Charles Doane, following a drumhead trial at “Fort Gunnybags, "the vigilante headquarters on Sacramento St. There was widespread belief that Cora and Casey were “in cahoots" with then sheriff David Scannel. Cora was in jail for recently killing US Marshal William H. Richardson, who had drunkenly insulted Cora's mistress, Belle Ryan. Cora and Ryan were married in Cora's jail cell hours before being hanged.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)(SFC, 6/12/10, p.C1)(SFC, 6/14/14, p.C1)(SFC, 8/24/19, p.C2)
1856 May 3, Adolphe Charles Adam (52), French composer, critic (Giselle), died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1856 May 6, Robert Peary, arctic explorer, was born. He reached the North Pole in 1909. [see 1909 &1856-1920, Peary]
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(AHD, p.964)(HN, 5/6/98)
1856 May 6, Sigmund Freud (d.1939), father of psychology and the Viennese physician who discovered the unconscious, was born. He treated his hysterical patients by encouraging them to associate freely. He insisted that sexual desires and fears lay just beneath the surface of everyone’s mind. A biography of Freud was later written by Peter Gay.
(V.D.-H.K.p.281-282)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.9)(HN, 5/6/98)
1856 May 6, U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack.
(HN, 5/6/00)
1856 May 13, Peter Henry Emerson, 1st to promote photography as an independent art, was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1856 May 14, James P. Casey, editor of the SF Times, shot James King, proprietor of the rival Evening Bulletin. King died 6 days later. A “Vigilance Committee" of 2,600 later marched up Sacramento St. and broke into the jail where Casey was held. On May 22 Casey was lynched with his unfortunate cell mate, gambler Charles Cora.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)(SFC, 6/12/10, p.C3)
1856 May 15, Lyman Frank Baum (d.1919) was born in Chittenango, NY. He had been a failed storekeeper, a reporter and, when his first children's book was published in 1897, a traveling china salesman. Two years later, Baum teamed with poster artist William Wallace Denslow to produce “Father Goose, His Book," the best-selling children's book of the year. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" in 1900 was the second collaboration for Baum and Denslow. This color woodcut, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" is one of 24 full-page color plates that illustrated the first edition of the beloved children's classic [see 1891].
(HNPD, 5/14/99)(AP, 5/15/07)
1856 May 19, Senator Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery.
(HN, 5/19/98)
1856 May 20, Henri E. Cross (d.1910), French painter, was born. His real surname was Delacroix but was changed in 1881.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1856 May 20, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), an outspoken antagonist against slavery, gave the "Crime Against Kansas" speech. [see May 22] Sumner helped form the Republican Party.
(HNQ, 7/7/99)
1856 May 20, James King, editor of the Evening Bulletin, died from wounds suffered on May 14. His death brought about the rising of The Second Committee of Vigilance and the take over of the SF government.
(http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/Text/11b.html)(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)(SFC, 7/26/14, p.C5)
1856 May 21, Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1856 May 21, Lawrence, Kansas, was captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1856 May 22, Charles Cora, a gambler, and James Casey, a member of the SF Board of supervisors, were hanged by the SF Committee of Vigilance led by merchant Charles Doane, following a drumhead trial at “Fort Gunnybags, "the vigilante headquarters on Sacramento St. There was widespread belief that Cora and Casey were “in cahoots" with then sheriff David Scannel. Cora was in jail for recently killing US Marshal William H. Richardson, who had drunkenly insulted Cora's mistress, Belle Ryan.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)(SFC, 6/12/10, p.C1)(SFC, 6/14/14, p.C1)
1856 May 22, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was assaulted on the Senate floor by South Carolina’s Preston Brooks. Representative Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, a Republican abolitionist from Mass. Sumner was beaten unconscious and was unable to resume duties for 3 years. Brooks resigned from his seat but was re-elected. Sumner's injuries in the attack compelled his absence from the Senate until December, 1859.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A6)(HNQ, 7/7/99)
1856 May 24, The Potawatomi Massacre took place in Kansas. John Brown, American abolitionist and horse thief, presided over the hacking to death with machetes of five unarmed pro-slavery Border Ruffians in Potawatomi, Kansas.
(WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(WSJ, 3/16/98, p.A20)(MC, 5/24/02)
1856 May 26, George Templeton Strong, composer, essayist, was born.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1856 Jun 5, U.S. Army troops in the Four creeks region of California, headed back to quarters, officially ending the Tule River War. Fighting, however, continued for a few more years.
(HN, 6/5/00)
1856 Jun 8, The British resettled 194 people from Pitcairn Island onto Norfolk Island.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.66)
1856 Jun 16, James Strang, king of Big Beaver Island, Mich., was ambushed by Thomas Bedford and Alexander Wentworth. They shot him three times and then pistol-whipped him and fled to Mackinac on the USS Michigan. Bedford and Wentworth were brought before a justice of the peace and after a brief hearing were fined $1.25 for court costs and released as public heroes. Soon after, 75 vigilantes sailed to Beaver Island and cleared out the Strangite adherents.
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.88)
1856 Jun 17, In Philadelphia, the Republican Party opened its first national convention. John C. Fremont (1830-1890), American explorer, was the 1st Republican presidential candidate. His platform pledged to end polygamy and slavery. He lost to James Buchanan by about 500,000 votes. Fremont went on to serve as territorial governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1883. In 2003 Lewis L. Gould authored "Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 6/17/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.5)(HNQ, 3/11/00)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.W17)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.M1)
1856 Jun 19, Elbert Hubbard (d.1915), US, editor, publisher, author (Message to Garcia), was born. "The love we give away is the only love we keep." "If you want work well done, select a busy man -- the other kind has not time." "To escape criticism -- do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
(AP, 7/22/97)(AP, 9/29/97)(AP, 12/12/98)(MC, 6/19/02)
1856 Jul 7, In California the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors held their 1st meeting at the general store of John Vogan on Main Street in Redwood City. The county had just recently been created.
(Ind, 2/3/01, 5A)(SFC, 5/18/13, p.C2)
1856 Jul 9, Nikola Tesla, electrical engineer, inventor (Tesla Coil), was born in Croatia.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1856 Jul 12, William Walker, an American, declared himself president of Nicaragua. His execution a few years later in Honduras was rumored to have been staged.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))
1856 Jul 26, George Bernard Shaw (d.1950), Irish-born, English dramatist, critic and social reformer (Pygmalion-Nobel 1925), was born in Dublin. "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity."
(V.D.-H.K.p.237)(HN, 7/26/98)(AP, 3/15/00)
1856 Jul 29, Robert Schumann (46), German composer, died. He had starved himself to death in a madhouse. The 1947 film "Song of Love" was based on the Robert and Clara Schuman. In 2000 J.D. Landis authored "Longing" a novel based on the love affair between Robert Schuman and Clara Wieck.
(BLW, 1963 ed. p.49)(WSJ, 9/22/00, p.W12)
1856 Aug 11, A band of rampaging settlers in California killed four Yokut Indians. The settlers had heard unproven rumors of Yokut atrocities.
(HN, 8/11/99)
1856 Aug 12, Anthony Fass patented an accordion.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1856 Aug 18, In SF thousands of armed men paraded through the streets and then formally dissolved the second Committee of Vigilance. They had run SF for nearly 4 months much to the distress of Mayor James Van Ness and militia officer William T. Sherman.
(SFC, 8/18/06, p.B1)
1856 Aug 19, Gail Borden (1801-1874) received a patent for condensed milk and opened a small factory for its production in Walcottville, Conn. At this time milk in NYC sold for 6-7 cents a quart.
(ON, 5/04, p.5)(AP, 8/19/06)
1856 Aug, Henry Bessemer, English mechanical engineer, presented a paper titled “The Manufacture of Iron Without Fuel." In 1860 he established the Bessemer Steel Works in Sheffield. His Bessemer conversion process revolutionized the steel industry.
(ON, 9/06, p.6)
1856 Aug, Paul Du Chaillu, French-American journalist and hunter, hired a large number of men and women from the Mbondemo tribe to hunt for gorillas in Gabon.
(ON, 11/04, p.11)
1856 Sep 2, Paul Du Chaillu (1831-1903), French-American journalist and hunter, shot and killed his 1st gorilla in Gabon. Over the next 3 years he killed 31 gorillas. In 1861 he published “Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa."
(ON, 11/04, p.12)
1856 Sep 3, Louis H. Sullivan, architect who gained fame for his design of the Chicago Auditorium Theater, was born in Boston, Mass. The leading figure in the so-called Chicago style of architecture, Louis Sullivan is regarded as the spiritual father of modern U.S. architecture and is particularly identified with the aesthetics of skyscraper design. Born in 1856, Sullivan attended MIT and was among the first to stress the vertical lines of steel skeleton construction.
(HN, 9/3/98)(HNQ, 6/11/99)(MC, 9/3/01)
1856 Sep 3, The Royal British Bank announced a suspension of business. In 1858 eight directors of the bank were put on trial for conspiracy to defraud the public. A jury found each of the defendants guilty of the charges. They were given sentences ranging from a nominal fine of one shilling to imprisonment for up to one year.
(http://tinyurl.com/mefkksp)(http://tinyurl.com/m78b3q3)(Econ, 6/22/13, p.60)
1856 Sep 14, At the Battle of San Jacinto, Nicaragua defeated invaders. General José Dolores Estrada led his men against the powerful forces of William Walker and his filibusters, who sought to take over Nicaragua and all of Central America.
(http://www.guideofnicaragua.com/0102/MatagalpaEN.html)
1856 Sep 24, John Marsh, Harvard graduate and pioneer California settler, was murdered on the road between Pacheco and Martinez while traveling to SF. Marsh was the 1st non-Hispanic to live in Contra Costa County. He had made a fortune attracting settlers to Contra Costa and selling them land. His new 7,000 stone mansion in Brentwood was later made the center-piece of the John Marsh/Cowell Ranch State Park.
(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1856 Oct 1, The first installment of Gustav Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (Emma Bovary) appeared in the Revue de Paris after the publisher refused to print a passage in which the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage. It was later considered as the first novel of a liberated woman in modern literature. In 1998 Dacia Maraini published "Searching for Emma." A TV version for Masterpiece Theater was shown in 2000.
(HN, 10/1/00)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Par p.18)(WSJ, 2/4/00, p.W6)
1856 Oct 7, Cyrus Chambers Jr. patented a folding machine that folded books and newspapers.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1856 Oct 8, Chinese police boarded the British vessel Arrow, arrested 12 Chinese crewmen on suspicion of piracy and lowered the British flag. This began the 2nd Anglo-Chinese War.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.911)(MC, 10/8/01)
1856 Oct, Migrants to Utah pulling handcarts encountered a blizzard and were rescued by a mule train sent by Brigham Young. More than 200 Mormons died near Martin’s Cove, Wyo., as they migrated West using handcarts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers)(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.39)
1856 Nov 4, Democrat James Buchanan was elected US president. The American or Know-Nothing Party had nominated Zachary Taylor over Millard Fillmore. The Know-Nothing Party was an anti-foreigner, anti-Catholic political organization. Buchanan easily won the presidential election, gaining 174 electoral votes to Republican John C. Fremont’s 141, and Fillmore’s eight. Fremont failed to carry California after Jasper O’Farrell testified against him in the 1846 murder of 3 Californios.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ku7j)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E10)(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(HNQ, 6/17/01)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E1)
1856 Nov 13, Louis Brandeis, was born. He became the first Jew to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
(HN, 11/13/00)
1856 Nov 15, The clipper ship Neptune’s Car arrived in SF after sailing 136 days from NYC. Mary Ann Patten (1837-1861), the pregnant 19-year-old wife of Captain Joshua Patten (d.1857), commanded the ship for much of its voyage after the captain fell ill.
(AH, 2/05, p.60)
1856 Nov 24, Bat Masterson was born in Quebec, Canada. [see Nov 24, 1853]
(MesWP)
1856 Dec 18, Joseph John Thomson, English physicist, was born. He discovered the electron and won a Nobel Prize in 1906.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1856 Dec 22, Frank Kellogg, Secretary of State (1925-29) who tried to outlaw war with the Kellogg-Briand Pact, was born. He won a Nobel Prize in 1929.
(HN, 12/22/98)(MC, 12/22/01)
1856 Dec 28, Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States (1912-1921), who brought the country into World War I, was born in Staunton, Va. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. "The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
(AP, 12/28/97)(HN, 12/28/98)(AP, 7/2/99)(MC, 12/28/01)
1856 Dec 29, Snow fell in San Francisco and accumulated to 2-3 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1856 Francois Flameng (d.1923), French painter, was born. He painted imagined scenes from the domestic life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
(MT, Fall/03, p.13)
1856 James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1866, a mountain man born as a slave, authored his autobiography: “The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians."
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.14)(www.beckwourth.org/)
1856 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), French writer, authored "The Old Regime and the French Revolution."
(Econ, 4/19/14, SR p.15)
1856 The ballet "Le Corsaire" (The Corsair) was first performed in Paris to a score by Adolph Adam. It was based on a work by Lord Byron.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.E1)
1856 The St. James Light, a lighthouse, was built by Irish immigrants on Big Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan.
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.88)
1856 The Steinway Mansion was built in Astoria, NYC, home of the scion of the great piano-making family.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-8)
1856 John Breuner, German cabinet maker, founded his furniture business. It later expanded to a chain of 17 stores and was sold in 1985.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A15)
1856 St. Pauls prep school was founded in Concord, New Hampshire. In 2003 headmaster Bishop Craig Anderson was paid an annual salary of $524,000.
(WSJ, 8/25/03, p.A1)
1856 In Minnesota Benedictine monks arrived in St. Cloud and established a priory. In 1865 they moved to the shores of Lake Sagatagan and the following year the priory was raised to the status of Abbey. In 1913 they established St. John’s University.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John's_Abbey)
1856 Mauve began to be used to describe a purplish color that was the first synthetic dye.
(SFC, 6/29/96, E4)
1856 The last presidential candidate of the Whig Party was Millard Fillmore in 1856. Fillmore and his running mate Andrew J. Donelson were also the nominees of the American (Know Nothing) Party that year. In 1999 Michael F. Hold published "The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party."
(HNQ, 9/10/98)(WSJ, 7/8/99, p.A16)
1856 Walt Whitman declared that "Always America will be agitated and turbulent."
(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)
1856 Orvis, a fly-tackle manufacturer, began operations in Manchester, Vermont Charles F. Orvis founded the mail-order fishing tackle shop. Leigh Perkins (1927-2021) bought the 20-employee company for $400,000 in 1965. In 1992 Perkins turned the company of more than 700 employees over to his sons. In 1993 the company was a $100 million business.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.B7)(SFC, 5/17/21, p.B6)
1856 The William Mason locomotive was built.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)
1856 In San Francisco Tom McGuire remodeled his new theater and reopened it as McGuire's Opera House and added a saloon next door called the Snug. Drinks cost 12.5 cents.
(SFC, 7/24/21, p.B5)
1856 California Gov. Neely Johnson declared that SF was in a “state of insurrection" and called upon all citizens to enlist in a state militia, locally commanded by banker William T. Sherman, to crush it. Vigilantes in SF had forced some 25 cronies of Mayor David Broderick onto outbound ships following the discovery of false-bottom ballot boxes. Another 800 of the city’s “worst characters" had also been ordered to leave.
(SFC, 8/2/14, p.C2)
1856 Ephraim Burr (1809-1894) became mayor of SF and continued to 1859.
(SFC, 5/5/07, p.B3)
1856 In San Francisco The Call newspaper was started by five unemployed printers and quickly became one of the city’s leading papers. Its original building stood at 612 Commercial St.
(SFC, 10/5/13, p.C1)
1856 San Francisco’s Lowell High School opened as the Union Grammar School and attained its current name in 1896.
(http://tinyurl.com/y4q3tp)(SFC, 5/26/12, p.A9)
1856 San Franciscans paid a quarter to venture into a basement room at the Mountaineer Museum at 143 Clay St. to view grizzly bears collected by John Adams, aka Grizzly Adams (1812-1860). In 1966 Richard Dillon authored "The Legend of Grizzly Adams: California's Greatest Mountain Man."
(http://tinyurl.com/yaucamr4)(SFC, 7/7/18, p.C1)
1856 The 1st theater in California was built in the gold-mining town of Nevada City.
(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.F9)
1856 The D’Agostini Winery in Amador County, Ca. was founded. It later became the Sobon Estate Winery.
(SFC, 12/10/95, p.T-1)
1856 In California Mifflin W. Gibbs founded the state’s first black newspaper and lobbied for the repeal of the state’s "black laws."
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15)
1856 The Mendocino Indian Reservation was established in northern California near the mouth of the Noyo River.
(SFC, 4/28/12, p.A6)
1856 John C. Fremont and Edward D. Baker passed through the Feather River region of northern California. Baker was known as the "Gray Eagle of Republicanism" and gave this name to the town of Graegle around 1916.
(SSFC, 7/7/02, p.C10)
1856 Sam Hughes, a Welsh immigrant ill with tuberculosis, left his job as a baker in the California Gold Rush and departed by stage coach to Texas. The stage coach driver afraid that Sam might die enroute, dumped him in Tucson, Arizona. Later Sam at age 32 married a Mexican girl age 12 named Atanacia Santa Cruz.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.29,32)
1856 William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, discovered the property of magneto-resistance. The change in some materials of electrical resistance under a magnetic field was later used in data storage systems.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.89)
1856 The Australian state of Victoria first adopted paper ballots for voting.
(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A1)
1856 Australia's Van Dieman's Island was renamed Tasmania.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.37)
c1856 Rabbits were let loose in Australia about 140 years ago.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.B-6)
1856 Descendants of the Bounty mutineers moved from Pitcairn to Norfolk Island, 1,000 miles from the Australia mainland.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.38)
1856 The Victoria Cross was created to honor soldiers of the British Empire during the Crimean War who showed particular gallantry in the face of enemy attack. All the crosses were made from the bronze of Russian cannons captured in the Crimea.
(AP, 4/27/05)
1856 British Guiana issued a 1-cent magenta, a 4-cent magenta and a 4-cent blue stamp initialed by a postal employee while waiting for a shipment of stamps to arrive from London. In 1980 the 1-cent magenta was purchased for $935,000 by chemicals heir John E. DuPont. In 2014 the it was expected to sell at auction for $10-20 million.
(WSJ, 4/7/00, p.W9)(SFC, 2/15/14, p.A7)
1856 Near Dusseldorf in the Neander Valley, limestone minors quarrying in a cave found an unusual human skeleton. A beetle-browed, low-sloping skullcap, part of a pelvis, and some remarkably thick and slightly curved limb bones fell into the hands of the local science teacher.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 614)
1856 The order of nuns known as the "Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration" was founded in France. It was named after a 13th century saint who jettisoned her family's wealth for a life of poverty. The nuns spent their time praying on behalf of others.
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.A1)
1856 In France Emperor Napoleon III decided to quell an impending revolt in Algeria by sending a magician, who would demonstrate the power of the Europeans to the natives. He sent Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin (1805-1871). The 1998 novel "The Magician’s Wife" by Brian Moore is based on the historic events. The magician is named Henri Lambert.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 1/25/98, BR p.5)
1856 The Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem's walled Old City was gifted by the Ottomans to French Emperor Napoleon III.
(Reuters, 1/22/20)
1856 The Countess de Castiglione (Virginia Oldoini) became the mistress of Napoleon III. She was chosen by her cousin Camillo Cavour, prime minister of Sardinia under King Victor Emanuel, to win the emperor’s support for a war against the Austrians.
(WSJ, 12/27/00, p.A10)
1856 Theodore Chasseriau (b.1819), Dominican-born artist, died in Paris. His paintings included "The Toilette of Esther."
(WSJ, 11/26/02, p.D8)
1856 Monaco opened its first casino.
(Econ, 8/13/16, p.38)
1856 Christian Schibsted purchased a hand operated printing press to print a newspaper for somebody else. When the contract moved elsewhere he began his own newspaper and in 2006 the original press could be seen in the Oslo headquarters of the Schibsted newspaper firm.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.52)
1856 Lothar von Faber of Germany bought a graphite mine in Siberia to secure raw material for his pencil manufacturing operations.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.73)
1856 In Sweden Andre Wallenberg founded Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB). By 2006 it was one of the Nordic region’s biggest banks. Wallenberg had just returned from America with a book on how to set up a bank.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)(Econ, 3/12/15, p.62)
1856 A Turkish imperial edict lifted a ban on Christian bell-ringing in Jerusalem, whnich at this time was part of the Ottoman empire. The British were given the honor of erecting the city’s first outdoor bell since the crusades.
(Econ, 1/5/13, p.35)
1856-1858 The 2nd Anglo-Chinese Opium War.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1856-1900 Oscar Wilde, English [Irish] writer, poet and dramatist, a rebel of every kind, ended up playing the part of a mocking fool. He despaired of his countrymen ever waking up, but they did, for they became enraged by his mockery and jailed him, ruining his life. He wrote the play "The Importance of Being Ernest." He was found guilty of violating the Criminal Law Amendment Act which prohibited indecent relations between consenting adult males. He served 2 years in prison where he read the whole of Dante and wrote the letter "De Profundis," and the poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." "At every single moment of one's life one is what one is going to be no less than what one has been." [see 1854]
(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(HT, 3/97, p.71)(AP, 10/10/99)
1856-1915 Booker T. Washington, American educator: "To be successful, grow to the point where one completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause."
(AP, 6/6/97)
1856-1915 Frederick Winslow Taylor, American efficiency expert. In 1997 Robert Kanigel wrote the biography: "The One Best Way: FW Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency." Taylor was a member of the first winning US Open doubles tennis duo. "In the past the man was first. In the future the system will be first."
(WSJ, 6/13/97, p.A17)(Wired, 2/98, p.112)
1856-1920 May 6, Robert Peary, American naval officer and Arctic explorer, was born. He reached the North Pole in 1909.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(AHD, p.964)
1856-1922 Tom Watson, US congressman and quintessential Negrophobe. C. Van Woodward in 1938 authored the biography: "Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel."
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.C14)
1855-1926 In Baja, Mexico, an estimated 3,350 gray whales were harpooned in their spawning grounds in Magdalena Bay.
(SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1856-1929 The Children's Aid Society and The New York Foundling Hospital sponsored Orphan Trains that relocated homeless New York children to adoptive homes in the sparsely populated West and Midwest. Needy children were chosen for relocation and if they were not true orphans, a release for placement was obtained from the remaining parent or guardian. The train route was chosen and the children, after being given new clothing, boarded the train accompanied by the society's agent. Advance notice was placed in local newspapers and a screening committee was responsible for matching the orphans with prospective families. When the train arrived, the orphans were displayed in a church or other public building and if an agreeable match was made, the child was left with his or her new family. Those not selected would reboard the train for the next stop. It was up to the agent to keep tabs on adopted children, and if they were not determined to be happy and well-treated, they would be removed and, hopefully, adopted by a new family. While this procedure was risky and many children were placed in abusive situations, Orphan Train sponsors believed that youngsters placed with western families had a better chance than those living on the streets of New York. In the 75 years of the Orphan Trains, between 150,000 and 200,000 children were relocated.
(HNPD, 12/1/98)
1856-1930 Daniel Guggenheim, American industrialist and philanthropist.
(AHD, p.585)
1856-1933 Elisabeth Marbury, American writer: "The richer your friends, the more they will cost you."
(AP, 9/25/98)
1856-1941 US Justice Louis D. Brandeis: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
(AP, 10/5/99)
1856-1945 Walter Long Williams, veterinarian. He did pioneering work in identifying equine venereal disease.
(WSJ, 5/5/99, p.A20)
1856-1950 Minna Antrim, American writer: "Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills."
(AP, 12/14/97)
1857 Jan 6, Patent for reducing zinc ore was granted to Samuel Wetherill in Penn.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1857 Jan 9, The Fort Tejon, Ca., earthquake, estimated at magnitude 8, ruptured ground for 225 miles from Parkfield to Tejon Pass. It killed 2 people and destroyed the Tejon Army post. The fort was established in 1854 and closed in 1864.
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/parkfield/1857.php)(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A4)(SFC, 12/10/04, p.A4)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forts_in_California)
1857 Feb 7, A French court acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel "Madame Bovary."
(AP, 2/7/08)
1857 Feb 12, Eugene Atget, French photographer, was born. He took over 10,000 photographs documenting Paris.
(HN, 2/12/01)
1857 Feb 15, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (53), Russian composer (Russlan & Ludmilla), died.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1857 Feb 18, Max Klinger, German graphic artist, painter, sculptor, was born.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1857 Feb 22, Heinrich Hertz, German physicist, was born in Hamburg. He became the first person to broadcast and receive radio waves. The radio wave unit of frequency was named after him.
(HN, 2/22/01)(AP, 2/22/07)
1857 Feb 22, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout Movement, was born in London.
(AP, 2/22/07)
1857 Feb, Charles Darwin in a letter to his cousin Fox, wrote: "I am become most deeply interested in the way facts fall into groups." [indeed]
(NH, 5/96, p.7)
1857 Mar 3, Under pretexts, Britain and France declared war on China.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1857 Mar 6, After years in litigation, the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Roger Taney, ruled that Dred Scott did not gain his freedom by living in a free territory. Taney wrote that African Americans could not have rights of their own and were inferior to white people. The essence of the decision was that as a slave, Dred Scott was not a citizen and therefore could not sue in a federal court. The opinion also stated that Congress could not exclude slavery in the territories and that blacks could not become citizens. That ruling further increased the tension already simmering between the North and the South. Dred Scott was a slave who accompanied his owner, army surgeon John Emerson, to military posts in Wisconsin and Illinois in 1834-35. In 1846 Scott, backed by abolitionists, sued for his freedom on the grounds that he became free when he lived in an area where slavery was outlawed. Montgomery Blair (b.1813) was one of the lawyers in the Scott vs. Sanford case. In this case the Supreme Court invalidated the 1820 Missouri Compromise. In 2017 Charles Taney IV apologized to the family of Dred Scott for the words of his great-great-grand-uncle.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney)(AP, 3/6/98)(SFC, 11/30/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/8/17, p.A5)
1857 Mar 8, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Italian composer (I Pagliacci/Zaza), was born.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1857 Mar 12, The opera "Simon Boccanegra," by Giuseppe Verdi, premiered in Venice, Italy.
(AP, 3/12/07)
1857 Mar 23, Culinary expert Fannie Farmer was born in Boston.
(AP, 3/23/07)
1857 Mar 23, Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in the 5-story Haughwout and Co. building at 488 Broadway in New York City.
(www.theelevatormuseum.org/h/h-2.htm)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1857 Mar 25, Frederick Laggenheim took the 1st photo of a solar eclipse.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1857 Apr 18, Clarence S. Darrow, defense attorney at the Scopes monkey trial, was born near Kinsman, Ohio.
(AP, 4/18/07)
1857 Apr 21, Alexander Douglas patented the bustle.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1857 Apr 27, Establishment of Jewish congregations in Lower Austria prohibited.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1857 Apr, The Royal Society held their first meeting in Burlington House in London after moving over from Somerset House. They were soon joined by the Linnean Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.104)(www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=41482)
1857 May 1, William Walker, conqueror of Nicaragua, surrendered to the US Navy. Cornelius Vanderbilt helped finance a Costa Rican army, which defeated Walker’s forces, and paid men under Walker’s command to defect. Walker later sought protection on a British naval vessel, whose captain turned him over to Hondurans, who executed him in 1860.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W7)
1857 May 10, Hendrik Zwaardemaker, Dutch physiologist (olefactometer), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1857 May 10, The Seepoys of India revolted against the British Army. The Bengal Army, Indian soldiers in the British army, staged a revolt in what is viewed as the first attempt at independence. The Rani of Jhansi, a charismatic female strategist, led the Hindu revolt.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 5/10/98)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C9)
1857 May 11, Indian mutineers against the British seized Delhi.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1857 May 13, Ronald Ross, bacteriologist, was born.
(HN, 5/13/01)
1857 May 19, William Francis Channing and Moses G. Farmer were granted the first patent for an electric fire alarm system.
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1857 Jun 2, Edward Elgar Broadheath, English composer (Pomp & Circumstance), was born in Worcester, England.
(AP, 6/2/07)
1857 Jun 2, Karl Gjellerup, poet, novelist (Nobel 1917), was born in Denmark.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Jun 2, James Gibbs of Virginia patented a chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Jun 18, Henry Clay Folger, American lawyer and businessman, co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was born.
(HN, 6/18/01)
1857 Jun 27, H. Goldschmidt discovered asteroid #45, Eugenia.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1857 Jun 30, Charles Dickens reads from "A Christmas Carol" at St. Martin's Hall in London--his first public reading.
(HN, 6/30/01)
1857 Jul 12, George E. Ohr (d.1918), ceramics artist (the mad potter of Biloxi), was born in Biloxi, Mississippi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Ohr)(ON, 11/06, p.11)
1857 Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Jul 15, Carl Czerny (66), Austrian pianist, composer, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1857 Jul 27, Jose Celso Barbosa, Puerto Rican statesman and humanitarian, was born in Bayamon.
(AP, 7/27/07)
1857 Jul 29, James Holman (1786), former British lieutenant in the Royal Navy, died in London. An illness in 1810 left him blind. In 1822 he set off on a journey to travel around the world. In 2006 Jason Roberts authored “A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler."
(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.M1)
1857 Jul 30, Thorstein Veblen (d.1929), political economist and sociologist, was born in Wisconsin to Norwegian immigrants. He authored "The Theory of the Leisure Class" in 1899.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.4)(HN, 7/30/01)(MC, 7/30/02)
1857 Aug 25, The California gold rush town of Columbia burned down in a 2nd fire that was blamed on a Chinese cook. Miners soon evicted all Chinese from the town.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.T6)(CVG, Vol 16, p.24,34)
1857 Aug 24, The New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. failed, sparking the Panic of 1857. The sharp but short 1857-58 financial crash in the US was touched off by the failure of the New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. Over speculation in real estate and railroad securities fed the panic. Financial crashes spread to Liverpool, Glasgow, Paris, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Vienna.
(AP, 8/24/07)(WSJ, 9/28/95c, p.A-18)(Econ, 4/12/14, p.51)
1857 Aug, A human skeleton was found in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. The discovery is described by D. Shaaffhausen in his paper Discovery of the Neanderthal Skull.
(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.140-141)
1857 Sep 3, John McLoughlin (b.1784), Hudson's Bay Co. pioneer at Fort Vancouver and in Oregon Country, died in Oregon City. In the late 1840s his general store in Oregon City was famous as the last stop on the Oregon Trail.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLoughlin)
1857 Sep 5, Charles Darwin first outlined his theory of evolution in a letter to American botanist Asa Gray dated September 5, 1857. The leading botanist of his time, Gray was one of the founders of the National Academy of Science.
(HNQ, 3/14/99)
1857 Sep 11, The Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah Territory was carried out by Mormons fearful of an impending invasion by the US Army. Church patriarch and adopted son of Brigham Young, John Doyle Lee, offered safe passage to the nearly 150 men, women and children on the Fancher train from Arkansas crossing Mormon Utah bound for California, if they left their weapons, livestock and wagons behind-ostensibly to appease hostile Indians. All but the youngest children were slaughtered. Lee, who first blamed the massacre on Paiute Indians, was excommunicated in 1870 and tried, convicted and executed in 1877 for his role in the killings. 120 settlers were killed; 17 children, all under 7, were spared. In 2002 Will Bagley authored “Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows." In 2011 the site was dedicated as a national historic landmark.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)(AP, 9/11/07)(SFC, 9/12/11, p.A4)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon, sank off Cape Romain, SC. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from California to New York. The brig Marine and the Norwegian bark Ellen rescued some 141 people. 425 (428) of 528 (578) passengers were drowned. The survivors included Ansel Ives Easton (d.1868) and his new wife Adeline. The wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in 1987-1988 salvage operations were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled in $500 million worth of gold bars, coins and nuggets. After a court battle he was awarded 92% of the gold. The story is told in the 1998 book "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue sea" by Gary Kinder. The loss of the gold sparked "The Panic of 1857." The SS Central America sank off Cape Romain, SC. Thompson became a federal fugitive in 2012 after he failed to show up for several court hearings. Odyssey Marine Exploration was awarded a contract by a court appointed receiver and in 2014 recovered additional treasure valued in the millions.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01, p.2)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)(SFC, 7/18/14, p.D3)
1857 Sep 13, Milton S. Hershey, chocolate manufacturer and philanthropist, was born in Dauphin County, Pa.
(www.hersheys.com/about/milton.shtml)(AP, 9/13/07)
1857 Sep 15, William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served as 26th president (R) of the United States (1909-1913) and as chief justice. He is most remembered for his "dollar diplomacy."
(AP, 9/15/97)(HN, 9/15/99)
1857 Sep 15, Mormon leader Brigham Young called out the Nauvoo Legion to fight the U.S. Troops if they enter Utah Territory.
(http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Utah_War)
1857 Sep 15, Timothy Alden of NYC patented a typesetting machine.
(www.todayinsci.com/)
1857 Sep 20, Delhi, India, fell to British forces.
(AP, 9/20/07)
1857 Sep 23, The Russian warship Leffort disappeared in the Finland Gulf in a storm; 826 died.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1857 Oct 2, In SF the cornerstone for the new St. Francis Church was laid.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A21)(SSFC, 3/25/12, DB p.41)
1857 Oct 6, The American Chess Association organized. The 1st major US chess tournament was held in NYC. [see Oct 10]
(MC, 10/6/01)
1857 Oct 10, The American Chess Association formed (NYC). [see Oct 6]
(MC, 10/10/01)
1857 Oct 29, Conrad Haebler, German historian (Early Printers of Spain and Portugal), was born.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1857 Oct 30, Gertrude Atherton, novelist, was born.
(HN, 10/30/00)
1857 Oct, Paul Morphy won fame as the first American chess hero. The New Orleans native became the world‘s leading chess player after he defeated Adolf Anderssen of Germany. Morphy beat all the world's masters who took him on, although Englishman Howard Staunton managed to avoid a match. Morphy then issued a challenge to take on any player, but none responded, and Morphy retired.
(HN, 1/22/00)
1857 Nov 2, Joseph F.F. Babinski, Polish-French neurologist (Babinski reflex), was born.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1857 Nov 5, Ida M. Tarbell (d.1944), muckraking journalist, was born in Erie County, Pa.
(AP, 11/5/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell)
1857 Nov 7, Dennistoun, Cross and Co., an American bank with branches in Liverpool, Glasgow, New York and New Orleans, collapsed taking with it the Western Bank of Scotland with 98 branches. In the last three months of this year there were 135 bankruptcies.
(Econ, 4/12/14, p.52)
1857 Nov 9, Atlantic Monthly magazine was 1st published.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1857 Nov 23, George Smythe (b.1818), 7th Viscount Strangford, died. In 2006 Mary S. Millar authored “Disraeli’s Disciple: The Scandalous Life of George Smythe."
(http://tinyurl.com/mhqn3)(WSJ, 9/2/06, p.P9)
1857 Nov 26, First Australian Parliament opened in Melbourne.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1857 Dec 3, Joseph Conrad (d.1924), novelist, was born in Berdychiv, Poland, as Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski. He is best known for “Heart of Darkness." His work “The Secret Agent" had a profound effect on Unabomber Theodore J. Kaszynski in the late 20th cent. Conrad also wrote the short story “The Informer."
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)(HN, 12/3/98)(AP, 12/3/07)
1857 Dec 8, 1st production of Dion Boucicault's "Poor of NY."
(MC, 12/8/01)
1857 Dec 17, Sir Francis Beaufort (b.1774), Irish-born hydrogapher, died in London. In 2004 Scott Huler authored “Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How a Nineteenth-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry."
(NH, 11/1/04, p.51)
1857 Dec 29, Franz Liszt's "Die Hunnenschlacht," premiered in Weimar.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1857 Dec 31, Britain’s Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1857 Augustus Leopold Egg began to paint his 3-part work "Past and Present." It was completed in 1858.
(WSJ, 2/19/97, p.A15)
1857 Jean-Francois Millet painted "The Gleaners."
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A26)
1857 Thomas Brewer wrote "North American Oology," a work on bird eggs.
(AH, 6/02, p.40)
1857 Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist, published his serial novel “Little Dorrit" in book form. It had been serialized in 1855-1857.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dorrit)
1857 Hinton Rowan Helper of North Carolina published “The Impending Crisis of the South," a criticism of slavery and slaveholders.
(SFC, 6/20/15, p.C2)
1857 Thomas Hughes authored "Tom Brown’s School Days." Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a fictional character originally created by the author Thomas Hughes in his semi-autobiographical work Tom Brown's Schooldays. In this book, set at Rugby School, Flashman is the notorious bully, who persecutes its eponymous hero Tom Brown.
(WSJ, 7/111/00, p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman)
1857 Fitz Hugh Ludlow authored "The Hasheesh Eater."
(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.4)
1857 Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868), Austrian writer, authored his novel “Indian Summer." He noted the issue of bureaucracy long before it was covered by sociologists.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)
1857 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), British novelist, authored his novel “Barchester Towers," which explored the mixed motives of various characters. The book established his fame.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
1857 Alexander Herzen (1812-1870), Russia’s first socialist, and Nikolai Ogaryov (1813-1877) began publishing the newspaper Kolokol (Bell) in London, which was then smuggled back into Russia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolokol_%28newspaper%29)(Econ, 2/13/15, p.52)
1857 Pres. Lincoln made a speech on the Dred Scott decision where he pointed out that the Declaration of Independence asserts that all men are equal in their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
(WSJ, 2/12/97, p.A16)
1857 Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for their freedom after living in free territory. The Supreme Court ruled that black people were not citizens and could not expect federal protection. Dred Scott was quoted to have said: "Will nobody speak for me at Washington, even without hope of other reward than the blessings of a poor black man and his family." The decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A7)
1857 The US ditched its half-cent. Its value approximated the dime of 2013.
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.34)
1857 Count Agoston Haraszthy founded the Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, Ca.
(WCG, p.67)
1857 The Sisters of Mercy established the West Coast’s 1st hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, in the SF Bay Area.
(SFC, 7/24/06, p.B8)
1857 In Oakland, Ca., Theophilide St. Germaine and her husband, a French count, built a structure at 301 Broadway to serve as a wine shop. In 2014 the building, home to Vegan Soul Food, was believed to be the oldest structure in the city.
(SFC, 4/2/14, p.E3)
1857 In northern California Fort Bragg was established by Lt. Horatio Gates Gibson to keep control of the natives confined to the newly established Mendocino Indian Reservation. He named the camp Fort Bragg after Capt. Braxton Bragg, his former commanding officer. Bragg later served as Confederate general in the Civil War.
(SFC, 7/23/15, p.A6)
1857 In San Francisco the City and County Hospital purchased the North Beach School transforming it into a 150-bed hospital.
(SSFC, 5/22/16, p.N10)
1857 West Coast whaler Capt. Charles Melville Scammon discovered a major breeding ground for gray whales in a Baja California lagoon. By 1861 an estimated 10,800 gray whales had been killed in lagoons along the Baha coast. The gray whale population was driven almost to extinction.
(SFC, 8/4/18, p.C4)
1857 Lincoln at Springfield, Ill. expounded on the idea of equality as equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of result.
(WSJ, 2/10/95), p.A-8)
1857 The Stanley Rule & Level Co. was founded in New Britain, Conn.
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.E4)
1857 Joseph Henry, head of the Smithsonian Institute, began providing daily national weather reports to the Washington Evening Star.
(ON, 2/06, p.7)
1857 Laclede Gas Light Co. was formed and dominated the natural gas business in St. Louis as late as 1942. It began by providing gas-powered street lamps to the city.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)
1857 A court case in New York, Livingstone v Bank of New York, held that a bank could not be deemed insolvent merely because, during a general panic, it could not redeem its notes in specie.
(Econ, 12/1/12, p.90)
1857 John Thompson was discredited as a banker in the panic 1857. He later went on with his two sons as front men to found the forerunners of what are now City Bank and Chase Manhattan.
(WSJ, 5/8/95, p.A-14)
1857 Seneca Village in New York City, a refuge for African Americans, was razed to make way for Central Park.
(https://timeline.com/black-village-destroyed-central-park-6356723113fa)
1857 Joseph C. Gayette of NYC was said to have invented toilet paper.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, Z1 p.4)
1857 In South Carolina Dr. James Woods Babcock completed a 3-storey structure in Columbia that featured a raised cupola and 12-sided dome. The Babcock was later placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2020 a fire destroyed the building.
(SSFC, 9/13/20, p.A5)
1857 Andrew Johnson, Democrat of Tennessee, was elected to Senator.
(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)
1857 The New Dungeness Light Station was built at the end of the Dungeness Spit in Dungeness Bay, Washington state.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G8)
1857 The earliest horse-drawn potato planter was patented in the US.
(SFC, 4/30/97, z1 p.6)
1857 Paul Broca, a French neurologist, discovered that particular regions of the brain are specialized for particular functions. In 1861 he authored a classical paper that detailed damage in the brain’s left temporal lobe to loss of speech.
(WSJ, 10/11/02, p.AB1)(http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Broca/perte-e.htm)
1857 William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician, devised the routing conundrum. A simple version of this is known as the traveling salesman problem. It poses the question: Given an arbitrary collection of cities a salesman has to travel between, what is the shortest route linking those cities?
(Wired, 8/95, p.115)
1857 James Hall, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, pointed out the great thickness of the Paleozoic rocks in the Appalacian Mountains compared with the Mississippi Valley and offered the explanation that as the weight of the sediment accumulated it had pushed down the crust beneath it. He believed that eventually the crust could take the strain no longer. It buckled and the strata were crumpled and raised high above their original level. This theory is in contrast to Dana’s later theory of geosynclines in 1873.
(DD-EVTT, p.120)
1857 Lt. Edward F. Beale visited El Morro, New Mexico, with a camel caravan testing the feasibility of employing camels as Army animals in the American southwest.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1857 Army Lt. Joseph Ives surveyed the Grand Canyon with "wondering delight," but concluded that it was "altogether valueless." His chief scientist John Strong Newberry declared that it was a geological paradise.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, BR p.12)
1857 Franz Kruger (b.1797), German Biedermeier artist of cityscapes and rural genre scenes, died.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)
1857 In Australia the Botanical Garden in Adelaide was founded.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.T5)
1857 In Austria Ludwig Moser (d.1916) started a glassmaking shop in Carlsbad. The work was intended for royal families around the world and included intricate gold overlay and detailed hand painting.
(SFC, 3/5/97, z-1 p.2)
1857 Neuhaus began making chocolate in Belgium.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.T9)
1857 The Reading Room of the British National Library opened. It was designed by Sydney Smirke. His brother, Sir Robert Smirke, had designed the British Museum 7 years earlier. The design met the wishes of Sir Anthony Panazzi, the Italian librarian. Its copper dome, supported by 20 cast iron ribs, measured 140 feet.
(SFC, 10/23/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 2/9/00, p.A24)
1857 The British Matrimonial Causes Act proclaimed that a husband’s legal responsibilities went on after a marriage ended.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.E3)
1857 In England Dean Richard Trench lectured on the need for a complete English dictionary at the London Library and the project was soon undertaken by The Philological Society.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A30)
1857 In Montreal, Canada, the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral was constructed. In the 1980s it was elevated on pylons to allow for an expansion of the underground city.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.D5)
1857 In British Columbia nine American slaves arrived at Vesuvius Bay on Salt Spring Island to make a fresh start in a new land. They were later joined by settlers from Hawaii.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T5)
1857 Ludwig Moser began making Moser glass in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia.
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.G6)
1857 The coffin of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Kamose, was discovered outside of Thebes, but the body crumbled to dust when exposed to the air... a ceremonial dagger from the site is now in Brussels.
(L.C.W.P.p.67)
1857 The Paris salon of this year set standards so exclusive that Emp. Napoleon III ordered the rejected paintings to be hung as a separate show in 1863. [see 1863]
(Calg. Glen., 1996)
1857 In France the Napoleon III theatre at Fontainebleau Palace south of Paris, built between 1853 and 1856 under the reign of Napoleon III, opened. It was used only a dozen times, which helped preserve its gilded adornments, before being abandoned in 1870 after the fall of Napoleon III. It reopened in 2019 following 12 years of restoration work with the help of a 10 million euro donation from Abu Dhabi.
(AFP, 6/18/19)
1857 In Germany H. Sichel & Sohne, the producers of the popular Blue Nun white wine, was founded.
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.4)
1857 In Hong Kong Cheong Ah Lum, the colony’s foremost baker, so hated the Britons that he tried to poison 400 of the most important "gwailos" with arsenic laced bread. No one died but many got sick.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.A18)
1857 In India the 1st madrasah, religious school, was founded in Deoband in the wake of a jihad against British colonial government.
(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A1A14)
1857 In India Lakshmi Bai (1835-1858), the Rani of Jhansi, a widowed child bride, cut her saris into trousers to ride into battle during the Sepoy Mutiny against the British. She was one of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion and became a symbol of resistance to the rule of the British East India Company.
(Econ, 8/4/12, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_Lakshmibai)
1857 In Italy the Lido Palace was built overlooking Lake Maggiore for the Marquis Durazzo of Genoa.
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.C6)
1857 The Vienna-Trieste railway was completed.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Trieste)
1857 Luigi Monti, an Italian Roman Catholic friar, founded the Congregation of the Children of the Immaculate Conception in order to provide charitable health services to orphans and the poor. In 1967 the Congregation opened a factory outside of Rome to make dermatological drugs and cosmetics, which were sold commercially. In 2003 Pope John Paul II beatified Monti. In 2004 the Congregation acquired a biotechnology research firm specializing in cancer research and renamed it Nerviano Medical Science.
(WSJ, 12/7/06, p.B8)
1857 In Lebanon the modern wine industry began when a group of Jesuit monks founded Chateau Ksara in the Bekaa Valley.
(SFC, 1/11/08, p.F4)
1857 Banco Santander was founded in Spain to finance trade between the port city of Santander and Latin America.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-6)
1857-1861 James Buchanon served as the 15th president. John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-1875) was the US vice-president under Buchanan. Breckenridge was a Confederate General in the Civil War.
(WUD, 1994, p.183)(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)(WUD, 1994, p.183)
1857-1903 George Gissing, English author and critic: "That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous."
(AP, 8/18/97)
1857-1922 Arthur Wesley Dow, artist and teacher, was inspired by William Morris and in turn influenced such artists Georgia O'Keefe, Max Weber, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Gertrude Kasebier. He was later considered as one of the greatest art educators of his day. He considered crafts equal to the fine arts.
(SFEM, 8/15/99, p.4)(SFC, 9/11/99, p.C12)(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A24)
1857-1926 Emile Coue, French pharmacist. In 1920 [1910] he devised the mantra "Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better" to promote his theory of self-improvement through auto-suggestion.
(NH, 7/98, p.20)(SFEC, 6/20/99, Z1 p.8)
1857-1938 Clarence Darrow, American lawyer: "You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free."
(AP, 9/30/97)
1858 Jan 14, Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie escaped unhurt after an Italian assassin threw a bomb at their carriage as they traveled to the Paris Opera. The hoop skirt was first worn by Empress Eugenie to conceal her pregnancy.
(HN, 1/14/99)(SFEC, 7/23/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 1/14/08)
1858 Jan 18, Daniel Hale Williams, the first physician to perform open heart surgery and founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago, Ill., was born.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1858 Jan 21, Felix Marma Zuloaga became president of Mexico upon the ouster of Ignacio Comonfort.
(AP, 1/21/08)
1858 Jan 25, Britain's Princess Victoria (the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), married Crown Prince Frederick William (the future German Emperor and King of Prussia) at St. James's Palace. The ceremony's tradition-setting music, personally selected by the Princess Royal, included the "Bridal Chorus" from Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" and the "Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn.
(AP, 1/25/08)
1858 Jan 28, John Brown organized a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. [see Oct 16, 1859]
(MC, 1/28/02)(ON, 7/02, p.7)
1858 Feb 1, John Brown went to see Frederick Douglass in Rochester and told him of his plan to steal weapons at Harper’s Ferry, Va.
(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1858 Feb 11, Bernadette Soubirous (14), a French miller’s daughter, claimed for the first time to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes.
(AP, 2/11/97)(HN, 1/11/02)
1858 Feb 8, A record brawl in the US House of Representatives erupted over the issue of slavery. Wisconsin Congressman John F. Potter pulled a wig off a Mississippi congressman and declared “I’ve scalped him."
(WSJ, 6/13/06, p.D6)(www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001067.asp)
1858 Feb 26, In India pioneering tea-planter Maniram Dewan was hanged by British colonial rulers for taking part in the 1857 rebellion. The Sepoy Mutiny leader had introduced commercial tea production to the Assam region.
(AFP, 4/22/12)(http://pd.cpim.org/2007/0715/07152007_1857.htm)
1858 Feb, British explorers Sir Richard Burton and John Speke (1827-1864) explored Lake Tanganyika, Africa.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml)
1858 Feb 19, Alois Basil Nikolaus Tomasini (78), composer, died.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1858 Mar 2, Frederick Cook, New Orleans, patented a cotton-bale metallic tie.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1858 Mar 4, Sen. James Henry Hammond, D-S.C., declared, "Cotton is king" in a speech to the US Senate.
(AP, 3/4/08)
1858 Mar 4, Matthew Calbraith Perry (63), the American naval officer who'd opened trade relations between the US and Japan, died in New York.
(AP, 3/4/08)
1858 Mar 5, In San Francisco advocates of civil rights rescued Archy Lee, a slave held by Charles Stovall of Mississippi, from being taken from the city aboard the ship Orizaba. The story was later told by Rudolph Lapp (1915-2007) in “Archy Lee: A California Fugitive Slave Case" (1969).
(SFC, 1/11/14, p.C2)
1858 Mar 9, The mailbox was patented.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1858 Mar 10, Henry David Thoreau at Fair Haven Pond heard the love call of the red-tailed hawk.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1858 May 11, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
(AP, 5/11/97)(HN, 5/11/98)
1858 Mar 12, Adolph Simon Ochs, publisher of The New York Times, was born.
(HN, 3/12/01)
1858 Mar 15, Pope Pius IX elevated deacon Teodolfo Cardinal Mertel to the status of cardinal.
(http://tinyurl.com/hy46re2)(Econ, 7/30/16, p.48)
1858 Mar 18, Rudolf Diesel, German mechanical engineer, was born in Paris. He designed the compression-ignition engine (1893).
(HN, 3/18/99)(AP, 3/18/08)
1858 Mar 21, British forces in India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1858 Mar 17, The Fenian Brotherhood, a brigade of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), a secret revolutionary group, was founded in Dublin by James Stephens. John O'Mahony headed the IRB's American wing, popularly known as the Fenian Brotherhood, which was composed of immigrants and Irish Americans whose ultimate goal was to free Ireland from British rule.
(HNQ, 4/17/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian)
1858 Mar 23, Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patented the cable street car, which ran on overhead cables.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1858 Mar 31, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen launched the SS New York, a passenger cargo vessel. It was sold to Edward Bates of Liverpool in 1874 and later wrecked near Staten Island. In 1994 Edwin Drechsel (1914-2006) later authored a 2-volume history of the North German shipping line.
(www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=15185)
1858 Apr 5, Washington Atlee Burpee, founded the world's largest mail-order seed company, was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)
1858 Apr 6, President Buchanan issued a proclamation declaring Mormons in the Utah Territory to be in a state of rebellion against the US government.
(AP, 4/6/08)
1858 Apr 7, Anton Diabelli (76), Austrian publisher, composer, died.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1858 Apr 10, London’s Big Ben bell, weighing over 13 tons, was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in East London. It was placed into St. Stephen’s Tower at the Houses of Parliament.
(SFC, 4/11/08, p.A16)(Econ, 12/24/16, p.122)
1858 Apr 15, At the Battle of Azimghur, Mexicans defeated the Spanish loyalists.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1858 Spring, Darwin sent advance proofs of "Origin of the Species" to Asa Gray, Harvard botanist, who was working up the botanical reports for the Great Exploring Expedition then surveying northern Japan. Gray was introduced to Darwin’s ideas by the geologist James Dwight Dana. [see Sep 5, 1857]
(NH, 6/96, p.6)
1858 Apr 23, Max K.E. Ludwig Planck, German physicist (Planck Constant, Nobel 1918), was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1858 Apr 28, NYC commissioners approved the “Greensward" plan for Central Park. Frederick Law Olmstead (1822-1903), the recently selected park superintendent, and landscape architect Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park. Olmstead and Vaux brought in George Waring, an expert on farm drainage, who raised low lying areas and installed a network of underground pipes to ensure that the grass would drain freely. The park had first opened in 1857, on 770 acres of city owned land. Construction began in 1858 and was completed in 1873. The initial budget for the new park was $1.5 million.
(ON, 6/10, p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Law_Olmsted)(Econ, 4/25/20, p.79)
1858 Apr 29, Austrian troops invaded Piedmont (Italy).
(HN, 4/29/98)
1858 Apr 30, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, Pres. B. Harrison's first lady, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1858 May 1, Anthony Johnson Showalter, composer, was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1858 May 4, In the Mexican War of Reform liberals established their capital at Vera Cruz.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1858 May 8, John Brown held an antislavery convention.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1858 May 11, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1858 May 15, Emily Folger, Shakespeare scholar, was born.
(HN, 5/15/01)
1858 May 28, Dion Boucicault's "Foul Play," premiered in London.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1858 Jun 2, Donati Comet was 1st seen and named after its discoverer.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1858 Jun 16, In a speech accepting the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Springfield, Ill., Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
(AP, 6/16/98)(HN, 6/16/98)
1858 Jun 16, Dr. John Snow (b.1813), English obstetrician, died of a stroke. He is considered the father of epidemiology for his efforts in documenting the spread of cholera in London epidemics.
(ON, 5/05, p.10)
1858 Jun 18, The US and China signed a treaty promoting "peace, amity and commerce."
(AP, 6/18/08)
1858 Jun 20, Charles Chesnutt, African-American novelist, was born in Cleveland. In 2002 Werner Sollors edited "Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays."
(HN, 6/20/01)(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A11)
1858 Jun 22, Giacomo Puccini (d.1924), Italian composer of Madam Butterfly, was born. His work included the opera "Calaf."
(WUD, 1994, p.1162)(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)(HN, 6/22/98)
1858 Jun 24, Inquisition police took 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara from his home in Bologna because his 16-year-old Catholic housekeeper had had Edgardo secretly baptized when he fell ill as an infant, fearing for his soul if he died. The Jewish-born boy eventually became a Catholic priest, taking Pius as his priestly name. He died in 1940 in Belgium. In 2018 it was reported that memoirs the boy wrote as an adult were altered before being published in 2005 to take the edge off his anti-Semitic views and enhance details favorable to the Catholic Church.
(AP, 4/20/18)
1858 Jun 29, George Washington Goethals, engineer of the Panama Canal, was born.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1858 Jun, The US Army entered Utah and installed a new governor.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1858 Jul 1, The Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution was 1st read at a meeting of the Linnaean Society of London.
(NH, 2/02, p.75)
1858 Jul 2, Czar Alexander II freed the serfs working on imperial lands.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1858 Jul 6, Lyman Blake patented a shoe manufacturing machine.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1858 Jul 9, Franz Boas, anthropologist, was born.
(HN, 7/9/01)
1858 Jul 13, Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin married in Alencon, France, and for 10 months refrained from sex in a “Josephite marriage." Assured by a priest that raising children was a sacred activity they went on to have 9 children, 5 of whom joined religious order. Their youngest daughter became famous as St. Theresa of Liseux, The Little Flower," canonized in 1925.
(WSJ, 10/17/08, p.W11)
1858 Jul 14, Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragist and founder of the Women's Social and Political Union, was born in Manchester, England.
(HN, 7/14/98)(AP, 7/14/08)
1858 Jul 16, Eugene Ysaye, violinist, conductor, composer (Pierill Houou), was born in Belgium.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1858 Jul 20, An admission of 50 cents was charged for the first time at the All Star baseball game between New York and Brooklyn.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.B8)
1858 Jul 23, Jewish Disabilities Removal Act was passed by British Parliament.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1858 Jul 24, During the Illinois senatorial campaign Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln challenged Democrat Steven Douglas to a series of joint debates, which covered the slavery controversy and its impact on the nation. The debates illuminated the positions of Lincoln and Douglas on slavery, which Lincoln regarded as "a moral, a social and a political wrong," while Douglas evaded the moral issue. Even though Lincoln narrowly won the popular vote, Douglas prevailed in the state legislature 54-41 and thus the election. The debates propelled Lincoln to national prominence.
(HNPD, 9/4/99)(AP, 7/24/08)
1858 Jul 26, Baron Lionel de Rothschild became the 1st Jew elected to British Parliament.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1858 Jul 29, Japan signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the United States.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(HN, 7/29/98)
1858 Jul, British explorer John Speke (1827-1864) discovered Lake Victoria, Africa, during a side trip under the Burton expedition.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml)
1858 Jul-1858 Aug, The summer Great Stink, aka The Big Stink, took place when the smell of untreated sewage almost overwhelmed people in central London, England. This persuaded the government to commission Sir Joseph Bazalgette to lay down a new network of sewers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink)(WSJ, 10/21/06, p.P8)
1858 Aug 5, Cyrus W. Field completed the first transatlantic cable. It linked Newfoundland to Ireland. The cable burned out after several weeks of use.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)(AP, 8/5/08)
1858 Aug 16, A telegraphed message from Britain’s Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable. The cable linked Ireland and Canada and failed after a few weeks.
(AP, 8/16/97)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)
1858 Aug 17, The 1st bank in Hawaii opened.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1858 Aug 21, The first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Ottowa, Ill. Douglas went on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time. Douglas stated in the 1st debate: "I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men."
(WSJ, 3/3/00, p.W11)(HN, 8/21/00)(AP, 8/21/08)
1858 Aug 23, "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," a play about the tragic consequences of consuming alcohol, opened in New York.
(AP, 8/23/08)
1858 Aug 24, Richmond "Daily Dispatch" reported 90 blacks arrested for learning.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1858 Aug 27, The 2nd of 7 of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial race of took place in Freeport, Ill. Stephen Douglas formulated what became known as the Freeport Doctrine, which stated that the people of a territory could, by lawful means, exclude slavery prior to the formulation of a state constitution. Douglas first pronounced it in response to a question posed by Lincoln as to how Douglas could reconcile the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" with the Dred Scott decision.
(HNQ, 6/4/99)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Sep 1, The 1st transatlantic cable failed after less than 1 month.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1858 Sep 8, Lincoln made a speech about when you can fool people.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1858 Sep 15, The third debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held in Jonesboro, Ill.
(AP, 9/15/08)
1858 Sep 15, The Butterfield Overland Mail Company began delivering mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. The company's motto was: "Remember, boys, nothing on God's earth must stop the United States mail!"
(HN, 9/15/99)
1858 Sep 15, Charles E Vicomte de Foucauld (d.1916), French explorer and hermit, was born in Strasbourg, France.
(www.manntaylor.com/foucauld.html)
1858 Sep 17, Dred Scott, US slave, died. (See Mar 6, 1857, decision US Supreme Court).
(MC, 9/17/01)
1858 Sep 18, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas held the fourth of their senatorial debates, this one in Charleston, Ill.
(AP, 9/18/08)
1858 Sep 28, Donati's comet became the 1st to be photographed.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1858 Sep 29, Rudolf Diesel, engineer, was born. He invented the diesel engine.
(HN, 9/29/00)
1858 Oct 7, Lincoln and Douglas held their 5th debate in Galesburg, Ill., on the Knox College campus.
(SFEM, 10/29/00, p.8)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Oct 9, Gerard L.F. Philips, Dutch engineer and manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1858 Oct 13, The sixth debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Quincy, Ill.
(AP, 10/13/08)
1858 Oct 15, John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxing champ (1882-92), was born in Mass.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1858 Oct 15, The seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
(ON, 4/08, p.2)(AP, 10/15/08)
1858 Oct 18, The play "Our American Cousin" by Tom Taylor premiered at Laura Keene's theater in New York.
(AP, 10/18/08)
1858 Oct 19, Alice Josephine McLellan Birney, child welfare worker, was born. Her ideas evolved into the PTA.
(HN, 10/19/00)
1858 Oct 21, Jacques Offenbach's opera "Orphee aux Enfers," premiered in Paris. The Can-Can music was part of the opera. Dancers in Paris displayed their tail feathers in a high kick routine called the "cancan." The word was a diminutive form of "canard," the word for duck, whose evenly displayed feathers were likened to those of the dancers.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, z1 p.7)(MC, 10/21/01)
1858 Oct 26, Hamilton Smith patented rotary washing machine.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1858 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States (1901-1909) who was the namesake of the "Teddy" bear, was born in New York City in a townhouse at 28 East 20th Street. Today a reconstruction of the house is a National Historic Site and open to the public. The 26th president of the U.S., Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919. He wrote the 4-volume "The Winning of the West." In 1996 The American Experience series broadcast a 4-hr. TV special that covered his life. His pursuit of boxing left him blind in one eye. He put 230 million acres of land under federal protection. "Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one."
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.C13)(AP, 10/27/97)(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)(HN, 10/27/98)(HNQ, 11/18/98) (AP, 4/22/99)
1858 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt’s words, "The only one who makes no mistakes is one who never does anything," were inscribed on the New York City home where he was born. The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site is located at 28 E. 20th Street in Manhattan, www.nps.gov/thrb.
(HNQ, 9/28/02)
1858 Oct 28, Rowland Hussey Macy opened his first New York store at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan.
(AP, 10/28/08)(SFC, 6/1/04, p.A1)
1858 Oct 31, Jeanie Johnston, a triple-masted barque, sank in the middle of the Atlantic with a load of timber. The crew was rescued by a Dutch ship. She was built in Quebec City for the Donovan family of Tralee. She was the best known of the "famine ships" that carried Irish refugees to the New World during the potato famine and returned with timber and food. A copy of the ship, built in Ireland, was scheduled for completion in 2000.
(SFC, 7/26/99, p.A8,10)
1858 Oct, Coaches of the Butterfield Overland Stage Co. began serving the SF peninsula. The Butterfield operation was already charged with carrying the US Mail from St. Louis to SF via southern Ca.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)
1858 Nov 2, In Illinois Abraham Lincoln won 4,085 more popular votes for the Senate than did Sen. Stephen Douglas; however Illinois senators were elected by the state legislatures and Douglas won reelection there by 8 votes.
(ON, 4/08, p.3)
1858 Nov 9, NY Symphony Orchestra made its 1st performance.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1858 Nov 20, Selma Lagerdorf, Swedish novelist, was born. Her work included "The Story of Gosta Berling."
(HN, 11/20/00)
1858 Dec 22, Giacomo Puccini, Italian operatic composer best known for Madam Butterfly, La Boheme and Tosca, was born in Lucca, Italy. [see Jun 22]
(HN, 12/22/98)(MC, 12/22/01)
1858 Dec 31, Vincas Kudirka (d.1899), author of the Lithuanian national anthem, was born in Vilkaviskis County.
(LC, 1998, p.30)(LHC, 12/31/02)
1858 Dec, The French government’s Council of State limited the ability of Paris to condemn property. Land could be seized for roads but properties along the projected roads could not be expropriated.
(ON, 9/06, p.10)
1858 Dec, Mexico's War for Liberal Reform, a three-year civil war lasting from December 1857 to December 1860, was fought between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party over the Constitution of 1857, promulgated under the liberal presidency of Ignacio Comonfort.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_War)
1858 August Czartoryski (d.1893) was born as a Polish prince. He became a Salesian priest and was beatified in 2004.
(AP, 4/25/04)
1858 Cyprian Clamorgan authored “The Coloured Aristocracy of St. Louis."
(http://tinyurl.com/gslleta)(Econ, 8/6/16, p.67)
1858 Longfellow wrote his poem: The Courtship of Miles Standish."
(WSJ, 11/24/04, p.A1)
1858 John Henry Newman, English Catholic cardinal, authored “The Idea of a University."
(Econ, 6/28/14, p.22)
1858 Sen. Seward denounced "an aristocracy of slaveholders" who controlled the country through their southern legislators: "I know that the Democratic Party must go down, and the Republican Party must rise in its place.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A16)
1858 In San Francisco a saloon was established on the corner of Center Street (later 16th Street) at Guerrero. It burned down in the 1906 earthquake and fire. A new building was erected on the site in 1907. On Nov 21, 2003, it re-opened as the Elixir. In 2017 it claimed to be the 2rd oldest saloon in the city.
(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.A2)(SSFC, 3/19/17, p.A2)
1858 In Sutter Creek, Ca., the American Exchange Hotel opened. In 1998 it was the oldest continuously operating hotel in the state.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T6)
1858 The California Supreme Court invalidated a law that prohibited the sale of goods on Sunday.
(WSJ, 8/11/00, p.W13)
1858 California voters and the state legislature approved a plan to split off a chunk of southern California and call it the Colorado Territory. Congress failed to ratify the plan as the Civil War loomed.
(SSFC, 7/20/14, p.A8)
1858 Stanford Health Services in Palo Alto, Ca. was founded as part of the Univ. of the Pacific.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-10)
1858 Jacob Gundlach bought a vineyard in Sonoma, Ca., and called it Rhinefarm. Charles Bundschu from Mannheim, Germany, known for his prose and keen business sense, joined the company in 1868, and became part of the family when he married Jacob Gundlach’s daughter Francisca in 1875.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundlach_Bundschu)
1858 Charles Krug, a German immigrant, decided to put Napa wine onto a business footing using the Mission grapes. He served a short apprenticeship under Col. Agoston Haraszthy in Sonoma.
(WCG, 7/95, p.21)
1858 A silver rush happened at Mt. St. Helena, Ca., but only a small amount of silver was produced.
(WCG, 7/95, p.22)
1858 Leland Stanford and his brother established San Francisco's first whale oil plant, the Pacific Oil and Camphene Works, at California and Front streets.
(SFC, 8/4/18, p.C4)
1858 John Mohler Studebaker (b1833) joined his two older brothers in a South Bend firm producing wagons. The company went on to become the world’s largest producer of farm wagons and carriages.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)(HNQ, 1/21/02)
1858 Pay dirt [silver] was struck in the Pike’s Peak region of the Colorado Territory.
(WW, 12/96)
1858 The city of Denver began as one of several prospecting camps on Cherry Creek in what is now downtown Denver. Gold-seeking settlers at the foot of the Rockies decided to call their settlement "Denver" after the governor of the Kansas Territory, in which the settlement was located.
(HNQ, 4/4/00)
1858 The Alcott family moved into a dilapidated house in Concord, Mass. The enterprising family turned the tenant farmhouse, once slated for destruction, into a place where Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and other literary neighbors would drop by for intellectual discussions. The Orchard House became the place where Louisa May Alcott wrote "Little Women" (1868).
(AP, 6/12/18)
1858 The Wornall House, at 61st Terr., Kansas City, Mo., was built by John B. Wornall as the center of a 500 acre farm. It was used as a hospital during the Civil War and survived two battles.
(Postcard, Paragon Products)
1858 In NYC Central Park was opened to the public.
(NG, 5/93, p.32)
1958 In Virginia miners and financiers settled on the banks of the Levisa Fork River and founded the town of Grundy to extract local coal deposits. Repeated flooding forced the town in 1997 to plan for a move to higher ground.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A3)
1858 In Washington DC the original board of the Washington Monument regained control after the Know-Nothing Party disbanded due to a split between pro- and anti-slavery factions.
(ON, 3/00, p.10)
1858 Geographer Antonio Snider-Pellegrini showed how the continents had once fit together.
(NH, 10/02, p.79)
1858 Hadrosaurus, one of the duck-billed dinosaurs, was unearthed by the Philadelphia anatomist Joseph Leidy.
(T.E.-J.B. p.24)
1858 Narcisse Pelletier (1844-1894) was abandoned during the dry season, on eastern Cape York Peninsula in Australia. He was discovered and rescued by an Aboriginal family and went on to live with the Uutaalnganu speakers for the next 17 years until he was found by the crew of the John Bell on 11 April 1875.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcisse_Pelletier)
1858 John Hanning Speke (1827-1864), British explorer, became the first European to visit Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake. Its shoreline touched Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanning_Speke)
1858 The first commercial tonic water first became available and was used as a prophylactic against malaria by the British in India.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonic_water)(Econ, 12/24/16, p.62)
1858 Canada developed its own currency.
(Econ, 5/12/12, p.78)
1858 Gold was reported found on the sand banks of the Fraser River in BC. The first Chinese arrived in British Columbia seeking gold along the Fraser River.
(enRoute, 2/96, p.21)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.T4)
1858 Henry Gray (1827-1861), English anatomist and surgeon, authored the textbook “Gray’s Anatomy." It defined the genre and dissected the body along thematic lines. In 2008 Ruth Richardson authored “The Making of Mr Gray’s Anatomy: Bodies, Books, Fortune, Fame."
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.72)(http://streetanatomy.com/blog/?p=48)(Econ, 11/15/08, p.99)
1858 Florence Nightingale published her “Notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency and hospital administration of the British army," in which she presented a new form of data display later known as “Nightingale’s Rose" or Nightingale’s coxcomb." This year she also became the first female fellow of the Statistical Society of London.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.74)
1858 In England the Covent Garden Royal Opera House was constructed in London. In 1997 it was scheduled for a $361 million refurbishment and slated to reopen in Dec, 1999.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.E3)
1858 Britain made British Columbia a crown colony.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.T4)
1858 The East India Company was abolished and the British government assumed the administration of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1858 Francis Frith (1822-1898) took a six month expedition up the Nile and shot numerous photographs that included 21 mammoth-plate views (20 x 24 inches).
(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-16)(SFC, 9/11/97, p.E3)
1858 Charles Frederick Worth, an English tailor in Paris, began haute couture. He was hired by Napoleon to create a suitable wardrobe for Princess Eugenie and trigger a demand for French fashion.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1858 In India King Rao Ram Baksh Singh was hanged in Uttar Pradesh after rising up against British colonial forces. In 2013 swami Shobhan Sarkar said a dream informed him that the king had left a $50 billion treasure under his fort.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A3)
1858 The Maori responded to Britain’s colonization of New Zealand by choosing a monarch of their own.
(SFC, 8/16/06, p.B7)
1858 Papal police took Edgardo Mortara (6), a Jewish boy, from the arms of his father after a Catholic housemaid claimed to have baptized the boy during an illness. Edgardo grew up a church ward and later became a priest.
(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)
1858-1863 These years are covered in Michael Shaara’s Civil War era novel "Gods and Generals."
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.D8)
1858-1867 Edgar Degas painted his portrait: "The Bellelli Family."
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E1)
1858-1868 Brahms spent about ten years composing his "Ein Deutsches Requiem, Opus 45," for solo voices, chorus and orchestra. It is considered his greatest choral work.
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed.p.310 )
1858-1862 In Mexico Benito Juarez served his 1st term as president. He succeeded in resisting the French and offered a moment of democracy before bending the constitution to stand for re-election.
(WUD, 1994, p.772)(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A12)
1858-1919 Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Italian composer and librettist.
(WUD, 1994, p.821)
1858-1922 Allesandro Moreschi, the last castrato singer. He was a member of the Sistine Chapel Chorus and recorded a few phonograph records in the first decade of the 20th century. "The sound on those records makes one shiver."
(LGC-HCS, p.44)
1858-1933 Henry Watson Fowler, English lexicographer-author: "We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out."
(AP, 7/31/00)
1858-1943 Beatrice Potter Webb, English sociologist: "Religion is love; in no case is it logic."
(AP, 11/8/98)
1858-1945 Felix Emmanuel Schelling, American educator and scholar: "True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success; the glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world."
(AP, 12/15/97)
1858-1947 Max Planck, German physicist. He proved that in order to fit the theoretical curves of the energy distribution with the experimental curve of emission of hot bodies, it is necessary to assume that this minimum amount of radiant energy be equal to hv, where v is the frequency and h a universal constant known as the quantum, or Planck’s, constant. This constant is 10-27 cm.-gm.-sec.
(SCTS, p.47)
1858-1950 Agnes Repplier, American essayist: "The man who never tells an unpalatable truth 'at the wrong time' (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured."
(AP, 3/26/99)
1859 Jan 9, Carrie Lane Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, was born.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1859 Jan 20, The Federal War began in Venezuela. Ezequiel Zamora (1817-1860) led the Federalist Army until his assassination on Jan 10, 1860.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_War)
1859 Jan 22, Brahms' 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premiered in Hanover.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1859 Jan 27, Kaiser Wilhelm II, German emperor (1888-1918) during World War I, was born. He was forced to abdicate in 1918.
(HN, 1/27/99)(MC, 1/27/02)
1859 Feb 1, Victor Herbert was born. (cellist, conductor: Pittsburgh Symphony; composer: operettas: Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta; songs: Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (at Last I’ve Found You)
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1859 Feb 14, George Washington Gale Ferris, inventor of the Ferris Wheel, was born.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1859 Feb 14, Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
(HN, 2/14/98)(AP, 2/14/98)
1859 Feb 17, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premiered in Napoli.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1859 Feb 18, Shalom Aleichem (Solomon Rabinowitz, d.1916), Russian-Yiddish playwright, author and humorist, was born. "To want to be the cleverest of all is the biggest folly."
(WUD, 1994 p.35)(AP, 1/13/01)
1859 Feb 19, Svante Arrhenius, Swedish chemist, founder of physical chemistry, was born.
(HN, 2/19/01)
1859 Feb 19, Daniel E. Sickles, NY congressman, was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity. This was the 1st time this defense was successfully used. Sickles had shot and killed Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, author of "Star Spangled Banner." He shot Lee, the DC district attorney, in Lafayette Square for having an affair with his wife. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity and the sanctity of a man’s home and beat the murder rap.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.W10)(MC, 2/19/02)
1859 Feb 25, The "insanity plea" was 1st used to prove innocence.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1859 Feb 28, Arkansas legislature required free blacks to choose exile or slavery.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1859 Mar 1, The present seal of San Francisco was adopted (its 2nd).
(SC, 3/1/02)
1859 Mar 8, Kenneth Grahame, Scottish author who created the children’s classic "The Wind in the Willows," was born.
(HN, 3/8/99)
1859 Mar 10, Henry David Thoreau recorded in his journal the hearing of his first spring bluebird.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1859 Mar 19, The opera "Faust" by Charles Gounod premiered in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1859 Mar 21, Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the 1st in US, was incorporated.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1859 Mar 21, The Scottish National Gallery opened in Edinburgh.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1859 Mar 26, A.E. Houseman (d.1936), critic, classics scholar and poet (A Shropshire Lad), was born. A 1997 fictionalized portrait of Alfred Edward Housman, "The Invention of Love: Memory Play," was written by Tom Stoppard. He is best known for his work "A Shropshire Lad."
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.T9)(SFC, 1/15/00, p.B1)(HN, 3/26/01)
1859 Mar 26, 1st sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1859 Mar 28, 1st performance of John Brahms' 1st Serenade for orchestra.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1859 Apr 3, Reginald De Koven, composer (Robin Hood), was born.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1859 Apr 4, Knut Hamsun, Norwegian writer, was born. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1920. His work included "From the Cultural Life in Modern America" (1889), "Hunger," "The Growth of the Soil," "Victoria," and "An Overgrown Path." A film portrait of his life was produced in 1997.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47-49)
1859 Apr 4, Giacomo Meyerbeer's Opera "Dinorah" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1859 Apr 7, Walter Camp, father of American football, was born in Connecticut.
(HN, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1859 Apr 9, Realizing that France had encouraged the Piedmontese forces to mobilize for invading Italy, Austria began mobilizing its army.
(HN, 4/9/00)
1859 Apr 11, Basil Harwood, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1859 Apr 14, Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" was published.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1859 Apr 14, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy (b.1783), Bombay (later Mumbai) merchant and philanthropist, died. He is best know for pioneering India’s opium trade to China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Jamsetjee_Jejeebhoy,_1st_Baronet)
1859 Apr 16, Alexis de Tocqueville (b.1805), French writer, died in Cannes. His collected writings filled 17 volumes and included "Democracy in America" (1835) and "The Old Regime and the French Revolution" (1856). In 2001 a new English translation by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop was published. In 2001 Sheldon S. Wolin authored "Tocqueville Between Two Worlds." In 2006 Hugh Brogan authored “Alexis de Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of Revolution – A Biography."
(WSJ, 9/26/01, p.A18)(www.tocqueville.org/chap1.htm)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.85)
1859 Apr 25, Ground was broken in Egypt for the Suez Canal.
(AP, 4/25/97)(HN, 4/25/02)
1859 Apr 27, "Pomona" sank in North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1859 Apr 29, In the Italian Campaign some 150,000 Piedmontese troops invaded Piedmontese territory as the French army raced to support them and the Austrian army mobilized to oppose them.
(HN, 4/29/00)
1859 Apr, In Paris, France, about 20 unlicensed stockbrokers were arrested and had their papers seized at the instigation of the market’s regulated brokers. the unregulated brokers were freed within days under pressure from clients.
(Econ, 5/11/13, SR p.9)
1859 May 3, France declared war on Austria.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1859 May 6, Baron Freidrich von Humboldt (b.1769), German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps, died. In 2015 Andrea Wulf authored “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.78)
1859 May 9, Threatened by the advancing French army, the Austrian army retreated across the River Sesia in Italy.
(HN, 5/9/00)
1859 May 10, French emperor Napoleon III left Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1859 May 15, Pierre Curie, physicist (Nobel 1903), was born. He and his wife discovered radium.
(HN, 5/15/99)(MC, 5/15/02)
1859 May 20, A scratch force of Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy.
(HN, 5/20/00)
1859 May 22, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (d.1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes series, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He wrote 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes. "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." In 1999 Daniel Stashower published the biography: "Teller of Tales."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 5/22/98)(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1859 May 26, Captain James Simpson and his party, looking for the shortest route across Nevada, crossed the Hickison Summit into Big Smoky Valley. Their path was later followed by the Pony Express (1860) and the Overland Mail and Stage (1861).
(BLM, 2001)
1859 May 28, The French army launched a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.
(HN, 5/28/00)
1859 May 30, The Piedmontese army crossed the Sesia River and defeated the Austrians at Palestro, Italy.
(HN, 5/30/00)
1859 May, The San Francisco Industrial School opened as privately chartered "house of refuge" for destitute children. It was located in an area that later became George M. Rush Stadium of SF City College. In its first year it took in 60 boys and 5 girls and the children were put to work clearing its 100 acres and working on its farm. The school was run more as a prison than as a school and in 1872 was taken over by the city. In 1892 it was closed and became a women's prison.
(SFC, 3/17/18, p.C1)
1859 Jun 2, French forces crossed the Ticino River, the last natural barrier between themselves and Milan with the Austrians in retreat.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1859 Jun 4, The French army under Napoleon III took Magenta from the Austrian army after a bloody battle in northern Italy.
(HN, 6/4/99)
1859 Jun 11, The Comstock silver load was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. Prospector James Finney stumbled across thick, bluish clay in western Nevada. A fellow minor, Henry Comstock, gave his name to the lode, the most lucrative silver ore mine in history. Ott’s Assay Office in Nevada City, Ca., first assayed samples of the rich Comstock Lode of Nevada. Four Irishmen known as the Bonanza Kings bought up shares in the Comstock mines and became rich. They were John Mackay (1831-1902), James Fair, James Flood, and William O’Brian. Ore from the Comstock lode was hauled by horse-drawn wagon over Donner Pass to SF. In 2018 Gregory Crouch authored "The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches in the American West."
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)(SFC, 4/14/96, T-3)(SFC, 5/19/96, City Guide, p.17)(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.107)(SC, 6/11/02)(SFC, 6/26/18, p.E1)
1859 Jun 11, Prince Metternich (b.1773), Austrian diplomat and statesman, died in Vienna.
(WUD, 1994 ed., p.903)(Internet)
1859 Jun 21, Henry Ossawa Tanner, African-American painter, was born.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1859 Jun 24, At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I in northern Italy.
(HN, 6/24/99)(HNQ, 9/16/99)
1859 Jun 30, French acrobat Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope as 5,000 spectators watched.
(AP, 6/30/97)(HN, 6/30/98)
1859 Jul 1, John Wise (d.1879), O. A. Gager and John La Mountain took off on a maiden balloon flight to carry mail from St. Louis to NYC. They landed in Jefferson County, New York state on July 2. Their over 800-mile flight stood as a record until 1900.
(ON, 11/00, p.8)
1859 Jul 8, With the signing of the truce at Villafranca Austria ceded Lombardy to France. France also received Nice and Savoy.
(HN, 7/8/99)
1859 Jul 12, William Goodale patented a paper bag manufacturing machine in Mass.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1859 Jul 28, Balington Booth, founder of Volunteers of America, was born.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1859 Aug 3, U.S. Army captain George Edward Pickett faced the British in the Pacific Northwest. Pickett had served with valor in the Mexican War right after his graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and he had subsequently seen duty at several frontier posts. On August 3, 1859, the man whose name would be forever linked to the most famous of all Civil War charges was the American commander on the scene as the United States and Great Britain again stood on the brink of war in the San Juan Islands Pig War.
(HNQ, 2/4/01)
1859 Aug 4, French priest John Vianney (b.1789), known as the Cure of Ars, died. He had helped to hide priests on the run during the French Revolution. In 1925 he was canonized by Pope Pius XI, who in 1929 made him patron saint of parish priests. In 2019 the Knights of Columbus fraternity sponsored a US pilgrimage of his heart.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vianney)(AP, 4/6/19)
1859 Aug 9, The escalator was patented. The first working escalator appeared in 1900. Manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris Exposition, it was installed in a Philadelphia office building the following year.
(HN, 8/9/00)
1859 Aug 12, Katherine Lee Bates (d.1929), educator, author and composer of "America the Beautiful," was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.126)(HN, 8/12/01)
1859 Aug 17, Harry Colcord crossed over the Niagara Falls while strapped to the back of French tightrope walker Blondin.
(www.simpenguin.com/genealogy/blondin/charlesblondinbio.html)
1859 Aug 27-28, The US oil business was born in Titusville, Pa. Former army officer Colonel Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in Titusville, Pa., striking oil at 70 feet and setting off a wild scramble for wealth similar to the California gold rush of 1849. The land belonged to the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. Until that time, the company had simply collected oil that seeped out of the ground. Drake's plan was to produce it in large quantities for use in heating and illumination. Overnight oil fields sprang up in Pennsylvania but competition, disorganization and oversupply kept oil prices low. It was not until John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company came onto the scene in 1870 that the petroleum industry developed into a vastly profitable, although much hated, monopoly.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(AP, 8/27/97)(HNPD, 10/4/98)(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9) (HNQ, 2//99)
1859 Aug 28, Leigh Hunt (b.1784), English poet and essayist, died. He is remembered for his immortal couplet: “The Two divinist things this world has got: / A lovely women in a rural spot. In 2005 Nicholas Roe authored “Fiery Heart: The first Life of Leigh Hunt." Anthony Holden authored “The Wit in the Dungeon: The Life of Leigh Hunt."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.80)(WSJ, 12/6/05, p.D8)
1859 Sep 1, The 1st Pullman sleeping car went into service. George M. Pullman began outfitting railroad cars. His company was incorporated in 1867.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)(MC, 9/1/02)
1859 Sep 1, British astronomers Richard C. Carrington (33) and R. Hodgson (1804-1872) independently made the 1st observation of a solar flare, aka coronal mass ejection. A day later auroras lit up all of the British Isles. Telegraph communication was disrupted in every technically advanced nation.
(ON, 4/12, p.5)(Econ, 2/25/17, p.67)(Econ., 6/27/20, p.14)
1859 Sep 5, Harriot E. Wilson’s "Our Nig," was published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1859 Sep 9, The SS Great Eastern's first voyage was cut short by a boiler explosion. The 22,500-ton (displacement) iron steamship, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was built on the Thames River, England. It had been christened Leviathan during an initial launching attempt in early November 1857. Thereafter it was always known as the Great Eastern.
(http://tinyurl.com/2u23gy3)
1859 Sep 13, David C. Broderick, a US Senator, faced David S. Terry, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, in a duel at Lake Merced. Broderick was hit in the chest and died after 60 hours. Terry resigned his position and was charged with murder, but not convicted. The weapons used were a pair of Belgian .58-caliber pistols on loan from an associate of Terry. Broderick’s weapon was set with a hair-trigger, and misfired. The pistols sold at auction in 1998 for $34,500.
(PI, 5/30/98, p.5A)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.B8)
1859 Sep 15, Isambard Brunel (b.1806), engineer of England’s Thames Tunnel, died. He was the son of Marc Brunel, the engineer who initiated the project. In 2002 R. Angus Buchanan authored “Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel)(ON, 8/07, p.7)
1859 Sep 17, The San Francisco Call Bulletin published a notice on an inside page announcing that Joshua Norton (~1818-1880), formerly a prominent SF businessman, has proclaimed himself Norton I, “Emperor of these United States." Norton lived at the Eureka Lodging House at 624 Commercial St., where he paid 50 cents a night for a modest room. The Masons provided him a stipend for the lodging. Norton soon added himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico with a proclamation delivered to the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin. He annexed the whole of the US and suspended the Constitution.
(HFA, ‘96, p.64)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC, 9/17/09, p.A1)(SFC, 4/1/17, p.C2)
1859 Sep 20, George Simpson patented the electric range.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1859 Oct 4, Karl Baedeker (b.1801), German travel writer and tour guide (Die Schweiz), died.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1859 Oct 9, Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery officer who was falsely accused of giving French military secrets to foreign powers, was born.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1859 Oct 16, On Sunday evening radical abolitionist John Brown and a tiny army of five black and 13 white supporters seized the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Convinced that local slaves would rise up behind him, Brown planned to establish a new republic of fugitives in the Appalachian Mountains. Brown's plans immediately went awry when the expected slave rebellion did not happen and the townspeople trapped Brown's men inside the engine house at the Federal arsenal. Within 24 hours, Brown and his four surviving men were captured by a force of 90 U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, pictured here. Brown, quickly convicted of criminal conspiracy and treason and sentenced to death, was hanged on December 2, 1859. As he went to the gallows, Brown handed a note to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." The incident is the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s novel "Flashman and the Angel of the Lord." Brown was convicted and executed at Charlestown for treason against the state of Virginia. In 2011 Tony Horwitz authored “John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War."
(WSJ, 4/10/95, p. A-16)(AP, 10/16/97)(HNPD, 10/16/98)(HNQ, 2/3/00)(SSFC, 10/30/11, p.F4)
1859 Oct 17, Childe Hassam (d.1935), American impressionist painter, etcher and illustrator, was born. His work included "St. Patrick's Day."
(WUD, 1994, p.649)(HN, 10/17/00)
1859 Oct 18, Henri Bergson (d.1941), French philosopher (Creative Evolution- Nobel 1927), was born. He is said to have taught that man acts first and thinks later as opposed to Descartes who said man thinks before he acts. He won the 1927 Nobel Prize for Literature. His dualistic philosophy held that man's intellect enables him to appraise the world and his intuition tells him something of the all-pervading life force, or elan vital. He was a spokesman for "process philosophy." "Only those ideas that are least truly ours can be adequately expressed in words."
(AHD, 1971, p.125)(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(AP, 10/18/99)(MC, 10/18/01)
1859 Oct 19, Pres. James Buchanan signed a letter that confirmed the return of California mission properties to the church.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
1859 Oct 19, Georg Knorr, German engineer (brake system trains), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1859 Oct 20, John Dewey (d.1952), American political philosopher, educational theorist and writer (Learn by doing), was born in Michigan. He was called an advanced liberal and in 1995 Alan Ryan publishes a biography on Dewey titled: John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. Ryan points out that Dewey’s ideas were anti-institutional, that he advocated economic and social democracy, that he was more of a romantic and concerned with how things ought to be in an ideal world. "Open-mindedness is not the same as empty-mindedness. To hang out a sign saying, ‘Come right in; there is no one at home’ is not the equivalent of hospitality."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., ‘95, p.77)(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.15)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(MC, 10/20/01)(AP, 2/25/98)
1859 Oct 22, Louis (Ludwig) Spohr (75), composer (Faust), died.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1859 Oct 22, Spain declared war on the Moors in Morocco.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1859 Nov 1, Henry David Thoreau stood up in front of a crowd in Boston’s Tremont Temple and delivered a lecture in support of abolitionist John Brown.
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.67)
1859 Nov 12, The first flying-trapeze circus act was performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus Napoleon in Paris. He designed the garment that bears his name.
(HN, 11/12/00)(MC, 11/12/01)
1859 Nov 19, Mikhail Mikhayl Ippolitov-Ivanov, Russian musician (Armenian Rhapsody), was born.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1859 Nov 21, Shoin Yoshida (1830), Japanese intellectual who inspired Meiji reformers, died. “Once a man’s will is set, he can triumph through any obstacle."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshida_Sh%C5%8Din)(Econ, 6/28/14, p.12)
1859 Nov 22, Ludwig "Louis" Spohr (75), German violinist and composer (Faust), died.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1859 Nov 23, Billy the Kid (born as Henry McCarty), was born as William H. Bonney (d.1881) in New York City. He later became a US outlaw. A ballet titled "Billy the Kid" by Aaron Copland was written in 1938.
(HFA, ‘96, p.42)(WUD, 1994, p.148)(MesWP)(HNQ, 7/9/01)
1859 Nov 24, Cass Gilbert (d.1934), architect, was born. His work included the NYC Woolworth Building, completed in 1913.
(HN, 11/24/00)(WSJ, 1/10/00, p.A20)
1859 Nov 24, British naturalist Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," or "The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." The first printing of 1,250 copies sold out in a single day. It explained his theory of evolution.
(V.D.-H.K.p.280)(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)(AP, 11/24/97)(HN, 11/24/00)
1859 Nov 28, Washington Irving (b. Apr 3,1783) American essayist, author, historian, biographer, attorney/lawyer, died. He was buried in the Hudson Valley Old Dutch Church cemetery in Tarrytown. He was born in New York City and wrote the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." In 2007 Andrew Burstein authored “The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving."
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2D)(WSJ, 2/27/07, p.D5)
1859 Dec 2, George Seurat (d.1891), French artist, was born in Paris. He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1875. His method of painting with bright colors juxtaposed as tiny dots was called pointillism, often called Neo-Impressionism.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.E4)(WUD, 1994, p.1306)(DPCP 1984)(HN, 12/2/98)
1859 Dec 2, John Brown, US abolitionist, was hanged for his raid on Harper’s Ferry the previous October. Brown was convicted and executed at Charlestown for treason against the state of Virginia after his unsuccessful October 16-18 raid at Harpers Ferry. Six of Brown‘s men were later convicted and hanged. In 1910 Oswald Garrison Villard authored an account of Brown’s life. In 1972 Richard O. Boyer authored "The Legend of John Brown." In 1998 Russell Banks published his novel "Cloudsplitter," narrated by Owen Brown (1824-1889), the 3rd son of John Brown. In 2005 David S. Reynolds authored “John Brown: Abolitionist."
(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.8)(ON, 7/02, p.8)(WSJ, 4/19/05, p.D8)(SSFC, 4/24/05, p.B1)
1859 Dec 5, Dion Boucicault's "Octaroon," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1859 Dec 8, Thomas De Quincey (b.1785), English essayist, died. In 2006 his essays on murder were collected and published under the title “On Murder." He is best know for his famous “Confessions of an Opium Eater" (1821).
(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029613/Thomas-De-Quincey)
1859 Dec 10, In Venezuela’s war for independence from Spain Ezequiel Zamora (1817-1860) led the Battle of Santa Ines. Zamora and 3,400 men defeated the Central Army of 2,300 men, with about 1,200 casualties altogether on both sides. Zamora had returned to Venezuela to lead the Federal War, which lasted to 1863.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_War)
1859 Dec 18, South Carolina declared itself an "independent commonwealth."
(MC, 12/18/01)
1859 Dec 28, Thomas Babington Macaulay (b.1800), English essayist, historian and politician, died. He was one of the first to advocate Indian independence, albeit on the grounds of English commercial self interest. In 2012 Zareer Masani authored “Macaulay: Pioneer of India’s Modernization.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)(Econ, 11/10/12, p.86)
1859 Dec 31, Luigi Ricci (54), composer, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1859 Havelock Ellis (d.1939), English psychologist, was born "What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance."
(AP, 2/9/02)
1859 Frederick Church painted his fantasy landscape "the Heart of the Andes."
(WSJ, 9/14/00, p.A24)
1859 Jean-Francois Millet painted "The Angelus," and it became the most reproduced painting of the 19th century.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.3)
1859 John Rogers bronze statues were used as molds for low cost painted plaster statues until 1892. An 1873 version showed Lincoln and Grant reading a map with Sec. of War Edward M. Stanton standing behind wiping his glasses.
(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)
1859 George Washington Parke Custis, Martha Washington’s grandson, wrote: "Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington."
(HT, 5/97, p.46)
1859 Francis Galton published his "Hereditary Genius." He advocated arranged marriages between men of distinction and women of wealth that would, he said, eventually produce a gifted race.
(V.D.-H.K.p.399)
1859 J.S. Mill authored “On Liberty in which he formulated the idea that society could restrict individual liberty only for society’s own protection.
(WSJ, 8/14/98, p.W11)(Econ, 4/24/04, p.86)
1859 The Murray’s "Handbook for Travelers in India" was first published.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.T5)
1859 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) authored "Notes on Hospitals," which combined two papers presented the year before at the Social Science Congress. She addressed every aspect of hospital management, from the purchase of iron bedsteads to replace the wooden ones, to switching to glass cups instead of tin. The 108-page book went on into three editions and established Nightingale once more as an international authority.
(HNQ, 4/29/01)
1859 Evangelist Phoebe Palmer published "Promise of the Father" on women’s right to preach.
(SFC, 3/30/97, Z1. p.6)
1859 Joseph Prestwich, English geologist, published his "Verification of Boucher de Perthes’ Claims" [that early man made stone tools]. The paper is a model of careful detailing of evidence, and from it we may date the birth of modern prehistory.
(RFH-MDHP, p.95)
1859 Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), Scottish doctor and writer, authored “Self-Help." It became a classic work on self-improvement.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.86)
1859 Author Emily Thornwell provided maidens with a model of the correct manner of accepting a marriage proposal in her etiquette book, "The Ladies' Guide to Perfect Gentility:"
"Sir: The attentions which you have so long and so assiduously shown to me have not escaped my notice; indeed how could they, since they were directed exclusively to me?...On consulting my parents, I find that they do not object to your proposal; therefore, I have only this to add--may we still entertain the same regard which we have hitherto cherished for each other, until it shall ripen in that affection which wedlock shall sanction, and which lapse of time will not allow to fade. Believe me to be, Yours, sincerely attached...."
(HNPD, 6/4/99)
1859 Brahms played his composition "Pianoforte Concerto in D minor" for the first time in public in Hanover under J. Joachim.
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed. p. 61)
1859 Berlioz wrote his version of Gluck’s opera "Orphee et Eurydice."
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.B3)
1859 Dixie, the musical anthem of the Civil War South, was first performed in New York City.
(SFC, 9/22/96, zone 1 p.2)
1859 The SF Call reported on the "Hoochie Coochie" dancers on the stages of the Bella Union, The Olympic and the Midway Plaisance and other dance halls: "dances of licentious and profane character, obscenity were served in superior style."
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.20)
1859 Pres. Buchanan ordered a blockade of Cuba to intercept American-owned slave ships.
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.C12)
1859 The US was party to a Friendship, Commerce and Navigation Treaty [with Paraguay]. The treaty was cited in 1998 (along with the 1963 Vienna Convention) as protecting the right of individuals jailed in a foreign land to contact their national consulate.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A3)
1859 In the US the Highlander Regiment, aka Cameron Highlanders, was formed. It was made up primarily of emigrant Scots and Scottish-Americans. It adopted the numerical designation of 79.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)
1959 Northern and Southern leaders socialized together for the last time at the Napier Ball in the Willard Hotel before the start of the US Civil War.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.E4)
1859 Lyman Cutlar, an American farmer, shot and killed a Berkshire boar uprooting his potato patch and the British threatened to put him into irons. The Pig War on San Juan Island forced an arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who awarded the San Juan islands off Washington state to the US. Six Royal Marines and 16 US soldiers died during the 13-year occupation from drownings, disease and suicides.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T8)
1859 The Texas Supreme Court said that the people cannot be oppressed and enslaved who are not first disarmed.
(NG, 5/88, mem. forum)
1859 In SF the Francisco Reservoir was built on Russian Hill. It was decommissioned in 1940. In 2018 a plan to convert it into a 4.5-acre park was approved.
(SFC, 3/15/18, p.D1)
1859 The town of Bodie, east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Calif., was founded. It was 8,400 feet high and later the site of a gold find. William S. Body found gold in Mono County and prompted the growth of the town of Bodie. It was later made a State Historic Park maintained in its original condition. In 2002 it became the state’s official Gold Rush ghost town. Neighboring Calico was designated the state’s official Silver Rush ghost town in 2003.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T3)(SFEC,11/23/97, p.D5)(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A2)
1859 Colonel Frederick W. Lander led an expedition to the West to survey a railroad route across Nevada to California. Artist Alfred Bierstadt accompanied the expedition.
(www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/sherman2.html)
1859 Richard Tobin, SF attorney, co-founded the Hibernia Savings and Loan Society.
(Daly City Fog Cutter, Vol 8 No. 3, 2008)
1859 San Francisco police Chief Martin Burke boasted that many prostitutes have been removed from the Chinatown area and other streets. There was no effort to actually end prostitution.
(SFC, 1/20/18, p.C2)
1859 In San Francisco the Chinese Presbyterian Mission Church founded the first school in the US to admit Chinese students. It closed after four months.
(SFC, 4/15/17, p.C1)
1859 The SF Call reported on the “Hoochie Coochie" dancers on the stages of the Bella Union, The Olympic and the Midway Plaisance and other dance halls: “dances of licentious and profane character, obscenity were served in superior style."
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.20)
1859 Milton Slocum Latham became governor of California. He resigned within hours after receiving an appointment to the US Senate. His SF home at 656 Folsom St. was alleged to be one of the most sumptuous in America.
(Ind, 1/9/98, p.5A)
1859 The population of SF was about 50,000 people.
(SFEM, 3/2/97, p.10)
1859 Claire Brown was the first black woman to come to Colorado. She helped establish the Adriance Church, one of the state’s first churches.
(Hem., 5/97, p.20)
1859 A law banning the carrying of concealed weapons was passed in Ohio.
(http://tinyurl.com/d337x96)
1859 Gustave Stomps (1827-1890), a German immigrant, founded a furniture company in Dayton, Ohio. The Stomps Burkhardt Co. of Dayton operated from 1890 to 1928.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1859 The Riemann Hypothesis was first proposed.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A2)
1859 One of the first reports relating tobacco to cancer was published in France.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1859 John Augustus, Boston businessman, died. He had instituted a practice called probation and helped spare some 2,000 convicted offenders from prison sentences. In 1891 the Mass. state legislature established the 1st official judicial probation system. In 1925 the US Congress passed the National Probation Act.
(ON, 5/02, p.5)
1859 Peter Lassen was killed at Paiute Peak near the Black Rock Desert by a single shot through the skull.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A9)
1859 In Australia the Yalumba Winery in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, was begun by the Sam Smith family.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.T5)
1859 A treaty between Britain and Guatemala defined the boundaries of Belize.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.A12)
1859 There was a rain of tiny fish over England.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1859 James Whistler (1834-1903), American painter, moved to London.
(Econ, 5/10/14, p.83)
1859 The British took Baluchistan, and Afghanistan became completely landlocked.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
1859 Imam Shamil (1797-1871), Caucasian (Chechen) warrior, surrendered and became an honorary captive of Alexander II.
(SFC, 8/13/99, p.A14)
1859 The Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya was incorporated into the Russian empire after hundreds of years of fighting. Czarist armies conquered Chechnya after decades of fighting.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A10)
1859 One of the first reports relating tobacco to cancer was published in France.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1859 Gaston Plante, French physicist, invented the first rechargeable battery.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1859 Leon Benouville (b.1821), French painter, died. His paintings included “The Wrath of Achilles" (1847).
(www.insecula.com/us/contact/A005594.html)
1859 A series of at least 4 Olympic competitions began in Athens, Greece.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.R16)
1859 Roatan Island, 40 miles off the mainland, was ceded to Honduras. The British had settled the island with African slaves and the islanders speak English with a Caribbean accent. It was controlled for a time by the pirate Henry Morgan.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T10)
1859 The onion-domed Great Synagogue was erected in the Jewish quarter of Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1859 The present church in Thingvellir, Iceland, was constructed.
(NH, 6/96, p.53)
1859 The first polo club, The Retreat in Silchar, India, was founded. It was organized by British soldiers in northern India.
(Hem., 7/95, p.87)
1859 Dr. David Livingstone, Scottish missionary, arrived in Malawi. The town of Livingstonia was later named in his honor.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.A10)
1859 Melchor Ocampo, a Mexican lawyer, scientist and liberal politician, penned a 537-word ode to marriage, which was incorporated as the vows in a new civil marriage law. They were meant to replace religious vows as Mexican liberals stripped away the Roman Catholic Church’s control over much of the country’s political, social and economic life. Conservative foes summarily executed Ocampo by firing squad for promoting the separation of church and state, but kept the amended vows in the new civil marriage law.
(AP, 7/30/06)
1859 Russia purchased the Alexander courtyard in Jerusalem.
(AP, 1/22/20)
1859 In Serbia the Zastava manufacturing plant in Kragujevac began operations.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A12)
1859 After four years in the United States, Alfred Nobel returned to Sweden and built a factory to manufacture the explosive nitroglycerin.
(HNPD, 10/21/98)
1859-1909 The Indian-head penny was minted over this time.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.W15)
1859-1927 Jerome K. Jerome, English author and humorist: "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do."
(AP, 5/30/97)
1859-1947 Carrie Chapman Catt, American feminist: "No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion."
(HN, 7/19/98)
1859-1954 The colonial period of Vietnam.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.T1)
Return to home
1855 Jan 5, King Camp Gillette, inventor (safety razor), was born.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1855 Jan 9, The clipper ship Guiding Star disappeared in Atlantic and 480 died.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1855 Jan 21, John M. Browning, US weapons manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1855 Feb 6, Britain’s home secretary Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (70), became prime minister and served until his death in 1865.
(http://tinyurl.com/zz6g5eq)(Econ, 7/9/16, p.46)
1855 Feb 10, US citizenship laws were amended to include all children of US parents born abroad.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1855 Feb 11, Josephine Marshall Jewell Dodge, American educator, pioneer in the concept of day nurseries for children, was born.
(HN, 2/11/01)
1855 Feb 19, Nicholas I Pavlovich (58), tsar of Russia (1825-55), died. Alexander II became tsar of Russia.
(www2.sptimes.com/Treasures/TC.2.3.17.html)
1855 Feb 22, In Washington DC the Know-Nothing Party seized control of the Washington Monument Association and kept control for 3 years.
(ON, 3/00, p.10)
1855 Feb 24, US Court of Claims was formed for cases against the government.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1855 Feb, There was a run on the California bank in Columbia and rumors of a failure caused a run throughout the state.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.T9)
1855 Mar 3, Congress approved $30,000 to test camels for military use. Sec. of War Jefferson Davis sent agents to northern Africa to purchase a small herd of camels and sent them to New Mexico to transport goods to California
(SC, 3/3/02)(SFC, 2/20/04, p.A22)
1855 Mar 3, Registration of letters was authorized by Congress.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1855 Mar 3, Architect Robert Mills (b.1781) designer of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., died. The structure, begun in 1848, was not completed until 1884.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.W18)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mills_(architect))
1855 Mar 8, The first train crossed Niagara Falls on a suspension bridge.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1855 Mar 13, Percival Lowell (d.1916), astronomer, was born. He predicted the discovery of the planet Pluto. He also wrote "The Soul of the Far East" and "Occult Japan." He predicted the existence of a planet beyond Neptune before Pluto was discovered by Tombaugh in 1930.
(NH, 12/96, p.22)(HN, 3/13/99)
1855 Mar 15, Louisiana established the 1st health board to regulate quarantine.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1855 Mar 24, Andrew Mellon, U.S. financier and philanthropist, was born. He developed interests in coal, railroads, steel and water power. He also donated his entire collection of paintings to the National Gallery of Art.
(HN, 3/24/00)
1855 Mar 24, Manhattan, Kansas, was founded as New Boston, Kansas.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1855 Mar 27, Abraham Gesner patented kerosene.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1855 Mar 30, First election in Territorial Kansas. Some 5,000 "Border Ruffians" invaded the territory from western Missouri and forced the election of a pro-slavery legislature.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1855 Mar 31, Charlotte Bronte (b.1816), English author (Jane Eyre), died. In 1994 Lyndall Gordon authored “Charlotte Bronte: A Passionate Life." In 2015 Clare Harmon authored “Charlotte Bronte: A Life."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB)(Econ, 10/31/15, p.78)
1855 Apr 18, Jean-Baptiste Isabey, painter, died.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1855 Apr 21, The 1st train crossed the Mississippi River's 1st bridge.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1855 Apr 26, Composer Gioacchino Rossini left Italy.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1855 Apr 29, Anatol K. Liadov, Russian composer (Bewitched Lake) [OS], was born.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1855 May 3, Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
(HN, 5/3/99)
1855 May 4, Camille Pleyel (66), Austrian piano builder, composer, died.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1855 May 5, NYC regained Castle Clinton. It would be used for immigration.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1855 May 10, Anatoli Liadov, composer (Enchanted Lake), was born in St Petersburg, Russia.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1855 Jun 1, William Walker (1824-1860), US adventurer, stormed into Granada, Nicaragua. On July 12, 1857, he declared himself president. Walker reestablished slavery and planned an 18-mile canal from Lake Nicaragua to the Pacific. (SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F4)(www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/walker.html)
1855 Jun 5, The anti-foreign, anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party held its 1st convention.
(MC, 6/5/02)
1855 Jun 13, Verdi's opera "Les Vepres Sicilenne" was produced (Paris).
(MC, 6/13/02)
1855 Jun 14, Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, reform movement leader, Governor of Wisconsin, U.S. Senator, Progressive Party presidential candidate, was born.
(HN, 6/14/98)
1855 Jun 15, Stamp duty on British newspapers was abolished.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1855 Jun 17, Heavy French-British shelling of Sebastopol killed over 2000.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1855 Jul 4, One of America's greatest poets -- Walt Whitman -- published the first edition of his famous "Leaves of Grass", a collection of 12 poems. Whitman published the edition himself and had about 1,000 copies printed. He later recalled about the publication, "I don't think one copy was sold, not a copy." The book was published in Philadelphia after the Boston district attorney cited 22 passages as violating a state law against obscenity. The book revealed the poet’s homosexuality in coded verse.
(SFEC, 9/14/97, BR p.7)(IB, Internet, 12/7/98)(SFC, 3/3/99, Z1 p.9)
1855 Jul 4, The Whaling ship Candace, built in Boston in 1818, entered SF Bay and never left. In 2005 it was found at a SF construction site at Folsom and Spear streets.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.A1)
1855 Jul 18, In Philadelphia William Still, a leader in the Underground Railroad, liberated Jane Johnson and her 2 sons from Col. John H. Wheeler, the recently appointed US Minister to Nicaragua. Still was tried and acquitted. "The Underground Railroad" by William Still was published in 1871.
(ON, 10/01, p.5)
1855 Jul 30, Wilhelm von Siemens, German industrialist, was born.
(MC, 7/30/02)
1855 Aug 4, John Bartlett, a Cambridge bookseller, published the 1st edition of "Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations."
(WSJ, 10/18/02, p.W17)(MC, 8/4/02)
1855 Sep 3, General William Harney defeated Little Thunder’s Brule Sioux at the Battle of Blue Water in Nebraska.
(HN, 9/3/98)
1855 Sep 6, Ferdinand B. Hummel, composer, was born.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1855 Sep 9, Sevastopol, under siege for nearly a year, fell to the Allies. France, England, the Ottoman Empire and Sardinia (as Italy was then known) defeated the Russians at Sevastopol in the decisive battle of the Crimean War.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War)(SFC, 7/27/13, p.C2)
1855 Sep 27, George F. Bristow's "Rip Van Winkle," 2nd American opera, opened in NYC.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1855 Oct 9, Isaac Singer patented sewing machine motor.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 9, Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass., patented the 1st calliope.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 12, Arthur Nikisch, later conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, was born in Szent-Miklos, Hungary.
(MC, 10/12/01)
1855 Oct 13, Gottfried Rieger, composer, died at 91.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1855 Oct 18, Franz Liszt's "Prometheus," premiered.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1855 Oct 26, Charles Post, creator of breakfast cereals (Post Cereals), was born. [see Oct 25, 1854]
(MC, 10/26/01)
1855 Nov 5, Eugene V. Debs, American socialist leader and first president of the American Railway Union, was born.
(HN, 11/5/98)
1855 Nov 11, The 6.9 Ansei Edo earthquake hit near Edo (Tokyo), Japan. Some 8,000 casualties resulted with about 14,000 structures destroyed.
(www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/g/j/gjs4/2008_Shaken%20and%20Rectified.pdf)(Econ, 7/4/09, p.39)
1855 Nov 11, Soren A. Kierkegaard (b.1813), Danish philosopher and theologian, died. In 2005 Joakim Garff authored “Søren A. Kierkegaard: A Biography."
(www.connect.net/ron/kierkegaard.html)(WSJ, 2/3/05, p.D8)
1855 Nov 15, In San Francisco Charles Cora, a professional gambler, attended the opening of the American Theater with Belle Ryan, the city’s most beautiful and famous prostitute. US marshal William Richardson complained of Ryan’s presence, but management refused to eject her. Richardson later accosted the gambler on Montgomery Street and Cora shot him dead. A trial resulted in a hung jury but Cora remained in jail.
(SFC, 7/26/14, p.C5)(SFC, 8/24/19, p.C2)
1855 Nov 21, Franklin Colman, a pro-slavery Missourian, gunned down Charles Dow, a Free Stater from Ohio, near Lawrence, Kansas.
(HN, 11/22/02)
1855 Nov 26, Several thousand people staged a parade and banquet at South Park, SF, to celebrate the Allied victory over the Russians in the Crimean War, the capture of the Malakoff fortress in Sevastopol.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.WBb3)
1855 Nov 26, Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (b.1798) died in Constantinople. He was a poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor of Slavic literature, and political activist. Mickiewicz is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania (Adomas Mickevičius) and Belarus.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Mickiewicz)
1855 Nov, In San Francisco Charles Cora, a professional gambler, attended the opening of the American Theater with Belle Ryan, the city’s most beautiful and famous prostitute. US marshal William Richardson complained of Ryan’s presence, but management refused to eject her. Richardson later accosted the gambler on Montgomery Street and Cora shot him dead. A trial resulted in a hung jury but Cora remained in jail.
(SFC, 7/26/14, p.C5)
1855 Dec 12, Jean de Charpentier (b.1786), a German-Swiss geologist, died in Bex, Switzerland.
(ON, 10/08, p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_de_Charpentier)
1855 Dec 14, Ice hockey was played by 2 military teams in Canada. [see 1875]
(http://library.thinkquest.org/10480/hockey.html)(CFA, ‘96, p.60)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R34)
1855 Dec 27, Paul Ehrenreich, German ethnologist and mythologist, was born.
(MC, 12/27/01)
c1855 Alexandre Marie Colin painted a portrait of Napoleon III.
(WSJ, 4/3/03, p.D8)
1855 Eugene Delacroix painted "The Riding Lesson."
(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A16)
1855 Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), French impressionist, moved to France from his native St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.
(WSJ, 1/14/97, p.A16)(Hem., 1/97, p.124)(WUD, 1994, p.1097)
1855 James McNeill Whistler, American painter and etcher, moved to France and England.
(WUD, 1994, p.1628)
1855 P.T. Barnum wrote "The Life of P.T. Barnum, Written by Himself."
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1855 Hinton Rowan Helper of North Carolina published “The Land of Gold: Reality vs. Fiction," in which he critically commented on California and San Francisco based on his three plus years in the state. “Suffice it to say that we know of no country in which there is so much corruption, villainy, outlawry, intemperance, licentiousness, and every variety of crime, folly and meanness." The book was republished in 1948 under the title “Dreadful California."
(SFC, 6/20/15, p.C1)
1855 Alexander Herzen, the father of Russian socialism, published "My Past and Thoughts." In 1998 Aileen M. Kelly published "Toward Another Shore," a collection of writings on the Russian Revolutionary tradition.
(WSJ, 8/24/98, p.A10)
1855 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow composed his poem "Hiawatha."
(NH, 5/97, p.34)
1855 A novella by Herman Melville, "Benito Cereno" looked at the 1839 rebellion of the Amistad slave ship through the eyes of an American interloper.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A16)
1855 Frank Soule, John H. Gihon and James Nisbet authored their 800 plus-page “The Annals of San Francisco."
(https://archive.org/details/annalsofsanfranc00soul)(SFEC, 2/9/97, p.W4,5)
1855 The Point Bonita Lighthouse was built for ships approaching the Golden Gate of San Francisco.
(G, Summer ‘97, p.5)
1855 The Hoyt House, overlooking the Hudson River in Dutchess County, N.Y., was designed by Calvert Vaux. It was acquired by the state in 1962 for $300,000. It became an orphan property of the state and in 1998 was offered to private benefactors on a 40-year lease.
(SFC, 3/11/98, Z1 p.9)
1855 The Lawler House in Suisun City, Ca. was built at 718 Main St.
(Hem., Nov.’95, p.91)
1855 The Point Pinos Lighthouse on the Monterey Peninsula began operation.
(Hem., 1/96, p.26)
1855 Dwight L. Moody, Biblicist and later founder of the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, embraced Jesus as his personal savior in a Boston shoe store.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A1)
c1855 Black cast iron furniture moved indoors.
(SFC, 7/17/96, z-1, p.7)
1855 Massachusetts issued the first state school vaccine mandate in the US for smallpox.
(SSFC, 9/26/21, p.A16)
1855 Marshall Field (21) moved to Chicago from Pittsfield, Mass. Potter Palmer, owner of a retail and wholesale operation, later sold his business to Marshall Field and bookkeeper Levi Z. Leiter. In 1947 John Tebbel authored "The Marshall Fields: A Study in Wealth." In 2002 Axel Madsen authored "The Marshall Fields: The Evolution of an American Business Dynasty."
(WSJ, 10/9/02, p.D8)
1855 The first white man, surveyor Henry Washington, arrived in the area of Twenty-Nine Palms of Southern California.
(Sp., 5/96, p.123)
1855 John Brown moved to Kansas to join the escalating fight between pro and anti slavery factions.
(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1855 In Oregon some 400 pioneers arrived via the Oregon Trail and established the first Christian communal society west of the Mississippi at Aurora.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.T6)
1855 In the summer the first tourists visited Yosemite Valley.
(SFEC,12/28/97, Z1 p.1)
1855 Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States, declined to accept an honorary degree from the University of Oxford, proclaiming, "I had not the advantage of a classical education, and no man should, in my judgment, accept a degree he cannot read."
(HNQ, 2/17/99)
1855 The US government signed a treaty with some American Indians that gave them permanent rights to their existing lands. The Makah tribe of Washington secured a right to hunt whales in exchange for ceding title to their land. In 1972 the Marine Mammals Protection Act prohibited the slaughter of whales without a permit.
(SFEC, 6/15/97, Par. p.5)(SFC,10/24/97, p.A9)(SSFC, 7/13/08, p.E4)
1855 Nez Perce elders agreed to sell most of their land to the US government. They retained some 10 thousand square miles as a reservation in the area where Washington, Oregon and Idaho meet. Gold was soon discovered in the area and in 1863 the US government called for a new deal.
(ON, 3/04, p.1)
1855 In northern California tensions between the Wintu Indians and miners brewed into the Battle of Castel Crags. This became one of several triggers for the Modoc War (1872-1873).
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G8)
1855 The US built the Panama Railroad.
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.G4)
1855 George Calvert Yount (1794-1865) founded a town he named Sebastopol in Napa Valley, Ca. Another town already had that name and in 1867 it was renamed Yountville.
(http://www.westsong.com/yountville/)(SSFC, 12/5/04, Par p.8)
1855 Raphael Weill, a French Jew, came to San Francisco and in three years became a partner in the J.W. Davidson Dry Goods Store, one of the biggest dry goods dealers in California. By 1885, the store was all his. The store was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. In 1909 a Beaux Arts-style building on the corner of Sutter and Grant became the home to Raphael Weill & Company and commonly known as the White House. The White House department store closed in 1965. Raphael Weill was a founding member of the Bohemian Club.
(www.timeshutter.com/image/san-francisco-cal-white-house)
1855 A depression slowed progress in San Francisco when the money supply dwindled after banks had overextended in loans to unprofitable ventures.
(SFC, 5/19/96, City Guide, p.16)
1855 In SF the State Marine Hospital building became the City and County Hospital of San Francisco with Dr. Hugh Toland of South Carolina serving as surgeon.
(SSFC, 5/22/16, p.N10)
1855 George Hunzinger (d.1898) moved to New York from Germany and established himself as a cabinet maker. He patents included a material made by weaving flat wire covered with woven textile used for furniture seating. His family continued the business to 1925.
(SFC, 2/4/98, Z1 p.6)
1855 In Connecticut Thomas Day purchased the Hartford Courant newspaper. He wrote in one editorial: "We believe the Caucasian variety of the human species superior to the Negro variety; and we would breed the best stock." In 2000 the Courant apologized for running ads for the sale of slaves up to 1823.
(SFC, 7/6/00, p.C2)
1855 Anderson Preserve Co. incorporated. It sold Boston Market Catsup throughout the US.
(SFC, 8/27/03, p.E4)
1855 Chicago Gas was incorporated.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1855 Organic chemist Benjamin Stillman laid the foundations for the Pennsylvania oil rush by his discovery that petroleum could be distilled into lubricants and kerosene for cooking and illumination. Suddenly there was a use for the crude oil that seeped to the surface, annoying farmers by ruining the land and polluting the water supply.
(HNPD, 10/4/98)
1855 Conical innersprings came into use in furniture seats.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1855 Dr. Philip Cammann of NYC improved the design of the Laennec stethoscope by adding rubber ear pieces and rubber tubing to conduct the sound. [see 1826]
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1855 Yellow Fever broke out in Norfolk, Va., after a steamship carrying mosquitoes in its cisterns docked from the West Indies.
(SSFC, 5/22/05, Par p.4)
1855 Sotos Ochado proposed an artificial language in which words for related subjects began with the same letter, e.g. words beginning with a would refer to inorganic objects, b the liberal arts etc.
(Wired, 8/96, p.86)
1855 Palaeoscincus, one of the armored dinosaurs, was discovered by Dr. Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden in the United States.
(T.E.-J.B. p.24)
1855 Afghan leader Dost Mohammad Khan signed a peace treaty with India.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
1855 Barbados built its Glendairy Prison.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Glendairy_Prison)
1855 A third pandemic of bubonic plague broke out in China. It killed 12 million people and eventually spread to every continent of the world.
(NG, 5/88, p.682)(SFC, 9/20/14, p.C1)
1855 The English Commons voted for an inquiry into the conduct of the Crimean campaign.
(Econ, 11/4/06, p.67)
1855 In England Edward Agar led the Great Bullion Robbery of a mail train with a railroad guard as an accomplice. In 1998 Donald Thomas published "The Victorian Underworld," on the emergence of the urban criminal class in Britain.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, BR p.8)
1856 Thomas Burberry founded a clothing firm to sell raincoats.
(Economist, 9/22/12, p.76)
1855 London’s Smithfield livestock market closed and moved to Islington.
(Econ, 1/26/13, p.16)
1855 British traveler Richard Burton said Berbera is the true key of the Red Sea. The port, later part of Somaliland, marked the southern tip of the Ottoman Empire.
(Econ, 4/8/17, p.42)
1855 Napoleon III ordered up a list of the best wines of Bordeaux and ranked the best according to quality and price. Those at the top became known as the first growths and included Châteaux Haut-Brion, Lafite Rothschild, Latour, and Margaux. Mouton Rothschild was elevated in 1973.
(WSJ, 4/23/04, p.A1)(SFC, 10/1/04, p.W6)
1855 Paris held the Exposition Universelle. A series of photographs of Charles Deburau as the mime Pierrot won a gold medal.
(Smith., 5/95, p.79-80)
1855 The World Alliance of the YMCA was established at the first International Conference held in Paris. Jean Henri Dunant (1828-1910), Swiss Calvinist, founded the Geneva branch of the YMCA in 1852. In 1855 he took part in the Paris meeting devoted to the founding of its international organization.
(http://www.ymca.int/index.php?id=15)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dunant)
1855 Phylloxera, a pale yellow sap-sucking insect and a pest of commercial grapevines, was first described in France. It was originally native to eastern North America.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera)
1855 Some 240 cases of archeological material was lost when transport rafts were attacked and sunk by Arab brigands at Kurnah, where the Tigris and Euphrates join to form the Shatt-al-Arab.
(RFH-MDHP, p.218)
1855 David Livingstone, English physician and explorer, first saw the 328-foot waterfall on the Zambezi River. Livingstone named the falls, which straddled the Zambia and Zimbabwe border, Victoria Falls. The local name is Musi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders).
(SSFC, 5/29/05, p.F2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Falls)
1855-1875 The "raising of Chicago" took place. The town, built on mud, had begun to sink and forced new foundations and new drainage lines. The work was hailed as one of the wonders of the 19th century.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, Z1 p.2)
1855-1880 Edward "Ned" Kelly was an outlaw folk hero who was hung for his crimes. Inspired by tales of the American ironclad, the Monitor, Kelly wore an 80-pound suit of armor during his final crimes. In 2000 Peter Carey authored the novel "True History of the Kelly Gang."
(SFC, 5/3/97, p.E4)(WSJ, 1/05/00, p.W8)(SSFC, 1/14/01, BR p.1)
1855-1905 Fiona MacLeod (William Sharp), Scottish author and poet: "My heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill."
(AP, 9/15/98)
1855-1916 Josiah Royce, American philosopher: "Love is never merely an amiable tolerance of whatever form human frailty and folly may take."
(AP, 11/3/99)
1855-1920 Olive Schreiner, South African author and feminist: "My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those that are sad."
(AP, 7/24/98)
1855-1926 Eugene V. Debs, American socialist leader: "No man ever made a great speech on a mean subject."
(AP, 3/1/99)
1855-1930 George Edward Woodberry, American poet, critic and educator: "To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problem of contentment."
(AP, 8/15/97)
1856 Jan 5, Pierre J. David (67), [David d'Angers], French sculptor, died.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1856 Jan 8, Dr. John A. Veatch discovered borax in Tuscan Springs, Calif.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1856 Jan 12, John Singer Sargent (d.1925), American Gilded Age portrait painter (Wyndham Sisters), was born.
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.E1)(MC, 1/12/02)
1856 Jan 18, Daniel Nathan Hale Williams, surgeon (1st open heart operation), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1856 Feb 5, John Muir wrote about sawmills encroaching on Redwood forests and the problem of "sheep-men’s" fires in this day’s issue of the Sacramento Daily Union.
(SFEM, 5/18/97, p.28)
1856 Feb 14, Frank Harris, journalist, writer (My Life & Loves), was born in England.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1856 Feb 17, Heinrich Heine (b.1797), German journalist and poet, died in Paris. His prose work included a series of travel memoirs that began in 1826 with “The Harz Journey."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine)
1856 Feb 18, The American (Know-Nothing) Party abolished secrecy.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1856 Feb 19, Tin-type camera was patented by Hamilton Smith in Gambier, Ohio.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1856 Feb 25, Charles Lang Freer (1854-1919), U.S. art collector, was born.
(HN, 2/25/98)(WSJ, 11/6/98, p.W10)
1856 Feb 29, Hostilities in Russo-Turkish war ceased.
(HN, 2/29/00)
1856 Mar 5, Covent Garden Opera House was destroyed in a fire.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1856 Mar 25, A.E. Burnside patented the Burnside carbine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1856 Mar 30, Russia signed Peace of Paris ending the Crimean War.
(MC, 3/30/02)
1856 Apr 3, Gunpowder in church exploded killing 4,000 in Rhodes.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1856 Apr 5, Booker T. Washington, Black American educator, was born in Franklin County, Va. The former slave later founded the Tuskegee Institute. Booker Taliaferro Washington later became the 1st black on US stamp.
(AP, 5/5/97)(HN, 4/5/99)(MC, 4/5/02)
1856 Apr 11, Battle of Rivas; Costa Rica beat William Walker's invading Nicaraguans.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1856 Apr 18, Eureka, Ca., was founded in Humboldt County.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.F10)
1856 Apr 23, Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, Kansas shot pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones in the back.
(HN, 4/23/99)
1856 Apr 24, Henri Philippe Pétain, French Marshall, was born. He was known as the 'hero of Verdun' but collaborated with the Nazis after the fall of France in 1940 and convicted of treason in 1945. Petain was executed in 1951.
(HN, 4/24/99)(Econ, 5/21/05, p.84)
1856 Apr 26, Some 20 settlers of Honey Lake Valley, California, met at the cabin of Isaac Roop and formed "the independent Territory of Nataqua." They named the cabin Fort Defiance, chose Peter Lassen as their surveyor and selected Susanville, named after Roop's daughter, as the territorial capital.
(SFC, 2/27/04, p.D4)
1856 Apr 28, Yokut Indians repelled an attack on their land by 100 would-be Indian fighters in California.
(HN, 4/28/00)
1856 Apr 29, A peace treaty between England and Russia was signed.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1856 May 22, Charles Cora, a gambler, and James Casey, a member of the SF Board of supervisors, were hanged by the SF Committee of Vigilance led by merchant Charles Doane, following a drumhead trial at “Fort Gunnybags, "the vigilante headquarters on Sacramento St. There was widespread belief that Cora and Casey were “in cahoots" with then sheriff David Scannel. Cora was in jail for recently killing US Marshal William H. Richardson, who had drunkenly insulted Cora's mistress, Belle Ryan. Cora and Ryan were married in Cora's jail cell hours before being hanged.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)(SFC, 6/12/10, p.C1)(SFC, 6/14/14, p.C1)(SFC, 8/24/19, p.C2)
1856 May 3, Adolphe Charles Adam (52), French composer, critic (Giselle), died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1856 May 6, Robert Peary, arctic explorer, was born. He reached the North Pole in 1909. [see 1909 &1856-1920, Peary]
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(AHD, p.964)(HN, 5/6/98)
1856 May 6, Sigmund Freud (d.1939), father of psychology and the Viennese physician who discovered the unconscious, was born. He treated his hysterical patients by encouraging them to associate freely. He insisted that sexual desires and fears lay just beneath the surface of everyone’s mind. A biography of Freud was later written by Peter Gay.
(V.D.-H.K.p.281-282)(SFEC, 1/11/98, BR p.9)(HN, 5/6/98)
1856 May 6, U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack.
(HN, 5/6/00)
1856 May 13, Peter Henry Emerson, 1st to promote photography as an independent art, was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1856 May 14, James P. Casey, editor of the SF Times, shot James King, proprietor of the rival Evening Bulletin. King died 6 days later. A “Vigilance Committee" of 2,600 later marched up Sacramento St. and broke into the jail where Casey was held. On May 22 Casey was lynched with his unfortunate cell mate, gambler Charles Cora.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.1)(SFC, 6/12/10, p.C3)
1856 May 15, Lyman Frank Baum (d.1919) was born in Chittenango, NY. He had been a failed storekeeper, a reporter and, when his first children's book was published in 1897, a traveling china salesman. Two years later, Baum teamed with poster artist William Wallace Denslow to produce “Father Goose, His Book," the best-selling children's book of the year. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" in 1900 was the second collaboration for Baum and Denslow. This color woodcut, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" is one of 24 full-page color plates that illustrated the first edition of the beloved children's classic [see 1891].
(HNPD, 5/14/99)(AP, 5/15/07)
1856 May 19, Senator Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery.
(HN, 5/19/98)
1856 May 20, Henri E. Cross (d.1910), French painter, was born. His real surname was Delacroix but was changed in 1881.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1856 May 20, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner (1811-1874), an outspoken antagonist against slavery, gave the "Crime Against Kansas" speech. [see May 22] Sumner helped form the Republican Party.
(HNQ, 7/7/99)
1856 May 20, James King, editor of the Evening Bulletin, died from wounds suffered on May 14. His death brought about the rising of The Second Committee of Vigilance and the take over of the SF government.
(http://elane.stanford.edu/wilson/Text/11b.html)(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)(SFC, 7/26/14, p.C5)
1856 May 21, Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)
1856 May 21, Lawrence, Kansas, was captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
(HN, 5/21/98)
1856 May 22, Charles Cora, a gambler, and James Casey, a member of the SF Board of supervisors, were hanged by the SF Committee of Vigilance led by merchant Charles Doane, following a drumhead trial at “Fort Gunnybags, "the vigilante headquarters on Sacramento St. There was widespread belief that Cora and Casey were “in cahoots" with then sheriff David Scannel. Cora was in jail for recently killing US Marshal William H. Richardson, who had drunkenly insulted Cora's mistress, Belle Ryan.
(GenIV, Winter 04/05)(SFC, 6/12/10, p.C1)(SFC, 6/14/14, p.C1)
1856 May 22, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was assaulted on the Senate floor by South Carolina’s Preston Brooks. Representative Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, a Republican abolitionist from Mass. Sumner was beaten unconscious and was unable to resume duties for 3 years. Brooks resigned from his seat but was re-elected. Sumner's injuries in the attack compelled his absence from the Senate until December, 1859.
(SFC, 7/25/98, p.A6)(HNQ, 7/7/99)
1856 May 24, The Potawatomi Massacre took place in Kansas. John Brown, American abolitionist and horse thief, presided over the hacking to death with machetes of five unarmed pro-slavery Border Ruffians in Potawatomi, Kansas.
(WSJ, 4/10/95, A-16)(WSJ, 3/16/98, p.A20)(MC, 5/24/02)
1856 May 26, George Templeton Strong, composer, essayist, was born.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1856 Jun 5, U.S. Army troops in the Four creeks region of California, headed back to quarters, officially ending the Tule River War. Fighting, however, continued for a few more years.
(HN, 6/5/00)
1856 Jun 8, The British resettled 194 people from Pitcairn Island onto Norfolk Island.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.66)
1856 Jun 16, James Strang, king of Big Beaver Island, Mich., was ambushed by Thomas Bedford and Alexander Wentworth. They shot him three times and then pistol-whipped him and fled to Mackinac on the USS Michigan. Bedford and Wentworth were brought before a justice of the peace and after a brief hearing were fined $1.25 for court costs and released as public heroes. Soon after, 75 vigilantes sailed to Beaver Island and cleared out the Strangite adherents.
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.88)
1856 Jun 17, In Philadelphia, the Republican Party opened its first national convention. John C. Fremont (1830-1890), American explorer, was the 1st Republican presidential candidate. His platform pledged to end polygamy and slavery. He lost to James Buchanan by about 500,000 votes. Fremont went on to serve as territorial governor of Arizona from 1878 to 1883. In 2003 Lewis L. Gould authored "Grand Old Party: A History of the Republicans."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 6/17/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.5)(HNQ, 3/11/00)(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.W17)(SSFC, 11/23/03, p.M1)
1856 Jun 19, Elbert Hubbard (d.1915), US, editor, publisher, author (Message to Garcia), was born. "The love we give away is the only love we keep." "If you want work well done, select a busy man -- the other kind has not time." "To escape criticism -- do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."
(AP, 7/22/97)(AP, 9/29/97)(AP, 12/12/98)(MC, 6/19/02)
1856 Jul 7, In California the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors held their 1st meeting at the general store of John Vogan on Main Street in Redwood City. The county had just recently been created.
(Ind, 2/3/01, 5A)(SFC, 5/18/13, p.C2)
1856 Jul 9, Nikola Tesla, electrical engineer, inventor (Tesla Coil), was born in Croatia.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1856 Jul 12, William Walker, an American, declared himself president of Nicaragua. His execution a few years later in Honduras was rumored to have been staged.
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))
1856 Jul 26, George Bernard Shaw (d.1950), Irish-born, English dramatist, critic and social reformer (Pygmalion-Nobel 1925), was born in Dublin. "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity."
(V.D.-H.K.p.237)(HN, 7/26/98)(AP, 3/15/00)
1856 Jul 29, Robert Schumann (46), German composer, died. He had starved himself to death in a madhouse. The 1947 film "Song of Love" was based on the Robert and Clara Schuman. In 2000 J.D. Landis authored "Longing" a novel based on the love affair between Robert Schuman and Clara Wieck.
(BLW, 1963 ed. p.49)(WSJ, 9/22/00, p.W12)
1856 Aug 11, A band of rampaging settlers in California killed four Yokut Indians. The settlers had heard unproven rumors of Yokut atrocities.
(HN, 8/11/99)
1856 Aug 12, Anthony Fass patented an accordion.
(MC, 8/12/02)
1856 Aug 18, In SF thousands of armed men paraded through the streets and then formally dissolved the second Committee of Vigilance. They had run SF for nearly 4 months much to the distress of Mayor James Van Ness and militia officer William T. Sherman.
(SFC, 8/18/06, p.B1)
1856 Aug 19, Gail Borden (1801-1874) received a patent for condensed milk and opened a small factory for its production in Walcottville, Conn. At this time milk in NYC sold for 6-7 cents a quart.
(ON, 5/04, p.5)(AP, 8/19/06)
1856 Aug, Henry Bessemer, English mechanical engineer, presented a paper titled “The Manufacture of Iron Without Fuel." In 1860 he established the Bessemer Steel Works in Sheffield. His Bessemer conversion process revolutionized the steel industry.
(ON, 9/06, p.6)
1856 Aug, Paul Du Chaillu, French-American journalist and hunter, hired a large number of men and women from the Mbondemo tribe to hunt for gorillas in Gabon.
(ON, 11/04, p.11)
1856 Sep 2, Paul Du Chaillu (1831-1903), French-American journalist and hunter, shot and killed his 1st gorilla in Gabon. Over the next 3 years he killed 31 gorillas. In 1861 he published “Explorations & Adventures in Equatorial Africa."
(ON, 11/04, p.12)
1856 Sep 3, Louis H. Sullivan, architect who gained fame for his design of the Chicago Auditorium Theater, was born in Boston, Mass. The leading figure in the so-called Chicago style of architecture, Louis Sullivan is regarded as the spiritual father of modern U.S. architecture and is particularly identified with the aesthetics of skyscraper design. Born in 1856, Sullivan attended MIT and was among the first to stress the vertical lines of steel skeleton construction.
(HN, 9/3/98)(HNQ, 6/11/99)(MC, 9/3/01)
1856 Sep 3, The Royal British Bank announced a suspension of business. In 1858 eight directors of the bank were put on trial for conspiracy to defraud the public. A jury found each of the defendants guilty of the charges. They were given sentences ranging from a nominal fine of one shilling to imprisonment for up to one year.
(http://tinyurl.com/mefkksp)(http://tinyurl.com/m78b3q3)(Econ, 6/22/13, p.60)
1856 Sep 14, At the Battle of San Jacinto, Nicaragua defeated invaders. General José Dolores Estrada led his men against the powerful forces of William Walker and his filibusters, who sought to take over Nicaragua and all of Central America.
(http://www.guideofnicaragua.com/0102/MatagalpaEN.html)
1856 Sep 24, John Marsh, Harvard graduate and pioneer California settler, was murdered on the road between Pacheco and Martinez while traveling to SF. Marsh was the 1st non-Hispanic to live in Contra Costa County. He had made a fortune attracting settlers to Contra Costa and selling them land. His new 7,000 stone mansion in Brentwood was later made the center-piece of the John Marsh/Cowell Ranch State Park.
(SSFC, 9/24/06, p.B3)
1856 Oct 1, The first installment of Gustav Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary (Emma Bovary) appeared in the Revue de Paris after the publisher refused to print a passage in which the character Emma has a tryst in the back seat of a carriage. It was later considered as the first novel of a liberated woman in modern literature. In 1998 Dacia Maraini published "Searching for Emma." A TV version for Masterpiece Theater was shown in 2000.
(HN, 10/1/00)(SFEC, 6/28/98, Par p.18)(WSJ, 2/4/00, p.W6)
1856 Oct 7, Cyrus Chambers Jr. patented a folding machine that folded books and newspapers.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1856 Oct 8, Chinese police boarded the British vessel Arrow, arrested 12 Chinese crewmen on suspicion of piracy and lowered the British flag. This began the 2nd Anglo-Chinese War.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.911)(MC, 10/8/01)
1856 Oct, Migrants to Utah pulling handcarts encountered a blizzard and were rescued by a mule train sent by Brigham Young. More than 200 Mormons died near Martin’s Cove, Wyo., as they migrated West using handcarts.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers)(SFC, 8/13/98, p.A9)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.39)
1856 Nov 4, Democrat James Buchanan was elected US president. The American or Know-Nothing Party had nominated Zachary Taylor over Millard Fillmore. The Know-Nothing Party was an anti-foreigner, anti-Catholic political organization. Buchanan easily won the presidential election, gaining 174 electoral votes to Republican John C. Fremont’s 141, and Fillmore’s eight. Fremont failed to carry California after Jasper O’Farrell testified against him in the 1846 murder of 3 Californios.
(http://tinyurl.com/8ku7j)(SFC, 9/26/96, p.E10)(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A25)(HNQ, 6/17/01)(SSFC, 6/25/06, p.E1)
1856 Nov 13, Louis Brandeis, was born. He became the first Jew to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
(HN, 11/13/00)
1856 Nov 15, The clipper ship Neptune’s Car arrived in SF after sailing 136 days from NYC. Mary Ann Patten (1837-1861), the pregnant 19-year-old wife of Captain Joshua Patten (d.1857), commanded the ship for much of its voyage after the captain fell ill.
(AH, 2/05, p.60)
1856 Nov 24, Bat Masterson was born in Quebec, Canada. [see Nov 24, 1853]
(MesWP)
1856 Dec 18, Joseph John Thomson, English physicist, was born. He discovered the electron and won a Nobel Prize in 1906.
(MC, 12/18/01)
1856 Dec 22, Frank Kellogg, Secretary of State (1925-29) who tried to outlaw war with the Kellogg-Briand Pact, was born. He won a Nobel Prize in 1929.
(HN, 12/22/98)(MC, 12/22/01)
1856 Dec 28, Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States (1912-1921), who brought the country into World War I, was born in Staunton, Va. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. "The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
(AP, 12/28/97)(HN, 12/28/98)(AP, 7/2/99)(MC, 12/28/01)
1856 Dec 29, Snow fell in San Francisco and accumulated to 2-3 inches.
(SFEM, 12/22/96, p.20)
1856 Francois Flameng (d.1923), French painter, was born. He painted imagined scenes from the domestic life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
(MT, Fall/03, p.13)
1856 James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1866, a mountain man born as a slave, authored his autobiography: “The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians."
(SSFC, 7/18/04, p.14)(www.beckwourth.org/)
1856 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), French writer, authored "The Old Regime and the French Revolution."
(Econ, 4/19/14, SR p.15)
1856 The ballet "Le Corsaire" (The Corsair) was first performed in Paris to a score by Adolph Adam. It was based on a work by Lord Byron.
(SFC, 12/20/99, p.E1)
1856 The St. James Light, a lighthouse, was built by Irish immigrants on Big Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan.
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.88)
1856 The Steinway Mansion was built in Astoria, NYC, home of the scion of the great piano-making family.
(SFC, 5/26/96, T-8)
1856 John Breuner, German cabinet maker, founded his furniture business. It later expanded to a chain of 17 stores and was sold in 1985.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.A15)
1856 St. Pauls prep school was founded in Concord, New Hampshire. In 2003 headmaster Bishop Craig Anderson was paid an annual salary of $524,000.
(WSJ, 8/25/03, p.A1)
1856 In Minnesota Benedictine monks arrived in St. Cloud and established a priory. In 1865 they moved to the shores of Lake Sagatagan and the following year the priory was raised to the status of Abbey. In 1913 they established St. John’s University.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John's_Abbey)
1856 Mauve began to be used to describe a purplish color that was the first synthetic dye.
(SFC, 6/29/96, E4)
1856 The last presidential candidate of the Whig Party was Millard Fillmore in 1856. Fillmore and his running mate Andrew J. Donelson were also the nominees of the American (Know Nothing) Party that year. In 1999 Michael F. Hold published "The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party."
(HNQ, 9/10/98)(WSJ, 7/8/99, p.A16)
1856 Walt Whitman declared that "Always America will be agitated and turbulent."
(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)
1856 Orvis, a fly-tackle manufacturer, began operations in Manchester, Vermont Charles F. Orvis founded the mail-order fishing tackle shop. Leigh Perkins (1927-2021) bought the 20-employee company for $400,000 in 1965. In 1992 Perkins turned the company of more than 700 employees over to his sons. In 1993 the company was a $100 million business.
(WSJ, 2/28/97, p.B7)(SFC, 5/17/21, p.B6)
1856 The William Mason locomotive was built.
(SFEC, 4/25/99, p.T6)
1856 In San Francisco Tom McGuire remodeled his new theater and reopened it as McGuire's Opera House and added a saloon next door called the Snug. Drinks cost 12.5 cents.
(SFC, 7/24/21, p.B5)
1856 California Gov. Neely Johnson declared that SF was in a “state of insurrection" and called upon all citizens to enlist in a state militia, locally commanded by banker William T. Sherman, to crush it. Vigilantes in SF had forced some 25 cronies of Mayor David Broderick onto outbound ships following the discovery of false-bottom ballot boxes. Another 800 of the city’s “worst characters" had also been ordered to leave.
(SFC, 8/2/14, p.C2)
1856 Ephraim Burr (1809-1894) became mayor of SF and continued to 1859.
(SFC, 5/5/07, p.B3)
1856 In San Francisco The Call newspaper was started by five unemployed printers and quickly became one of the city’s leading papers. Its original building stood at 612 Commercial St.
(SFC, 10/5/13, p.C1)
1856 San Francisco’s Lowell High School opened as the Union Grammar School and attained its current name in 1896.
(http://tinyurl.com/y4q3tp)(SFC, 5/26/12, p.A9)
1856 San Franciscans paid a quarter to venture into a basement room at the Mountaineer Museum at 143 Clay St. to view grizzly bears collected by John Adams, aka Grizzly Adams (1812-1860). In 1966 Richard Dillon authored "The Legend of Grizzly Adams: California's Greatest Mountain Man."
(http://tinyurl.com/yaucamr4)(SFC, 7/7/18, p.C1)
1856 The 1st theater in California was built in the gold-mining town of Nevada City.
(SSFC, 2/5/06, p.F9)
1856 The D’Agostini Winery in Amador County, Ca. was founded. It later became the Sobon Estate Winery.
(SFC, 12/10/95, p.T-1)
1856 In California Mifflin W. Gibbs founded the state’s first black newspaper and lobbied for the repeal of the state’s "black laws."
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.A15)
1856 The Mendocino Indian Reservation was established in northern California near the mouth of the Noyo River.
(SFC, 4/28/12, p.A6)
1856 John C. Fremont and Edward D. Baker passed through the Feather River region of northern California. Baker was known as the "Gray Eagle of Republicanism" and gave this name to the town of Graegle around 1916.
(SSFC, 7/7/02, p.C10)
1856 Sam Hughes, a Welsh immigrant ill with tuberculosis, left his job as a baker in the California Gold Rush and departed by stage coach to Texas. The stage coach driver afraid that Sam might die enroute, dumped him in Tucson, Arizona. Later Sam at age 32 married a Mexican girl age 12 named Atanacia Santa Cruz.
(AWAM, Dec. 94, p.29,32)
1856 William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, discovered the property of magneto-resistance. The change in some materials of electrical resistance under a magnetic field was later used in data storage systems.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.89)
1856 The Australian state of Victoria first adopted paper ballots for voting.
(WSJ, 11/9/00, p.A1)
1856 Australia's Van Dieman's Island was renamed Tasmania.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.37)
c1856 Rabbits were let loose in Australia about 140 years ago.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.B-6)
1856 Descendants of the Bounty mutineers moved from Pitcairn to Norfolk Island, 1,000 miles from the Australia mainland.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.38)
1856 The Victoria Cross was created to honor soldiers of the British Empire during the Crimean War who showed particular gallantry in the face of enemy attack. All the crosses were made from the bronze of Russian cannons captured in the Crimea.
(AP, 4/27/05)
1856 British Guiana issued a 1-cent magenta, a 4-cent magenta and a 4-cent blue stamp initialed by a postal employee while waiting for a shipment of stamps to arrive from London. In 1980 the 1-cent magenta was purchased for $935,000 by chemicals heir John E. DuPont. In 2014 the it was expected to sell at auction for $10-20 million.
(WSJ, 4/7/00, p.W9)(SFC, 2/15/14, p.A7)
1856 Near Dusseldorf in the Neander Valley, limestone minors quarrying in a cave found an unusual human skeleton. A beetle-browed, low-sloping skullcap, part of a pelvis, and some remarkably thick and slightly curved limb bones fell into the hands of the local science teacher.
(NG, Nov. 1985, p. 614)
1856 The order of nuns known as the "Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration" was founded in France. It was named after a 13th century saint who jettisoned her family's wealth for a life of poverty. The nuns spent their time praying on behalf of others.
(WSJ, 9/19/03, p.A1)
1856 In France Emperor Napoleon III decided to quell an impending revolt in Algeria by sending a magician, who would demonstrate the power of the Europeans to the natives. He sent Jean-Eugene Robert Houdin (1805-1871). The 1998 novel "The Magician’s Wife" by Brian Moore is based on the historic events. The magician is named Henri Lambert.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 1/25/98, BR p.5)
1856 The Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem's walled Old City was gifted by the Ottomans to French Emperor Napoleon III.
(Reuters, 1/22/20)
1856 The Countess de Castiglione (Virginia Oldoini) became the mistress of Napoleon III. She was chosen by her cousin Camillo Cavour, prime minister of Sardinia under King Victor Emanuel, to win the emperor’s support for a war against the Austrians.
(WSJ, 12/27/00, p.A10)
1856 Theodore Chasseriau (b.1819), Dominican-born artist, died in Paris. His paintings included "The Toilette of Esther."
(WSJ, 11/26/02, p.D8)
1856 Monaco opened its first casino.
(Econ, 8/13/16, p.38)
1856 Christian Schibsted purchased a hand operated printing press to print a newspaper for somebody else. When the contract moved elsewhere he began his own newspaper and in 2006 the original press could be seen in the Oslo headquarters of the Schibsted newspaper firm.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.52)
1856 Lothar von Faber of Germany bought a graphite mine in Siberia to secure raw material for his pencil manufacturing operations.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.73)
1856 In Sweden Andre Wallenberg founded Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB). By 2006 it was one of the Nordic region’s biggest banks. Wallenberg had just returned from America with a book on how to set up a bank.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)(Econ, 3/12/15, p.62)
1856 A Turkish imperial edict lifted a ban on Christian bell-ringing in Jerusalem, whnich at this time was part of the Ottoman empire. The British were given the honor of erecting the city’s first outdoor bell since the crusades.
(Econ, 1/5/13, p.35)
1856-1858 The 2nd Anglo-Chinese Opium War.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A8)
1856-1900 Oscar Wilde, English [Irish] writer, poet and dramatist, a rebel of every kind, ended up playing the part of a mocking fool. He despaired of his countrymen ever waking up, but they did, for they became enraged by his mockery and jailed him, ruining his life. He wrote the play "The Importance of Being Ernest." He was found guilty of violating the Criminal Law Amendment Act which prohibited indecent relations between consenting adult males. He served 2 years in prison where he read the whole of Dante and wrote the letter "De Profundis," and the poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." "At every single moment of one's life one is what one is going to be no less than what one has been." [see 1854]
(V.D.-H.K.p.279)(HT, 3/97, p.71)(AP, 10/10/99)
1856-1915 Booker T. Washington, American educator: "To be successful, grow to the point where one completely forgets himself; that is, to lose himself in a great cause."
(AP, 6/6/97)
1856-1915 Frederick Winslow Taylor, American efficiency expert. In 1997 Robert Kanigel wrote the biography: "The One Best Way: FW Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency." Taylor was a member of the first winning US Open doubles tennis duo. "In the past the man was first. In the future the system will be first."
(WSJ, 6/13/97, p.A17)(Wired, 2/98, p.112)
1856-1920 May 6, Robert Peary, American naval officer and Arctic explorer, was born. He reached the North Pole in 1909.
(HFA, ‘96, p.30)(AHD, p.964)
1856-1922 Tom Watson, US congressman and quintessential Negrophobe. C. Van Woodward in 1938 authored the biography: "Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel."
(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.C14)
1855-1926 In Baja, Mexico, an estimated 3,350 gray whales were harpooned in their spawning grounds in Magdalena Bay.
(SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1856-1929 The Children's Aid Society and The New York Foundling Hospital sponsored Orphan Trains that relocated homeless New York children to adoptive homes in the sparsely populated West and Midwest. Needy children were chosen for relocation and if they were not true orphans, a release for placement was obtained from the remaining parent or guardian. The train route was chosen and the children, after being given new clothing, boarded the train accompanied by the society's agent. Advance notice was placed in local newspapers and a screening committee was responsible for matching the orphans with prospective families. When the train arrived, the orphans were displayed in a church or other public building and if an agreeable match was made, the child was left with his or her new family. Those not selected would reboard the train for the next stop. It was up to the agent to keep tabs on adopted children, and if they were not determined to be happy and well-treated, they would be removed and, hopefully, adopted by a new family. While this procedure was risky and many children were placed in abusive situations, Orphan Train sponsors believed that youngsters placed with western families had a better chance than those living on the streets of New York. In the 75 years of the Orphan Trains, between 150,000 and 200,000 children were relocated.
(HNPD, 12/1/98)
1856-1930 Daniel Guggenheim, American industrialist and philanthropist.
(AHD, p.585)
1856-1933 Elisabeth Marbury, American writer: "The richer your friends, the more they will cost you."
(AP, 9/25/98)
1856-1941 US Justice Louis D. Brandeis: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
(AP, 10/5/99)
1856-1945 Walter Long Williams, veterinarian. He did pioneering work in identifying equine venereal disease.
(WSJ, 5/5/99, p.A20)
1856-1950 Minna Antrim, American writer: "Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills."
(AP, 12/14/97)
1857 Jan 6, Patent for reducing zinc ore was granted to Samuel Wetherill in Penn.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1857 Jan 9, The Fort Tejon, Ca., earthquake, estimated at magnitude 8, ruptured ground for 225 miles from Parkfield to Tejon Pass. It killed 2 people and destroyed the Tejon Army post. The fort was established in 1854 and closed in 1864.
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/parkfield/1857.php)(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A4)(SFC, 12/10/04, p.A4)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_forts_in_California)
1857 Feb 7, A French court acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel "Madame Bovary."
(AP, 2/7/08)
1857 Feb 12, Eugene Atget, French photographer, was born. He took over 10,000 photographs documenting Paris.
(HN, 2/12/01)
1857 Feb 15, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (53), Russian composer (Russlan & Ludmilla), died.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1857 Feb 18, Max Klinger, German graphic artist, painter, sculptor, was born.
(MC, 2/18/02)
1857 Feb 22, Heinrich Hertz, German physicist, was born in Hamburg. He became the first person to broadcast and receive radio waves. The radio wave unit of frequency was named after him.
(HN, 2/22/01)(AP, 2/22/07)
1857 Feb 22, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout Movement, was born in London.
(AP, 2/22/07)
1857 Feb, Charles Darwin in a letter to his cousin Fox, wrote: "I am become most deeply interested in the way facts fall into groups." [indeed]
(NH, 5/96, p.7)
1857 Mar 3, Under pretexts, Britain and France declared war on China.
(HN, 3/3/99)
1857 Mar 6, After years in litigation, the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Roger Taney, ruled that Dred Scott did not gain his freedom by living in a free territory. Taney wrote that African Americans could not have rights of their own and were inferior to white people. The essence of the decision was that as a slave, Dred Scott was not a citizen and therefore could not sue in a federal court. The opinion also stated that Congress could not exclude slavery in the territories and that blacks could not become citizens. That ruling further increased the tension already simmering between the North and the South. Dred Scott was a slave who accompanied his owner, army surgeon John Emerson, to military posts in Wisconsin and Illinois in 1834-35. In 1846 Scott, backed by abolitionists, sued for his freedom on the grounds that he became free when he lived in an area where slavery was outlawed. Montgomery Blair (b.1813) was one of the lawyers in the Scott vs. Sanford case. In this case the Supreme Court invalidated the 1820 Missouri Compromise. In 2017 Charles Taney IV apologized to the family of Dred Scott for the words of his great-great-grand-uncle.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney)(AP, 3/6/98)(SFC, 11/30/00, p.A3)(SFC, 3/8/17, p.A5)
1857 Mar 8, Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Italian composer (I Pagliacci/Zaza), was born.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1857 Mar 12, The opera "Simon Boccanegra," by Giuseppe Verdi, premiered in Venice, Italy.
(AP, 3/12/07)
1857 Mar 23, Culinary expert Fannie Farmer was born in Boston.
(AP, 3/23/07)
1857 Mar 23, Elisha Otis installed the first modern passenger elevator in the 5-story Haughwout and Co. building at 488 Broadway in New York City.
(www.theelevatormuseum.org/h/h-2.htm)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1857 Mar 25, Frederick Laggenheim took the 1st photo of a solar eclipse.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1857 Apr 18, Clarence S. Darrow, defense attorney at the Scopes monkey trial, was born near Kinsman, Ohio.
(AP, 4/18/07)
1857 Apr 21, Alexander Douglas patented the bustle.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1857 Apr 27, Establishment of Jewish congregations in Lower Austria prohibited.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1857 Apr, The Royal Society held their first meeting in Burlington House in London after moving over from Somerset House. They were soon joined by the Linnean Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.104)(www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=41482)
1857 May 1, William Walker, conqueror of Nicaragua, surrendered to the US Navy. Cornelius Vanderbilt helped finance a Costa Rican army, which defeated Walker’s forces, and paid men under Walker’s command to defect. Walker later sought protection on a British naval vessel, whose captain turned him over to Hondurans, who executed him in 1860.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(soldier))(WSJ, 8/30/08, p.W7)
1857 May 10, Hendrik Zwaardemaker, Dutch physiologist (olefactometer), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1857 May 10, The Seepoys of India revolted against the British Army. The Bengal Army, Indian soldiers in the British army, staged a revolt in what is viewed as the first attempt at independence. The Rani of Jhansi, a charismatic female strategist, led the Hindu revolt.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)(HN, 5/10/98)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C9)
1857 May 11, Indian mutineers against the British seized Delhi.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1857 May 13, Ronald Ross, bacteriologist, was born.
(HN, 5/13/01)
1857 May 19, William Francis Channing and Moses G. Farmer were granted the first patent for an electric fire alarm system.
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1857 Jun 2, Edward Elgar Broadheath, English composer (Pomp & Circumstance), was born in Worcester, England.
(AP, 6/2/07)
1857 Jun 2, Karl Gjellerup, poet, novelist (Nobel 1917), was born in Denmark.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Jun 2, James Gibbs of Virginia patented a chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Jun 18, Henry Clay Folger, American lawyer and businessman, co-founder of the Folger Shakespeare Library, was born.
(HN, 6/18/01)
1857 Jun 27, H. Goldschmidt discovered asteroid #45, Eugenia.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1857 Jun 30, Charles Dickens reads from "A Christmas Carol" at St. Martin's Hall in London--his first public reading.
(HN, 6/30/01)
1857 Jul 12, George E. Ohr (d.1918), ceramics artist (the mad potter of Biloxi), was born in Biloxi, Mississippi.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_E._Ohr)(ON, 11/06, p.11)
1857 Jul 15, British women and children were murdered in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 7/15/98)
1857 Jul 15, Carl Czerny (66), Austrian pianist, composer, died.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1857 Jul 27, Jose Celso Barbosa, Puerto Rican statesman and humanitarian, was born in Bayamon.
(AP, 7/27/07)
1857 Jul 29, James Holman (1786), former British lieutenant in the Royal Navy, died in London. An illness in 1810 left him blind. In 1822 he set off on a journey to travel around the world. In 2006 Jason Roberts authored “A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler."
(SSFC, 6/4/06, p.M1)
1857 Jul 30, Thorstein Veblen (d.1929), political economist and sociologist, was born in Wisconsin to Norwegian immigrants. He authored "The Theory of the Leisure Class" in 1899.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R20)(SFEC, 7/11/99, BR p.4)(HN, 7/30/01)(MC, 7/30/02)
1857 Aug 25, The California gold rush town of Columbia burned down in a 2nd fire that was blamed on a Chinese cook. Miners soon evicted all Chinese from the town.
(SFEM, 3/12/00, p.T6)(CVG, Vol 16, p.24,34)
1857 Aug 24, The New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. failed, sparking the Panic of 1857. The sharp but short 1857-58 financial crash in the US was touched off by the failure of the New York branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company. Over speculation in real estate and railroad securities fed the panic. Financial crashes spread to Liverpool, Glasgow, Paris, Hamburg, Copenhagen and Vienna.
(AP, 8/24/07)(WSJ, 9/28/95c, p.A-18)(Econ, 4/12/14, p.51)
1857 Aug, A human skeleton was found in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, near Hochdal, between Dusseldorf and Elberfeld. The discovery is described by D. Shaaffhausen in his paper Discovery of the Neanderthal Skull.
(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.140-141)
1857 Sep 3, John McLoughlin (b.1784), Hudson's Bay Co. pioneer at Fort Vancouver and in Oregon Country, died in Oregon City. In the late 1840s his general store in Oregon City was famous as the last stop on the Oregon Trail.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McLoughlin)
1857 Sep 5, Charles Darwin first outlined his theory of evolution in a letter to American botanist Asa Gray dated September 5, 1857. The leading botanist of his time, Gray was one of the founders of the National Academy of Science.
(HNQ, 3/14/99)
1857 Sep 11, The Mountain Meadows Massacre of the Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah Territory was carried out by Mormons fearful of an impending invasion by the US Army. Church patriarch and adopted son of Brigham Young, John Doyle Lee, offered safe passage to the nearly 150 men, women and children on the Fancher train from Arkansas crossing Mormon Utah bound for California, if they left their weapons, livestock and wagons behind-ostensibly to appease hostile Indians. All but the youngest children were slaughtered. Lee, who first blamed the massacre on Paiute Indians, was excommunicated in 1870 and tried, convicted and executed in 1877 for his role in the killings. 120 settlers were killed; 17 children, all under 7, were spared. In 2002 Will Bagley authored “Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows." In 2011 the site was dedicated as a national historic landmark.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)(AP, 9/11/07)(SFC, 9/12/11, p.A4)
1857 Sep 12, A wooden-hulled steamship, the SS Central America under Capt. William L. Herndon, sank off Cape Romain, SC. The ship carried 21 tons of gold from California to New York. The brig Marine and the Norwegian bark Ellen rescued some 141 people. 425 (428) of 528 (578) passengers were drowned. The survivors included Ansel Ives Easton (d.1868) and his new wife Adeline. The wreck was in 8,000 feet of water and in 1987-1988 salvage operations were begun by Tommy Thompson. He hauled in $500 million worth of gold bars, coins and nuggets. After a court battle he was awarded 92% of the gold. The story is told in the 1998 book "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue sea" by Gary Kinder. The loss of the gold sparked "The Panic of 1857." The SS Central America sank off Cape Romain, SC. Thompson became a federal fugitive in 2012 after he failed to show up for several court hearings. Odyssey Marine Exploration was awarded a contract by a court appointed receiver and in 2014 recovered additional treasure valued in the millions.
(WSJ, 5/22/98, p.W3)(WSJ, 6/19/98, p.W9)(SFEC, 6/28/98, BR p.3)(WSJ, 12/3/99, p.W16)(WSJ, 1/28/00, p.B1)(ON, 7/01, p.2)(Ind, 12/1/01, 5A)(SFC, 7/18/14, p.D3)
1857 Sep 13, Milton S. Hershey, chocolate manufacturer and philanthropist, was born in Dauphin County, Pa.
(www.hersheys.com/about/milton.shtml)(AP, 9/13/07)
1857 Sep 15, William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served as 26th president (R) of the United States (1909-1913) and as chief justice. He is most remembered for his "dollar diplomacy."
(AP, 9/15/97)(HN, 9/15/99)
1857 Sep 15, Mormon leader Brigham Young called out the Nauvoo Legion to fight the U.S. Troops if they enter Utah Territory.
(http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Utah_War)
1857 Sep 15, Timothy Alden of NYC patented a typesetting machine.
(www.todayinsci.com/)
1857 Sep 20, Delhi, India, fell to British forces.
(AP, 9/20/07)
1857 Sep 23, The Russian warship Leffort disappeared in the Finland Gulf in a storm; 826 died.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1857 Oct 2, In SF the cornerstone for the new St. Francis Church was laid.
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.A21)(SSFC, 3/25/12, DB p.41)
1857 Oct 6, The American Chess Association organized. The 1st major US chess tournament was held in NYC. [see Oct 10]
(MC, 10/6/01)
1857 Oct 10, The American Chess Association formed (NYC). [see Oct 6]
(MC, 10/10/01)
1857 Oct 29, Conrad Haebler, German historian (Early Printers of Spain and Portugal), was born.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1857 Oct 30, Gertrude Atherton, novelist, was born.
(HN, 10/30/00)
1857 Oct, Paul Morphy won fame as the first American chess hero. The New Orleans native became the world‘s leading chess player after he defeated Adolf Anderssen of Germany. Morphy beat all the world's masters who took him on, although Englishman Howard Staunton managed to avoid a match. Morphy then issued a challenge to take on any player, but none responded, and Morphy retired.
(HN, 1/22/00)
1857 Nov 2, Joseph F.F. Babinski, Polish-French neurologist (Babinski reflex), was born.
(MC, 11/2/01)
1857 Nov 5, Ida M. Tarbell (d.1944), muckraking journalist, was born in Erie County, Pa.
(AP, 11/5/07)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Tarbell)
1857 Nov 7, Dennistoun, Cross and Co., an American bank with branches in Liverpool, Glasgow, New York and New Orleans, collapsed taking with it the Western Bank of Scotland with 98 branches. In the last three months of this year there were 135 bankruptcies.
(Econ, 4/12/14, p.52)
1857 Nov 9, Atlantic Monthly magazine was 1st published.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1857 Nov 23, George Smythe (b.1818), 7th Viscount Strangford, died. In 2006 Mary S. Millar authored “Disraeli’s Disciple: The Scandalous Life of George Smythe."
(http://tinyurl.com/mhqn3)(WSJ, 9/2/06, p.P9)
1857 Nov 26, First Australian Parliament opened in Melbourne.
(AP, 11/26/02)
1857 Dec 3, Joseph Conrad (d.1924), novelist, was born in Berdychiv, Poland, as Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski. He is best known for “Heart of Darkness." His work “The Secret Agent" had a profound effect on Unabomber Theodore J. Kaszynski in the late 20th cent. Conrad also wrote the short story “The Informer."
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A3)(HN, 12/3/98)(AP, 12/3/07)
1857 Dec 8, 1st production of Dion Boucicault's "Poor of NY."
(MC, 12/8/01)
1857 Dec 17, Sir Francis Beaufort (b.1774), Irish-born hydrogapher, died in London. In 2004 Scott Huler authored “Defining the Wind: The Beaufort Scale, and How a Nineteenth-Century Admiral Turned Science into Poetry."
(NH, 11/1/04, p.51)
1857 Dec 29, Franz Liszt's "Die Hunnenschlacht," premiered in Weimar.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1857 Dec 31, Britain’s Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the capital of Canada.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1857 Augustus Leopold Egg began to paint his 3-part work "Past and Present." It was completed in 1858.
(WSJ, 2/19/97, p.A15)
1857 Jean-Francois Millet painted "The Gleaners."
(WSJ, 7/12/99, p.A26)
1857 Thomas Brewer wrote "North American Oology," a work on bird eggs.
(AH, 6/02, p.40)
1857 Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist, published his serial novel “Little Dorrit" in book form. It had been serialized in 1855-1857.
(WSJ, 7/19/08, p.W6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Dorrit)
1857 Hinton Rowan Helper of North Carolina published “The Impending Crisis of the South," a criticism of slavery and slaveholders.
(SFC, 6/20/15, p.C2)
1857 Thomas Hughes authored "Tom Brown’s School Days." Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman is a fictional character originally created by the author Thomas Hughes in his semi-autobiographical work Tom Brown's Schooldays. In this book, set at Rugby School, Flashman is the notorious bully, who persecutes its eponymous hero Tom Brown.
(WSJ, 7/111/00, p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Paget_Flashman)
1857 Fitz Hugh Ludlow authored "The Hasheesh Eater."
(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.4)
1857 Adalbert Stifter (1805-1868), Austrian writer, authored his novel “Indian Summer." He noted the issue of bureaucracy long before it was covered by sociologists.
(WSJ, 2/10/07, p.P8)
1857 Anthony Trollope (1815-1882), British novelist, authored his novel “Barchester Towers," which explored the mixed motives of various characters. The book established his fame.
(WSJ, 12/11/98, p.W10)(WSJ, 9/1/07, p.P9)
1857 Alexander Herzen (1812-1870), Russia’s first socialist, and Nikolai Ogaryov (1813-1877) began publishing the newspaper Kolokol (Bell) in London, which was then smuggled back into Russia.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolokol_%28newspaper%29)(Econ, 2/13/15, p.52)
1857 Pres. Lincoln made a speech on the Dred Scott decision where he pointed out that the Declaration of Independence asserts that all men are equal in their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
(WSJ, 2/12/97, p.A16)
1857 Dred Scott and his wife Harriet sued for their freedom after living in free territory. The Supreme Court ruled that black people were not citizens and could not expect federal protection. Dred Scott was quoted to have said: "Will nobody speak for me at Washington, even without hope of other reward than the blessings of a poor black man and his family." The decision was overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.
(SFC, 12/31/96, p.A7)
1857 The US ditched its half-cent. Its value approximated the dime of 2013.
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.34)
1857 Count Agoston Haraszthy founded the Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma, Ca.
(WCG, p.67)
1857 The Sisters of Mercy established the West Coast’s 1st hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, in the SF Bay Area.
(SFC, 7/24/06, p.B8)
1857 In Oakland, Ca., Theophilide St. Germaine and her husband, a French count, built a structure at 301 Broadway to serve as a wine shop. In 2014 the building, home to Vegan Soul Food, was believed to be the oldest structure in the city.
(SFC, 4/2/14, p.E3)
1857 In northern California Fort Bragg was established by Lt. Horatio Gates Gibson to keep control of the natives confined to the newly established Mendocino Indian Reservation. He named the camp Fort Bragg after Capt. Braxton Bragg, his former commanding officer. Bragg later served as Confederate general in the Civil War.
(SFC, 7/23/15, p.A6)
1857 In San Francisco the City and County Hospital purchased the North Beach School transforming it into a 150-bed hospital.
(SSFC, 5/22/16, p.N10)
1857 West Coast whaler Capt. Charles Melville Scammon discovered a major breeding ground for gray whales in a Baja California lagoon. By 1861 an estimated 10,800 gray whales had been killed in lagoons along the Baha coast. The gray whale population was driven almost to extinction.
(SFC, 8/4/18, p.C4)
1857 Lincoln at Springfield, Ill. expounded on the idea of equality as equality of opportunity as opposed to equality of result.
(WSJ, 2/10/95), p.A-8)
1857 The Stanley Rule & Level Co. was founded in New Britain, Conn.
(SFC, 11/1/03, p.E4)
1857 Joseph Henry, head of the Smithsonian Institute, began providing daily national weather reports to the Washington Evening Star.
(ON, 2/06, p.7)
1857 Laclede Gas Light Co. was formed and dominated the natural gas business in St. Louis as late as 1942. It began by providing gas-powered street lamps to the city.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, R45)
1857 A court case in New York, Livingstone v Bank of New York, held that a bank could not be deemed insolvent merely because, during a general panic, it could not redeem its notes in specie.
(Econ, 12/1/12, p.90)
1857 John Thompson was discredited as a banker in the panic 1857. He later went on with his two sons as front men to found the forerunners of what are now City Bank and Chase Manhattan.
(WSJ, 5/8/95, p.A-14)
1857 Seneca Village in New York City, a refuge for African Americans, was razed to make way for Central Park.
(https://timeline.com/black-village-destroyed-central-park-6356723113fa)
1857 Joseph C. Gayette of NYC was said to have invented toilet paper.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, Z1 p.4)
1857 In South Carolina Dr. James Woods Babcock completed a 3-storey structure in Columbia that featured a raised cupola and 12-sided dome. The Babcock was later placed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2020 a fire destroyed the building.
(SSFC, 9/13/20, p.A5)
1857 Andrew Johnson, Democrat of Tennessee, was elected to Senator.
(SFC, 12/21/98, p.A3)
1857 The New Dungeness Light Station was built at the end of the Dungeness Spit in Dungeness Bay, Washington state.
(SSFC, 11/12/06, p.G8)
1857 The earliest horse-drawn potato planter was patented in the US.
(SFC, 4/30/97, z1 p.6)
1857 Paul Broca, a French neurologist, discovered that particular regions of the brain are specialized for particular functions. In 1861 he authored a classical paper that detailed damage in the brain’s left temporal lobe to loss of speech.
(WSJ, 10/11/02, p.AB1)(http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Broca/perte-e.htm)
1857 William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician, devised the routing conundrum. A simple version of this is known as the traveling salesman problem. It poses the question: Given an arbitrary collection of cities a salesman has to travel between, what is the shortest route linking those cities?
(Wired, 8/95, p.115)
1857 James Hall, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, pointed out the great thickness of the Paleozoic rocks in the Appalacian Mountains compared with the Mississippi Valley and offered the explanation that as the weight of the sediment accumulated it had pushed down the crust beneath it. He believed that eventually the crust could take the strain no longer. It buckled and the strata were crumpled and raised high above their original level. This theory is in contrast to Dana’s later theory of geosynclines in 1873.
(DD-EVTT, p.120)
1857 Lt. Edward F. Beale visited El Morro, New Mexico, with a camel caravan testing the feasibility of employing camels as Army animals in the American southwest.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.F9)
1857 Army Lt. Joseph Ives surveyed the Grand Canyon with "wondering delight," but concluded that it was "altogether valueless." His chief scientist John Strong Newberry declared that it was a geological paradise.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, BR p.12)
1857 Franz Kruger (b.1797), German Biedermeier artist of cityscapes and rural genre scenes, died.
(SSFC, 1/27/02, p.C7)
1857 In Australia the Botanical Garden in Adelaide was founded.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.T5)
1857 In Austria Ludwig Moser (d.1916) started a glassmaking shop in Carlsbad. The work was intended for royal families around the world and included intricate gold overlay and detailed hand painting.
(SFC, 3/5/97, z-1 p.2)
1857 Neuhaus began making chocolate in Belgium.
(SFC, 9/15/96, p.T9)
1857 The Reading Room of the British National Library opened. It was designed by Sydney Smirke. His brother, Sir Robert Smirke, had designed the British Museum 7 years earlier. The design met the wishes of Sir Anthony Panazzi, the Italian librarian. Its copper dome, supported by 20 cast iron ribs, measured 140 feet.
(SFC, 10/23/97, p.A17)(WSJ, 2/9/00, p.A24)
1857 The British Matrimonial Causes Act proclaimed that a husband’s legal responsibilities went on after a marriage ended.
(SFC, 4/12/97, p.E3)
1857 In England Dean Richard Trench lectured on the need for a complete English dictionary at the London Library and the project was soon undertaken by The Philological Society.
(WSJ, 9/14/98, p.A30)
1857 In Montreal, Canada, the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral was constructed. In the 1980s it was elevated on pylons to allow for an expansion of the underground city.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, p.D5)
1857 In British Columbia nine American slaves arrived at Vesuvius Bay on Salt Spring Island to make a fresh start in a new land. They were later joined by settlers from Hawaii.
(SFEC, 7/26/98, p.T5)
1857 Ludwig Moser began making Moser glass in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia.
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.G6)
1857 The coffin of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Kamose, was discovered outside of Thebes, but the body crumbled to dust when exposed to the air... a ceremonial dagger from the site is now in Brussels.
(L.C.W.P.p.67)
1857 The Paris salon of this year set standards so exclusive that Emp. Napoleon III ordered the rejected paintings to be hung as a separate show in 1863. [see 1863]
(Calg. Glen., 1996)
1857 In France the Napoleon III theatre at Fontainebleau Palace south of Paris, built between 1853 and 1856 under the reign of Napoleon III, opened. It was used only a dozen times, which helped preserve its gilded adornments, before being abandoned in 1870 after the fall of Napoleon III. It reopened in 2019 following 12 years of restoration work with the help of a 10 million euro donation from Abu Dhabi.
(AFP, 6/18/19)
1857 In Germany H. Sichel & Sohne, the producers of the popular Blue Nun white wine, was founded.
(SFC, 10/8/97, Z1 p.4)
1857 In Hong Kong Cheong Ah Lum, the colony’s foremost baker, so hated the Britons that he tried to poison 400 of the most important "gwailos" with arsenic laced bread. No one died but many got sick.
(SFEC, 11/10/96, p.A18)
1857 In India the 1st madrasah, religious school, was founded in Deoband in the wake of a jihad against British colonial government.
(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A1A14)
1857 In India Lakshmi Bai (1835-1858), the Rani of Jhansi, a widowed child bride, cut her saris into trousers to ride into battle during the Sepoy Mutiny against the British. She was one of the leading figures of the Indian Rebellion and became a symbol of resistance to the rule of the British East India Company.
(Econ, 8/4/12, p.82)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rani_Lakshmibai)
1857 In Italy the Lido Palace was built overlooking Lake Maggiore for the Marquis Durazzo of Genoa.
(SSFC, 12/2/01, p.C6)
1857 The Vienna-Trieste railway was completed.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Trieste)
1857 Luigi Monti, an Italian Roman Catholic friar, founded the Congregation of the Children of the Immaculate Conception in order to provide charitable health services to orphans and the poor. In 1967 the Congregation opened a factory outside of Rome to make dermatological drugs and cosmetics, which were sold commercially. In 2003 Pope John Paul II beatified Monti. In 2004 the Congregation acquired a biotechnology research firm specializing in cancer research and renamed it Nerviano Medical Science.
(WSJ, 12/7/06, p.B8)
1857 In Lebanon the modern wine industry began when a group of Jesuit monks founded Chateau Ksara in the Bekaa Valley.
(SFC, 1/11/08, p.F4)
1857 Banco Santander was founded in Spain to finance trade between the port city of Santander and Latin America.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-6)
1857-1861 James Buchanon served as the 15th president. John Cabell Breckinridge (1821-1875) was the US vice-president under Buchanan. Breckenridge was a Confederate General in the Civil War.
(WUD, 1994, p.183)(A&IP, ESM, p.96b, photo)(SFC, 11/9/96, p.A12)(WUD, 1994, p.183)
1857-1903 George Gissing, English author and critic: "That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous."
(AP, 8/18/97)
1857-1922 Arthur Wesley Dow, artist and teacher, was inspired by William Morris and in turn influenced such artists Georgia O'Keefe, Max Weber, Alvin Langdon Coburn and Gertrude Kasebier. He was later considered as one of the greatest art educators of his day. He considered crafts equal to the fine arts.
(SFEM, 8/15/99, p.4)(SFC, 9/11/99, p.C12)(WSJ, 10/5/99, p.A24)
1857-1926 Emile Coue, French pharmacist. In 1920 [1910] he devised the mantra "Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better" to promote his theory of self-improvement through auto-suggestion.
(NH, 7/98, p.20)(SFEC, 6/20/99, Z1 p.8)
1857-1938 Clarence Darrow, American lawyer: "You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free."
(AP, 9/30/97)
1858 Jan 14, Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie escaped unhurt after an Italian assassin threw a bomb at their carriage as they traveled to the Paris Opera. The hoop skirt was first worn by Empress Eugenie to conceal her pregnancy.
(HN, 1/14/99)(SFEC, 7/23/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 1/14/08)
1858 Jan 18, Daniel Hale Williams, the first physician to perform open heart surgery and founder of Provident Hospital in Chicago, Ill., was born.
(HN, 1/18/99)
1858 Jan 21, Felix Marma Zuloaga became president of Mexico upon the ouster of Ignacio Comonfort.
(AP, 1/21/08)
1858 Jan 25, Britain's Princess Victoria (the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), married Crown Prince Frederick William (the future German Emperor and King of Prussia) at St. James's Palace. The ceremony's tradition-setting music, personally selected by the Princess Royal, included the "Bridal Chorus" from Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" and the "Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn.
(AP, 1/25/08)
1858 Jan 28, John Brown organized a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. [see Oct 16, 1859]
(MC, 1/28/02)(ON, 7/02, p.7)
1858 Feb 1, John Brown went to see Frederick Douglass in Rochester and told him of his plan to steal weapons at Harper’s Ferry, Va.
(ON, 7/02, p.6)
1858 Feb 11, Bernadette Soubirous (14), a French miller’s daughter, claimed for the first time to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near Lourdes.
(AP, 2/11/97)(HN, 1/11/02)
1858 Feb 8, A record brawl in the US House of Representatives erupted over the issue of slavery. Wisconsin Congressman John F. Potter pulled a wig off a Mississippi congressman and declared “I’ve scalped him."
(WSJ, 6/13/06, p.D6)(www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001067.asp)
1858 Feb 26, In India pioneering tea-planter Maniram Dewan was hanged by British colonial rulers for taking part in the 1857 rebellion. The Sepoy Mutiny leader had introduced commercial tea production to the Assam region.
(AFP, 4/22/12)(http://pd.cpim.org/2007/0715/07152007_1857.htm)
1858 Feb, British explorers Sir Richard Burton and John Speke (1827-1864) explored Lake Tanganyika, Africa.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml)
1858 Feb 19, Alois Basil Nikolaus Tomasini (78), composer, died.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1858 Mar 2, Frederick Cook, New Orleans, patented a cotton-bale metallic tie.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1858 Mar 4, Sen. James Henry Hammond, D-S.C., declared, "Cotton is king" in a speech to the US Senate.
(AP, 3/4/08)
1858 Mar 4, Matthew Calbraith Perry (63), the American naval officer who'd opened trade relations between the US and Japan, died in New York.
(AP, 3/4/08)
1858 Mar 5, In San Francisco advocates of civil rights rescued Archy Lee, a slave held by Charles Stovall of Mississippi, from being taken from the city aboard the ship Orizaba. The story was later told by Rudolph Lapp (1915-2007) in “Archy Lee: A California Fugitive Slave Case" (1969).
(SFC, 1/11/14, p.C2)
1858 Mar 9, The mailbox was patented.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1858 Mar 10, Henry David Thoreau at Fair Haven Pond heard the love call of the red-tailed hawk.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1858 May 11, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
(AP, 5/11/97)(HN, 5/11/98)
1858 Mar 12, Adolph Simon Ochs, publisher of The New York Times, was born.
(HN, 3/12/01)
1858 Mar 15, Pope Pius IX elevated deacon Teodolfo Cardinal Mertel to the status of cardinal.
(http://tinyurl.com/hy46re2)(Econ, 7/30/16, p.48)
1858 Mar 18, Rudolf Diesel, German mechanical engineer, was born in Paris. He designed the compression-ignition engine (1893).
(HN, 3/18/99)(AP, 3/18/08)
1858 Mar 21, British forces in India lifted the siege of Lucknow, ending the Indian Mutiny.
(HN, 3/21/99)
1858 Mar 17, The Fenian Brotherhood, a brigade of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), a secret revolutionary group, was founded in Dublin by James Stephens. John O'Mahony headed the IRB's American wing, popularly known as the Fenian Brotherhood, which was composed of immigrants and Irish Americans whose ultimate goal was to free Ireland from British rule.
(HNQ, 4/17/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian)
1858 Mar 23, Eleazer A. Gardner of Philadelphia patented the cable street car, which ran on overhead cables.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1858 Mar 31, Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen launched the SS New York, a passenger cargo vessel. It was sold to Edward Bates of Liverpool in 1874 and later wrecked near Staten Island. In 1994 Edwin Drechsel (1914-2006) later authored a 2-volume history of the North German shipping line.
(www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=15185)
1858 Apr 5, Washington Atlee Burpee, founded the world's largest mail-order seed company, was born.
(HN, 4/5/01)
1858 Apr 6, President Buchanan issued a proclamation declaring Mormons in the Utah Territory to be in a state of rebellion against the US government.
(AP, 4/6/08)
1858 Apr 7, Anton Diabelli (76), Austrian publisher, composer, died.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1858 Apr 10, London’s Big Ben bell, weighing over 13 tons, was cast at the Whitechapel Foundry in East London. It was placed into St. Stephen’s Tower at the Houses of Parliament.
(SFC, 4/11/08, p.A16)(Econ, 12/24/16, p.122)
1858 Apr 15, At the Battle of Azimghur, Mexicans defeated the Spanish loyalists.
(HN, 4/15/98)
1858 Spring, Darwin sent advance proofs of "Origin of the Species" to Asa Gray, Harvard botanist, who was working up the botanical reports for the Great Exploring Expedition then surveying northern Japan. Gray was introduced to Darwin’s ideas by the geologist James Dwight Dana. [see Sep 5, 1857]
(NH, 6/96, p.6)
1858 Apr 23, Max K.E. Ludwig Planck, German physicist (Planck Constant, Nobel 1918), was born.
(MC, 4/23/02)
1858 Apr 28, NYC commissioners approved the “Greensward" plan for Central Park. Frederick Law Olmstead (1822-1903), the recently selected park superintendent, and landscape architect Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park. Olmstead and Vaux brought in George Waring, an expert on farm drainage, who raised low lying areas and installed a network of underground pipes to ensure that the grass would drain freely. The park had first opened in 1857, on 770 acres of city owned land. Construction began in 1858 and was completed in 1873. The initial budget for the new park was $1.5 million.
(ON, 6/10, p.6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Law_Olmsted)(Econ, 4/25/20, p.79)
1858 Apr 29, Austrian troops invaded Piedmont (Italy).
(HN, 4/29/98)
1858 Apr 30, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, Pres. B. Harrison's first lady, was born.
(HN, 4/30/98)
1858 May 1, Anthony Johnson Showalter, composer, was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1858 May 4, In the Mexican War of Reform liberals established their capital at Vera Cruz.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1858 May 8, John Brown held an antislavery convention.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1858 May 11, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.
(AP, 5/11/97)
1858 May 15, Emily Folger, Shakespeare scholar, was born.
(HN, 5/15/01)
1858 May 28, Dion Boucicault's "Foul Play," premiered in London.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1858 Jun 2, Donati Comet was 1st seen and named after its discoverer.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1858 Jun 16, In a speech accepting the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Springfield, Ill., Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue had to be resolved, declaring, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
(AP, 6/16/98)(HN, 6/16/98)
1858 Jun 16, Dr. John Snow (b.1813), English obstetrician, died of a stroke. He is considered the father of epidemiology for his efforts in documenting the spread of cholera in London epidemics.
(ON, 5/05, p.10)
1858 Jun 18, The US and China signed a treaty promoting "peace, amity and commerce."
(AP, 6/18/08)
1858 Jun 20, Charles Chesnutt, African-American novelist, was born in Cleveland. In 2002 Werner Sollors edited "Chesnutt: Stories, Novels, and Essays."
(HN, 6/20/01)(WSJ, 1/22/02, p.A11)
1858 Jun 22, Giacomo Puccini (d.1924), Italian composer of Madam Butterfly, was born. His work included the opera "Calaf."
(WUD, 1994, p.1162)(WSJ, 10/22/97, p.A20)(HN, 6/22/98)
1858 Jun 24, Inquisition police took 6-year-old Edgardo Mortara from his home in Bologna because his 16-year-old Catholic housekeeper had had Edgardo secretly baptized when he fell ill as an infant, fearing for his soul if he died. The Jewish-born boy eventually became a Catholic priest, taking Pius as his priestly name. He died in 1940 in Belgium. In 2018 it was reported that memoirs the boy wrote as an adult were altered before being published in 2005 to take the edge off his anti-Semitic views and enhance details favorable to the Catholic Church.
(AP, 4/20/18)
1858 Jun 29, George Washington Goethals, engineer of the Panama Canal, was born.
(HN, 6/29/98)
1858 Jun, The US Army entered Utah and installed a new governor.
(SFC, 10/23/02, p.H4)
1858 Jul 1, The Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution was 1st read at a meeting of the Linnaean Society of London.
(NH, 2/02, p.75)
1858 Jul 2, Czar Alexander II freed the serfs working on imperial lands.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1858 Jul 6, Lyman Blake patented a shoe manufacturing machine.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1858 Jul 9, Franz Boas, anthropologist, was born.
(HN, 7/9/01)
1858 Jul 13, Louis Martin and Zelie Guerin married in Alencon, France, and for 10 months refrained from sex in a “Josephite marriage." Assured by a priest that raising children was a sacred activity they went on to have 9 children, 5 of whom joined religious order. Their youngest daughter became famous as St. Theresa of Liseux, The Little Flower," canonized in 1925.
(WSJ, 10/17/08, p.W11)
1858 Jul 14, Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragist and founder of the Women's Social and Political Union, was born in Manchester, England.
(HN, 7/14/98)(AP, 7/14/08)
1858 Jul 16, Eugene Ysaye, violinist, conductor, composer (Pierill Houou), was born in Belgium.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1858 Jul 20, An admission of 50 cents was charged for the first time at the All Star baseball game between New York and Brooklyn.
(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.B8)
1858 Jul 23, Jewish Disabilities Removal Act was passed by British Parliament.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1858 Jul 24, During the Illinois senatorial campaign Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln challenged Democrat Steven Douglas to a series of joint debates, which covered the slavery controversy and its impact on the nation. The debates illuminated the positions of Lincoln and Douglas on slavery, which Lincoln regarded as "a moral, a social and a political wrong," while Douglas evaded the moral issue. Even though Lincoln narrowly won the popular vote, Douglas prevailed in the state legislature 54-41 and thus the election. The debates propelled Lincoln to national prominence.
(HNPD, 9/4/99)(AP, 7/24/08)
1858 Jul 26, Baron Lionel de Rothschild became the 1st Jew elected to British Parliament.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1858 Jul 29, Japan signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the United States.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 215)(HN, 7/29/98)
1858 Jul, British explorer John Speke (1827-1864) discovered Lake Victoria, Africa, during a side trip under the Burton expedition.
(www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml)
1858 Jul-1858 Aug, The summer Great Stink, aka The Big Stink, took place when the smell of untreated sewage almost overwhelmed people in central London, England. This persuaded the government to commission Sir Joseph Bazalgette to lay down a new network of sewers.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink)(WSJ, 10/21/06, p.P8)
1858 Aug 5, Cyrus W. Field completed the first transatlantic cable. It linked Newfoundland to Ireland. The cable burned out after several weeks of use.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)(AP, 8/5/08)
1858 Aug 16, A telegraphed message from Britain’s Queen Victoria to President Buchanan was transmitted over the recently laid trans-Atlantic cable. The cable linked Ireland and Canada and failed after a few weeks.
(AP, 8/16/97)(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)
1858 Aug 17, The 1st bank in Hawaii opened.
(SC, 8/17/02)
1858 Aug 21, The first of seven debates between Illinois senatorial contenders Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Ottowa, Ill. Douglas went on to win the Senate seat in November, but Lincoln gains national visibility for the first time. Douglas stated in the 1st debate: "I believe this government was made on the white basis. I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men."
(WSJ, 3/3/00, p.W11)(HN, 8/21/00)(AP, 8/21/08)
1858 Aug 23, "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," a play about the tragic consequences of consuming alcohol, opened in New York.
(AP, 8/23/08)
1858 Aug 24, Richmond "Daily Dispatch" reported 90 blacks arrested for learning.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1858 Aug 27, The 2nd of 7 of the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the 1858 Illinois senatorial race of took place in Freeport, Ill. Stephen Douglas formulated what became known as the Freeport Doctrine, which stated that the people of a territory could, by lawful means, exclude slavery prior to the formulation of a state constitution. Douglas first pronounced it in response to a question posed by Lincoln as to how Douglas could reconcile the doctrine of "popular sovereignty" with the Dred Scott decision.
(HNQ, 6/4/99)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Sep 1, The 1st transatlantic cable failed after less than 1 month.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1858 Sep 8, Lincoln made a speech about when you can fool people.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1858 Sep 15, The third debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held in Jonesboro, Ill.
(AP, 9/15/08)
1858 Sep 15, The Butterfield Overland Mail Company began delivering mail from St. Louis to San Francisco. The company's motto was: "Remember, boys, nothing on God's earth must stop the United States mail!"
(HN, 9/15/99)
1858 Sep 15, Charles E Vicomte de Foucauld (d.1916), French explorer and hermit, was born in Strasbourg, France.
(www.manntaylor.com/foucauld.html)
1858 Sep 17, Dred Scott, US slave, died. (See Mar 6, 1857, decision US Supreme Court).
(MC, 9/17/01)
1858 Sep 18, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas held the fourth of their senatorial debates, this one in Charleston, Ill.
(AP, 9/18/08)
1858 Sep 28, Donati's comet became the 1st to be photographed.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1858 Sep 29, Rudolf Diesel, engineer, was born. He invented the diesel engine.
(HN, 9/29/00)
1858 Oct 7, Lincoln and Douglas held their 5th debate in Galesburg, Ill., on the Knox College campus.
(SFEM, 10/29/00, p.8)(ON, 4/08, p.2)
1858 Oct 9, Gerard L.F. Philips, Dutch engineer and manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1858 Oct 13, The sixth debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Quincy, Ill.
(AP, 10/13/08)
1858 Oct 15, John L. Sullivan, heavyweight boxing champ (1882-92), was born in Mass.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1858 Oct 15, The seventh and final debate between senatorial candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.
(ON, 4/08, p.2)(AP, 10/15/08)
1858 Oct 18, The play "Our American Cousin" by Tom Taylor premiered at Laura Keene's theater in New York.
(AP, 10/18/08)
1858 Oct 19, Alice Josephine McLellan Birney, child welfare worker, was born. Her ideas evolved into the PTA.
(HN, 10/19/00)
1858 Oct 21, Jacques Offenbach's opera "Orphee aux Enfers," premiered in Paris. The Can-Can music was part of the opera. Dancers in Paris displayed their tail feathers in a high kick routine called the "cancan." The word was a diminutive form of "canard," the word for duck, whose evenly displayed feathers were likened to those of the dancers.
(SFEC, 3/23/97, z1 p.7)(MC, 10/21/01)
1858 Oct 26, Hamilton Smith patented rotary washing machine.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1858 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States (1901-1909) who was the namesake of the "Teddy" bear, was born in New York City in a townhouse at 28 East 20th Street. Today a reconstruction of the house is a National Historic Site and open to the public. The 26th president of the U.S., Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919. He wrote the 4-volume "The Winning of the West." In 1996 The American Experience series broadcast a 4-hr. TV special that covered his life. His pursuit of boxing left him blind in one eye. He put 230 million acres of land under federal protection. "Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one."
(WSJ, 9/30/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/4/96, p.C13)(AP, 10/27/97)(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)(HN, 10/27/98)(HNQ, 11/18/98) (AP, 4/22/99)
1858 Oct 27, Theodore Roosevelt’s words, "The only one who makes no mistakes is one who never does anything," were inscribed on the New York City home where he was born. The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site is located at 28 E. 20th Street in Manhattan, www.nps.gov/thrb.
(HNQ, 9/28/02)
1858 Oct 28, Rowland Hussey Macy opened his first New York store at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan.
(AP, 10/28/08)(SFC, 6/1/04, p.A1)
1858 Oct 31, Jeanie Johnston, a triple-masted barque, sank in the middle of the Atlantic with a load of timber. The crew was rescued by a Dutch ship. She was built in Quebec City for the Donovan family of Tralee. She was the best known of the "famine ships" that carried Irish refugees to the New World during the potato famine and returned with timber and food. A copy of the ship, built in Ireland, was scheduled for completion in 2000.
(SFC, 7/26/99, p.A8,10)
1858 Oct, Coaches of the Butterfield Overland Stage Co. began serving the SF peninsula. The Butterfield operation was already charged with carrying the US Mail from St. Louis to SF via southern Ca.
(Ind, 10/31/98, p.5A)
1858 Nov 2, In Illinois Abraham Lincoln won 4,085 more popular votes for the Senate than did Sen. Stephen Douglas; however Illinois senators were elected by the state legislatures and Douglas won reelection there by 8 votes.
(ON, 4/08, p.3)
1858 Nov 9, NY Symphony Orchestra made its 1st performance.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1858 Nov 20, Selma Lagerdorf, Swedish novelist, was born. Her work included "The Story of Gosta Berling."
(HN, 11/20/00)
1858 Dec 22, Giacomo Puccini, Italian operatic composer best known for Madam Butterfly, La Boheme and Tosca, was born in Lucca, Italy. [see Jun 22]
(HN, 12/22/98)(MC, 12/22/01)
1858 Dec 31, Vincas Kudirka (d.1899), author of the Lithuanian national anthem, was born in Vilkaviskis County.
(LC, 1998, p.30)(LHC, 12/31/02)
1858 Dec, The French government’s Council of State limited the ability of Paris to condemn property. Land could be seized for roads but properties along the projected roads could not be expropriated.
(ON, 9/06, p.10)
1858 Dec, Mexico's War for Liberal Reform, a three-year civil war lasting from December 1857 to December 1860, was fought between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party over the Constitution of 1857, promulgated under the liberal presidency of Ignacio Comonfort.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_War)
1858 August Czartoryski (d.1893) was born as a Polish prince. He became a Salesian priest and was beatified in 2004.
(AP, 4/25/04)
1858 Cyprian Clamorgan authored “The Coloured Aristocracy of St. Louis."
(http://tinyurl.com/gslleta)(Econ, 8/6/16, p.67)
1858 Longfellow wrote his poem: The Courtship of Miles Standish."
(WSJ, 11/24/04, p.A1)
1858 John Henry Newman, English Catholic cardinal, authored “The Idea of a University."
(Econ, 6/28/14, p.22)
1858 Sen. Seward denounced "an aristocracy of slaveholders" who controlled the country through their southern legislators: "I know that the Democratic Party must go down, and the Republican Party must rise in its place.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.A16)
1858 In San Francisco a saloon was established on the corner of Center Street (later 16th Street) at Guerrero. It burned down in the 1906 earthquake and fire. A new building was erected on the site in 1907. On Nov 21, 2003, it re-opened as the Elixir. In 2017 it claimed to be the 2rd oldest saloon in the city.
(SSFC, 11/15/09, p.A2)(SSFC, 3/19/17, p.A2)
1858 In Sutter Creek, Ca., the American Exchange Hotel opened. In 1998 it was the oldest continuously operating hotel in the state.
(SFEC, 1/3/99, p.T6)
1858 The California Supreme Court invalidated a law that prohibited the sale of goods on Sunday.
(WSJ, 8/11/00, p.W13)
1858 California voters and the state legislature approved a plan to split off a chunk of southern California and call it the Colorado Territory. Congress failed to ratify the plan as the Civil War loomed.
(SSFC, 7/20/14, p.A8)
1858 Stanford Health Services in Palo Alto, Ca. was founded as part of the Univ. of the Pacific.
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.A-10)
1858 Jacob Gundlach bought a vineyard in Sonoma, Ca., and called it Rhinefarm. Charles Bundschu from Mannheim, Germany, known for his prose and keen business sense, joined the company in 1868, and became part of the family when he married Jacob Gundlach’s daughter Francisca in 1875.
(SFC, 12/19/02, p.D4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundlach_Bundschu)
1858 Charles Krug, a German immigrant, decided to put Napa wine onto a business footing using the Mission grapes. He served a short apprenticeship under Col. Agoston Haraszthy in Sonoma.
(WCG, 7/95, p.21)
1858 A silver rush happened at Mt. St. Helena, Ca., but only a small amount of silver was produced.
(WCG, 7/95, p.22)
1858 Leland Stanford and his brother established San Francisco's first whale oil plant, the Pacific Oil and Camphene Works, at California and Front streets.
(SFC, 8/4/18, p.C4)
1858 John Mohler Studebaker (b1833) joined his two older brothers in a South Bend firm producing wagons. The company went on to become the world’s largest producer of farm wagons and carriages.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A12)(HNQ, 1/21/02)
1858 Pay dirt [silver] was struck in the Pike’s Peak region of the Colorado Territory.
(WW, 12/96)
1858 The city of Denver began as one of several prospecting camps on Cherry Creek in what is now downtown Denver. Gold-seeking settlers at the foot of the Rockies decided to call their settlement "Denver" after the governor of the Kansas Territory, in which the settlement was located.
(HNQ, 4/4/00)
1858 The Alcott family moved into a dilapidated house in Concord, Mass. The enterprising family turned the tenant farmhouse, once slated for destruction, into a place where Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and other literary neighbors would drop by for intellectual discussions. The Orchard House became the place where Louisa May Alcott wrote "Little Women" (1868).
(AP, 6/12/18)
1858 The Wornall House, at 61st Terr., Kansas City, Mo., was built by John B. Wornall as the center of a 500 acre farm. It was used as a hospital during the Civil War and survived two battles.
(Postcard, Paragon Products)
1858 In NYC Central Park was opened to the public.
(NG, 5/93, p.32)
1958 In Virginia miners and financiers settled on the banks of the Levisa Fork River and founded the town of Grundy to extract local coal deposits. Repeated flooding forced the town in 1997 to plan for a move to higher ground.
(SFC, 8/11/97, p.A3)
1858 In Washington DC the original board of the Washington Monument regained control after the Know-Nothing Party disbanded due to a split between pro- and anti-slavery factions.
(ON, 3/00, p.10)
1858 Geographer Antonio Snider-Pellegrini showed how the continents had once fit together.
(NH, 10/02, p.79)
1858 Hadrosaurus, one of the duck-billed dinosaurs, was unearthed by the Philadelphia anatomist Joseph Leidy.
(T.E.-J.B. p.24)
1858 Narcisse Pelletier (1844-1894) was abandoned during the dry season, on eastern Cape York Peninsula in Australia. He was discovered and rescued by an Aboriginal family and went on to live with the Uutaalnganu speakers for the next 17 years until he was found by the crew of the John Bell on 11 April 1875.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcisse_Pelletier)
1858 John Hanning Speke (1827-1864), British explorer, became the first European to visit Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake. Its shoreline touched Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanning_Speke)
1858 The first commercial tonic water first became available and was used as a prophylactic against malaria by the British in India.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonic_water)(Econ, 12/24/16, p.62)
1858 Canada developed its own currency.
(Econ, 5/12/12, p.78)
1858 Gold was reported found on the sand banks of the Fraser River in BC. The first Chinese arrived in British Columbia seeking gold along the Fraser River.
(enRoute, 2/96, p.21)(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.T4)
1858 Henry Gray (1827-1861), English anatomist and surgeon, authored the textbook “Gray’s Anatomy." It defined the genre and dissected the body along thematic lines. In 2008 Ruth Richardson authored “The Making of Mr Gray’s Anatomy: Bodies, Books, Fortune, Fame."
(Econ, 8/11/07, p.72)(http://streetanatomy.com/blog/?p=48)(Econ, 11/15/08, p.99)
1858 Florence Nightingale published her “Notes on matters affecting the health, efficiency and hospital administration of the British army," in which she presented a new form of data display later known as “Nightingale’s Rose" or Nightingale’s coxcomb." This year she also became the first female fellow of the Statistical Society of London.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.74)
1858 In England the Covent Garden Royal Opera House was constructed in London. In 1997 it was scheduled for a $361 million refurbishment and slated to reopen in Dec, 1999.
(SFC, 7/14/97, p.E3)
1858 Britain made British Columbia a crown colony.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.T4)
1858 The East India Company was abolished and the British government assumed the administration of India.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.A15)
1858 Francis Frith (1822-1898) took a six month expedition up the Nile and shot numerous photographs that included 21 mammoth-plate views (20 x 24 inches).
(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-16)(SFC, 9/11/97, p.E3)
1858 Charles Frederick Worth, an English tailor in Paris, began haute couture. He was hired by Napoleon to create a suitable wardrobe for Princess Eugenie and trigger a demand for French fashion.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R40)
1858 In India King Rao Ram Baksh Singh was hanged in Uttar Pradesh after rising up against British colonial forces. In 2013 swami Shobhan Sarkar said a dream informed him that the king had left a $50 billion treasure under his fort.
(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A3)
1858 The Maori responded to Britain’s colonization of New Zealand by choosing a monarch of their own.
(SFC, 8/16/06, p.B7)
1858 Papal police took Edgardo Mortara (6), a Jewish boy, from the arms of his father after a Catholic housemaid claimed to have baptized the boy during an illness. Edgardo grew up a church ward and later became a priest.
(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)
1858-1863 These years are covered in Michael Shaara’s Civil War era novel "Gods and Generals."
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.D8)
1858-1867 Edgar Degas painted his portrait: "The Bellelli Family."
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.E1)
1858-1868 Brahms spent about ten years composing his "Ein Deutsches Requiem, Opus 45," for solo voices, chorus and orchestra. It is considered his greatest choral work.
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed.p.310 )
1858-1862 In Mexico Benito Juarez served his 1st term as president. He succeeded in resisting the French and offered a moment of democracy before bending the constitution to stand for re-election.
(WUD, 1994, p.772)(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A12)
1858-1919 Ruggiero Leoncavallo, Italian composer and librettist.
(WUD, 1994, p.821)
1858-1922 Allesandro Moreschi, the last castrato singer. He was a member of the Sistine Chapel Chorus and recorded a few phonograph records in the first decade of the 20th century. "The sound on those records makes one shiver."
(LGC-HCS, p.44)
1858-1933 Henry Watson Fowler, English lexicographer-author: "We tell our thoughts, like our children, to put on their hats and coats before they go out."
(AP, 7/31/00)
1858-1943 Beatrice Potter Webb, English sociologist: "Religion is love; in no case is it logic."
(AP, 11/8/98)
1858-1945 Felix Emmanuel Schelling, American educator and scholar: "True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success; the glorious inequality of talent, of genius; for inequality, not mediocrity, individual superiority, not standardization, is the measure of the progress of the world."
(AP, 12/15/97)
1858-1947 Max Planck, German physicist. He proved that in order to fit the theoretical curves of the energy distribution with the experimental curve of emission of hot bodies, it is necessary to assume that this minimum amount of radiant energy be equal to hv, where v is the frequency and h a universal constant known as the quantum, or Planck’s, constant. This constant is 10-27 cm.-gm.-sec.
(SCTS, p.47)
1858-1950 Agnes Repplier, American essayist: "The man who never tells an unpalatable truth 'at the wrong time' (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured."
(AP, 3/26/99)
1859 Jan 9, Carrie Lane Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, was born.
(MC, 1/9/02)
1859 Jan 20, The Federal War began in Venezuela. Ezequiel Zamora (1817-1860) led the Federalist Army until his assassination on Jan 10, 1860.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_War)
1859 Jan 22, Brahms' 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premiered in Hanover.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1859 Jan 27, Kaiser Wilhelm II, German emperor (1888-1918) during World War I, was born. He was forced to abdicate in 1918.
(HN, 1/27/99)(MC, 1/27/02)
1859 Feb 1, Victor Herbert was born. (cellist, conductor: Pittsburgh Symphony; composer: operettas: Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta; songs: Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (at Last I’ve Found You)
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1859 Feb 14, George Washington Gale Ferris, inventor of the Ferris Wheel, was born.
(HN, 2/14/98)
1859 Feb 14, Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state.
(HN, 2/14/98)(AP, 2/14/98)
1859 Feb 17, Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premiered in Napoli.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1859 Feb 18, Shalom Aleichem (Solomon Rabinowitz, d.1916), Russian-Yiddish playwright, author and humorist, was born. "To want to be the cleverest of all is the biggest folly."
(WUD, 1994 p.35)(AP, 1/13/01)
1859 Feb 19, Svante Arrhenius, Swedish chemist, founder of physical chemistry, was born.
(HN, 2/19/01)
1859 Feb 19, Daniel E. Sickles, NY congressman, was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity. This was the 1st time this defense was successfully used. Sickles had shot and killed Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, author of "Star Spangled Banner." He shot Lee, the DC district attorney, in Lafayette Square for having an affair with his wife. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity and the sanctity of a man’s home and beat the murder rap.
(WSJ, 3/29/02, p.W10)(MC, 2/19/02)
1859 Feb 25, The "insanity plea" was 1st used to prove innocence.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1859 Feb 28, Arkansas legislature required free blacks to choose exile or slavery.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1859 Mar 1, The present seal of San Francisco was adopted (its 2nd).
(SC, 3/1/02)
1859 Mar 8, Kenneth Grahame, Scottish author who created the children’s classic "The Wind in the Willows," was born.
(HN, 3/8/99)
1859 Mar 10, Henry David Thoreau recorded in his journal the hearing of his first spring bluebird.
(WSJ, 4/17/96, p.A-18)
1859 Mar 19, The opera "Faust" by Charles Gounod premiered in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/97)
1859 Mar 21, Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the 1st in US, was incorporated.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1859 Mar 21, The Scottish National Gallery opened in Edinburgh.
(MC, 3/21/02)
1859 Mar 26, A.E. Houseman (d.1936), critic, classics scholar and poet (A Shropshire Lad), was born. A 1997 fictionalized portrait of Alfred Edward Housman, "The Invention of Love: Memory Play," was written by Tom Stoppard. He is best known for his work "A Shropshire Lad."
(SFEC, 3/29/98, p.T9)(SFC, 1/15/00, p.B1)(HN, 3/26/01)
1859 Mar 26, 1st sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1859 Mar 28, 1st performance of John Brahms' 1st Serenade for orchestra.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1859 Apr 3, Reginald De Koven, composer (Robin Hood), was born.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1859 Apr 4, Knut Hamsun, Norwegian writer, was born. He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1920. His work included "From the Cultural Life in Modern America" (1889), "Hunger," "The Growth of the Soil," "Victoria," and "An Overgrown Path." A film portrait of his life was produced in 1997.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47-49)
1859 Apr 4, Giacomo Meyerbeer's Opera "Dinorah" was produced in Paris.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1859 Apr 7, Walter Camp, father of American football, was born in Connecticut.
(HN, 4/7/97)(MC, 4/7/02)
1859 Apr 9, Realizing that France had encouraged the Piedmontese forces to mobilize for invading Italy, Austria began mobilizing its army.
(HN, 4/9/00)
1859 Apr 11, Basil Harwood, composer, was born.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1859 Apr 14, Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" was published.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1859 Apr 14, Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy (b.1783), Bombay (later Mumbai) merchant and philanthropist, died. He is best know for pioneering India’s opium trade to China.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Jamsetjee_Jejeebhoy,_1st_Baronet)
1859 Apr 16, Alexis de Tocqueville (b.1805), French writer, died in Cannes. His collected writings filled 17 volumes and included "Democracy in America" (1835) and "The Old Regime and the French Revolution" (1856). In 2001 a new English translation by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop was published. In 2001 Sheldon S. Wolin authored "Tocqueville Between Two Worlds." In 2006 Hugh Brogan authored “Alexis de Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of Revolution – A Biography."
(WSJ, 9/26/01, p.A18)(www.tocqueville.org/chap1.htm)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.85)
1859 Apr 25, Ground was broken in Egypt for the Suez Canal.
(AP, 4/25/97)(HN, 4/25/02)
1859 Apr 27, "Pomona" sank in North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1859 Apr 29, In the Italian Campaign some 150,000 Piedmontese troops invaded Piedmontese territory as the French army raced to support them and the Austrian army mobilized to oppose them.
(HN, 4/29/00)
1859 Apr, In Paris, France, about 20 unlicensed stockbrokers were arrested and had their papers seized at the instigation of the market’s regulated brokers. the unregulated brokers were freed within days under pressure from clients.
(Econ, 5/11/13, SR p.9)
1859 May 3, France declared war on Austria.
(HN, 5/3/98)
1859 May 6, Baron Freidrich von Humboldt (b.1769), German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps, died. In 2015 Andrea Wulf authored “The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_von_Humboldt)(Econ, 11/7/15, p.78)
1859 May 9, Threatened by the advancing French army, the Austrian army retreated across the River Sesia in Italy.
(HN, 5/9/00)
1859 May 10, French emperor Napoleon III left Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy.
(HN, 5/10/02)
1859 May 15, Pierre Curie, physicist (Nobel 1903), was born. He and his wife discovered radium.
(HN, 5/15/99)(MC, 5/15/02)
1859 May 20, A scratch force of Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy.
(HN, 5/20/00)
1859 May 22, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (d.1930), author of the Sherlock Holmes series, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He wrote 4 novels featuring Sherlock Holmes. "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius." In 1999 Daniel Stashower published the biography: "Teller of Tales."
(AP, 6/17/97)(HN, 5/22/98)(WSJ, 4/12/99, p.A21)
1859 May 26, Captain James Simpson and his party, looking for the shortest route across Nevada, crossed the Hickison Summit into Big Smoky Valley. Their path was later followed by the Pony Express (1860) and the Overland Mail and Stage (1861).
(BLM, 2001)
1859 May 28, The French army launched a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.
(HN, 5/28/00)
1859 May 30, The Piedmontese army crossed the Sesia River and defeated the Austrians at Palestro, Italy.
(HN, 5/30/00)
1859 May, The San Francisco Industrial School opened as privately chartered "house of refuge" for destitute children. It was located in an area that later became George M. Rush Stadium of SF City College. In its first year it took in 60 boys and 5 girls and the children were put to work clearing its 100 acres and working on its farm. The school was run more as a prison than as a school and in 1872 was taken over by the city. In 1892 it was closed and became a women's prison.
(SFC, 3/17/18, p.C1)
1859 Jun 2, French forces crossed the Ticino River, the last natural barrier between themselves and Milan with the Austrians in retreat.
(HN, 6/2/00)
1859 Jun 4, The French army under Napoleon III took Magenta from the Austrian army after a bloody battle in northern Italy.
(HN, 6/4/99)
1859 Jun 11, The Comstock silver load was discovered near Virginia City, Nevada. Prospector James Finney stumbled across thick, bluish clay in western Nevada. A fellow minor, Henry Comstock, gave his name to the lode, the most lucrative silver ore mine in history. Ott’s Assay Office in Nevada City, Ca., first assayed samples of the rich Comstock Lode of Nevada. Four Irishmen known as the Bonanza Kings bought up shares in the Comstock mines and became rich. They were John Mackay (1831-1902), James Fair, James Flood, and William O’Brian. Ore from the Comstock lode was hauled by horse-drawn wagon over Donner Pass to SF. In 2018 Gregory Crouch authored "The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle Over the Greatest Riches in the American West."
(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T6)(SFC, 4/14/96, T-3)(SFC, 5/19/96, City Guide, p.17)(RFH-MDHP, 1969, p.107)(SC, 6/11/02)(SFC, 6/26/18, p.E1)
1859 Jun 11, Prince Metternich (b.1773), Austrian diplomat and statesman, died in Vienna.
(WUD, 1994 ed., p.903)(Internet)
1859 Jun 21, Henry Ossawa Tanner, African-American painter, was born.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1859 Jun 24, At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I in northern Italy.
(HN, 6/24/99)(HNQ, 9/16/99)
1859 Jun 30, French acrobat Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope as 5,000 spectators watched.
(AP, 6/30/97)(HN, 6/30/98)
1859 Jul 1, John Wise (d.1879), O. A. Gager and John La Mountain took off on a maiden balloon flight to carry mail from St. Louis to NYC. They landed in Jefferson County, New York state on July 2. Their over 800-mile flight stood as a record until 1900.
(ON, 11/00, p.8)
1859 Jul 8, With the signing of the truce at Villafranca Austria ceded Lombardy to France. France also received Nice and Savoy.
(HN, 7/8/99)
1859 Jul 12, William Goodale patented a paper bag manufacturing machine in Mass.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1859 Jul 28, Balington Booth, founder of Volunteers of America, was born.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1859 Aug 3, U.S. Army captain George Edward Pickett faced the British in the Pacific Northwest. Pickett had served with valor in the Mexican War right after his graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and he had subsequently seen duty at several frontier posts. On August 3, 1859, the man whose name would be forever linked to the most famous of all Civil War charges was the American commander on the scene as the United States and Great Britain again stood on the brink of war in the San Juan Islands Pig War.
(HNQ, 2/4/01)
1859 Aug 4, French priest John Vianney (b.1789), known as the Cure of Ars, died. He had helped to hide priests on the run during the French Revolution. In 1925 he was canonized by Pope Pius XI, who in 1929 made him patron saint of parish priests. In 2019 the Knights of Columbus fraternity sponsored a US pilgrimage of his heart.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vianney)(AP, 4/6/19)
1859 Aug 9, The escalator was patented. The first working escalator appeared in 1900. Manufactured by the Otis Elevator Company for the Paris Exposition, it was installed in a Philadelphia office building the following year.
(HN, 8/9/00)
1859 Aug 12, Katherine Lee Bates (d.1929), educator, author and composer of "America the Beautiful," was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.126)(HN, 8/12/01)
1859 Aug 17, Harry Colcord crossed over the Niagara Falls while strapped to the back of French tightrope walker Blondin.
(www.simpenguin.com/genealogy/blondin/charlesblondinbio.html)
1859 Aug 27-28, The US oil business was born in Titusville, Pa. Former army officer Colonel Edwin L. Drake drilled the first oil well in Titusville, Pa., striking oil at 70 feet and setting off a wild scramble for wealth similar to the California gold rush of 1849. The land belonged to the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company. Until that time, the company had simply collected oil that seeped out of the ground. Drake's plan was to produce it in large quantities for use in heating and illumination. Overnight oil fields sprang up in Pennsylvania but competition, disorganization and oversupply kept oil prices low. It was not until John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company came onto the scene in 1870 that the petroleum industry developed into a vastly profitable, although much hated, monopoly.
(HFA, '96, p.36)(AP, 8/27/97)(HNPD, 10/4/98)(WSJ, 10/4/96, p.A9) (HNQ, 2//99)
1859 Aug 28, Leigh Hunt (b.1784), English poet and essayist, died. He is remembered for his immortal couplet: “The Two divinist things this world has got: / A lovely women in a rural spot. In 2005 Nicholas Roe authored “Fiery Heart: The first Life of Leigh Hunt." Anthony Holden authored “The Wit in the Dungeon: The Life of Leigh Hunt."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(Econ, 1/29/05, p.80)(WSJ, 12/6/05, p.D8)
1859 Sep 1, The 1st Pullman sleeping car went into service. George M. Pullman began outfitting railroad cars. His company was incorporated in 1867.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)(MC, 9/1/02)
1859 Sep 1, British astronomers Richard C. Carrington (33) and R. Hodgson (1804-1872) independently made the 1st observation of a solar flare, aka coronal mass ejection. A day later auroras lit up all of the British Isles. Telegraph communication was disrupted in every technically advanced nation.
(ON, 4/12, p.5)(Econ, 2/25/17, p.67)(Econ., 6/27/20, p.14)
1859 Sep 5, Harriot E. Wilson’s "Our Nig," was published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.
(HN, 9/5/98)
1859 Sep 9, The SS Great Eastern's first voyage was cut short by a boiler explosion. The 22,500-ton (displacement) iron steamship, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was built on the Thames River, England. It had been christened Leviathan during an initial launching attempt in early November 1857. Thereafter it was always known as the Great Eastern.
(http://tinyurl.com/2u23gy3)
1859 Sep 13, David C. Broderick, a US Senator, faced David S. Terry, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, in a duel at Lake Merced. Broderick was hit in the chest and died after 60 hours. Terry resigned his position and was charged with murder, but not convicted. The weapons used were a pair of Belgian .58-caliber pistols on loan from an associate of Terry. Broderick’s weapon was set with a hair-trigger, and misfired. The pistols sold at auction in 1998 for $34,500.
(PI, 5/30/98, p.5A)(SFC, 11/25/98, p.B8)
1859 Sep 15, Isambard Brunel (b.1806), engineer of England’s Thames Tunnel, died. He was the son of Marc Brunel, the engineer who initiated the project. In 2002 R. Angus Buchanan authored “Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom Brunel."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel)(ON, 8/07, p.7)
1859 Sep 17, The San Francisco Call Bulletin published a notice on an inside page announcing that Joshua Norton (~1818-1880), formerly a prominent SF businessman, has proclaimed himself Norton I, “Emperor of these United States." Norton lived at the Eureka Lodging House at 624 Commercial St., where he paid 50 cents a night for a modest room. The Masons provided him a stipend for the lodging. Norton soon added himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico with a proclamation delivered to the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin. He annexed the whole of the US and suspended the Constitution.
(HFA, ‘96, p.64)(G&M, 7/30/97, p.A24)(SFC, 9/17/09, p.A1)(SFC, 4/1/17, p.C2)
1859 Sep 20, George Simpson patented the electric range.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1859 Oct 4, Karl Baedeker (b.1801), German travel writer and tour guide (Die Schweiz), died.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1859 Oct 9, Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery officer who was falsely accused of giving French military secrets to foreign powers, was born.
(HN, 10/9/98)
1859 Oct 16, On Sunday evening radical abolitionist John Brown and a tiny army of five black and 13 white supporters seized the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Convinced that local slaves would rise up behind him, Brown planned to establish a new republic of fugitives in the Appalachian Mountains. Brown's plans immediately went awry when the expected slave rebellion did not happen and the townspeople trapped Brown's men inside the engine house at the Federal arsenal. Within 24 hours, Brown and his four surviving men were captured by a force of 90 U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, pictured here. Brown, quickly convicted of criminal conspiracy and treason and sentenced to death, was hanged on December 2, 1859. As he went to the gallows, Brown handed a note to one of his guards: "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." The incident is the backdrop for George MacDonald Fraser’s novel "Flashman and the Angel of the Lord." Brown was convicted and executed at Charlestown for treason against the state of Virginia. In 2011 Tony Horwitz authored “John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War."
(WSJ, 4/10/95, p. A-16)(AP, 10/16/97)(HNPD, 10/16/98)(HNQ, 2/3/00)(SSFC, 10/30/11, p.F4)
1859 Oct 17, Childe Hassam (d.1935), American impressionist painter, etcher and illustrator, was born. His work included "St. Patrick's Day."
(WUD, 1994, p.649)(HN, 10/17/00)
1859 Oct 18, Henri Bergson (d.1941), French philosopher (Creative Evolution- Nobel 1927), was born. He is said to have taught that man acts first and thinks later as opposed to Descartes who said man thinks before he acts. He won the 1927 Nobel Prize for Literature. His dualistic philosophy held that man's intellect enables him to appraise the world and his intuition tells him something of the all-pervading life force, or elan vital. He was a spokesman for "process philosophy." "Only those ideas that are least truly ours can be adequately expressed in words."
(AHD, 1971, p.125)(WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)(SFC, 3/27/99, p.C2)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(AP, 10/18/99)(MC, 10/18/01)
1859 Oct 19, Pres. James Buchanan signed a letter that confirmed the return of California mission properties to the church.
(SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T5)
1859 Oct 19, Georg Knorr, German engineer (brake system trains), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1859 Oct 20, John Dewey (d.1952), American political philosopher, educational theorist and writer (Learn by doing), was born in Michigan. He was called an advanced liberal and in 1995 Alan Ryan publishes a biography on Dewey titled: John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism. Ryan points out that Dewey’s ideas were anti-institutional, that he advocated economic and social democracy, that he was more of a romantic and concerned with how things ought to be in an ideal world. "Open-mindedness is not the same as empty-mindedness. To hang out a sign saying, ‘Come right in; there is no one at home’ is not the equivalent of hospitality."
(Civil., Jul-Aug., ‘95, p.77)(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.15)(WSJ, 6/22/99, p.A22)(MC, 10/20/01)(AP, 2/25/98)
1859 Oct 22, Louis (Ludwig) Spohr (75), composer (Faust), died.
(MC, 10/22/01)
1859 Oct 22, Spain declared war on the Moors in Morocco.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1859 Nov 1, Henry David Thoreau stood up in front of a crowd in Boston’s Tremont Temple and delivered a lecture in support of abolitionist John Brown.
(Econ, 8/12/17, p.67)
1859 Nov 12, The first flying-trapeze circus act was performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus Napoleon in Paris. He designed the garment that bears his name.
(HN, 11/12/00)(MC, 11/12/01)
1859 Nov 19, Mikhail Mikhayl Ippolitov-Ivanov, Russian musician (Armenian Rhapsody), was born.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1859 Nov 21, Shoin Yoshida (1830), Japanese intellectual who inspired Meiji reformers, died. “Once a man’s will is set, he can triumph through any obstacle."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshida_Sh%C5%8Din)(Econ, 6/28/14, p.12)
1859 Nov 22, Ludwig "Louis" Spohr (75), German violinist and composer (Faust), died.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1859 Nov 23, Billy the Kid (born as Henry McCarty), was born as William H. Bonney (d.1881) in New York City. He later became a US outlaw. A ballet titled "Billy the Kid" by Aaron Copland was written in 1938.
(HFA, ‘96, p.42)(WUD, 1994, p.148)(MesWP)(HNQ, 7/9/01)
1859 Nov 24, Cass Gilbert (d.1934), architect, was born. His work included the NYC Woolworth Building, completed in 1913.
(HN, 11/24/00)(WSJ, 1/10/00, p.A20)
1859 Nov 24, British naturalist Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," or "The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." The first printing of 1,250 copies sold out in a single day. It explained his theory of evolution.
(V.D.-H.K.p.280)(WSJ, 2/24/97, p.A20)(AP, 11/24/97)(HN, 11/24/00)
1859 Nov 28, Washington Irving (b. Apr 3,1783) American essayist, author, historian, biographer, attorney/lawyer, died. He was buried in the Hudson Valley Old Dutch Church cemetery in Tarrytown. He was born in New York City and wrote the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." In 2007 Andrew Burstein authored “The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving."
(USAT, 11/12/99, p.2D)(WSJ, 2/27/07, p.D5)
1859 Dec 2, George Seurat (d.1891), French artist, was born in Paris. He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1875. His method of painting with bright colors juxtaposed as tiny dots was called pointillism, often called Neo-Impressionism.
(SFC, 5/6/97, p.E4)(WUD, 1994, p.1306)(DPCP 1984)(HN, 12/2/98)
1859 Dec 2, John Brown, US abolitionist, was hanged for his raid on Harper’s Ferry the previous October. Brown was convicted and executed at Charlestown for treason against the state of Virginia after his unsuccessful October 16-18 raid at Harpers Ferry. Six of Brown‘s men were later convicted and hanged. In 1910 Oswald Garrison Villard authored an account of Brown’s life. In 1972 Richard O. Boyer authored "The Legend of John Brown." In 1998 Russell Banks published his novel "Cloudsplitter," narrated by Owen Brown (1824-1889), the 3rd son of John Brown. In 2005 David S. Reynolds authored “John Brown: Abolitionist."
(SFEC, 2/22/98, BR p.8)(ON, 7/02, p.8)(WSJ, 4/19/05, p.D8)(SSFC, 4/24/05, p.B1)
1859 Dec 5, Dion Boucicault's "Octaroon," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1859 Dec 8, Thomas De Quincey (b.1785), English essayist, died. In 2006 his essays on murder were collected and published under the title “On Murder." He is best know for his famous “Confessions of an Opium Eater" (1821).
(WSJ, 6/9/07, p.P8)(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9029613/Thomas-De-Quincey)
1859 Dec 10, In Venezuela’s war for independence from Spain Ezequiel Zamora (1817-1860) led the Battle of Santa Ines. Zamora and 3,400 men defeated the Central Army of 2,300 men, with about 1,200 casualties altogether on both sides. Zamora had returned to Venezuela to lead the Federal War, which lasted to 1863.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_War)
1859 Dec 18, South Carolina declared itself an "independent commonwealth."
(MC, 12/18/01)
1859 Dec 28, Thomas Babington Macaulay (b.1800), English essayist, historian and politician, died. He was one of the first to advocate Indian independence, albeit on the grounds of English commercial self interest. In 2012 Zareer Masani authored “Macaulay: Pioneer of India’s Modernization.
(www.britannica.com)(Econ, 10/30/04, p.48)(Econ, 11/10/12, p.86)
1859 Dec 31, Luigi Ricci (54), composer, died.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1859 Havelock Ellis (d.1939), English psychologist, was born "What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance."
(AP, 2/9/02)
1859 Frederick Church painted his fantasy landscape "the Heart of the Andes."
(WSJ, 9/14/00, p.A24)
1859 Jean-Francois Millet painted "The Angelus," and it became the most reproduced painting of the 19th century.
(SFEC, 8/22/99, BR p.3)
1859 John Rogers bronze statues were used as molds for low cost painted plaster statues until 1892. An 1873 version showed Lincoln and Grant reading a map with Sec. of War Edward M. Stanton standing behind wiping his glasses.
(SFC, 4/2/97, Z1 p.6)
1859 George Washington Parke Custis, Martha Washington’s grandson, wrote: "Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington."
(HT, 5/97, p.46)
1859 Francis Galton published his "Hereditary Genius." He advocated arranged marriages between men of distinction and women of wealth that would, he said, eventually produce a gifted race.
(V.D.-H.K.p.399)
1859 J.S. Mill authored “On Liberty in which he formulated the idea that society could restrict individual liberty only for society’s own protection.
(WSJ, 8/14/98, p.W11)(Econ, 4/24/04, p.86)
1859 The Murray’s "Handbook for Travelers in India" was first published.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.T5)
1859 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) authored "Notes on Hospitals," which combined two papers presented the year before at the Social Science Congress. She addressed every aspect of hospital management, from the purchase of iron bedsteads to replace the wooden ones, to switching to glass cups instead of tin. The 108-page book went on into three editions and established Nightingale once more as an international authority.
(HNQ, 4/29/01)
1859 Evangelist Phoebe Palmer published "Promise of the Father" on women’s right to preach.
(SFC, 3/30/97, Z1. p.6)
1859 Joseph Prestwich, English geologist, published his "Verification of Boucher de Perthes’ Claims" [that early man made stone tools]. The paper is a model of careful detailing of evidence, and from it we may date the birth of modern prehistory.
(RFH-MDHP, p.95)
1859 Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), Scottish doctor and writer, authored “Self-Help." It became a classic work on self-improvement.
(Econ, 4/24/04, p.86)
1859 Author Emily Thornwell provided maidens with a model of the correct manner of accepting a marriage proposal in her etiquette book, "The Ladies' Guide to Perfect Gentility:"
"Sir: The attentions which you have so long and so assiduously shown to me have not escaped my notice; indeed how could they, since they were directed exclusively to me?...On consulting my parents, I find that they do not object to your proposal; therefore, I have only this to add--may we still entertain the same regard which we have hitherto cherished for each other, until it shall ripen in that affection which wedlock shall sanction, and which lapse of time will not allow to fade. Believe me to be, Yours, sincerely attached...."
(HNPD, 6/4/99)
1859 Brahms played his composition "Pianoforte Concerto in D minor" for the first time in public in Hanover under J. Joachim.
(BLW, Geiringer, 1963 ed. p. 61)
1859 Berlioz wrote his version of Gluck’s opera "Orphee et Eurydice."
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.B3)
1859 Dixie, the musical anthem of the Civil War South, was first performed in New York City.
(SFC, 9/22/96, zone 1 p.2)
1859 The SF Call reported on the "Hoochie Coochie" dancers on the stages of the Bella Union, The Olympic and the Midway Plaisance and other dance halls: "dances of licentious and profane character, obscenity were served in superior style."
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.20)
1859 Pres. Buchanan ordered a blockade of Cuba to intercept American-owned slave ships.
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.C12)
1859 The US was party to a Friendship, Commerce and Navigation Treaty [with Paraguay]. The treaty was cited in 1998 (along with the 1963 Vienna Convention) as protecting the right of individuals jailed in a foreign land to contact their national consulate.
(SFC, 4/14/98, p.A3)
1859 In the US the Highlander Regiment, aka Cameron Highlanders, was formed. It was made up primarily of emigrant Scots and Scottish-Americans. It adopted the numerical designation of 79.
(RC handout, 5/27/96)
1959 Northern and Southern leaders socialized together for the last time at the Napier Ball in the Willard Hotel before the start of the US Civil War.
(SFC, 1/5/06, p.E4)
1859 Lyman Cutlar, an American farmer, shot and killed a Berkshire boar uprooting his potato patch and the British threatened to put him into irons. The Pig War on San Juan Island forced an arbitration under Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, who awarded the San Juan islands off Washington state to the US. Six Royal Marines and 16 US soldiers died during the 13-year occupation from drownings, disease and suicides.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T8)
1859 The Texas Supreme Court said that the people cannot be oppressed and enslaved who are not first disarmed.
(NG, 5/88, mem. forum)
1859 In SF the Francisco Reservoir was built on Russian Hill. It was decommissioned in 1940. In 2018 a plan to convert it into a 4.5-acre park was approved.
(SFC, 3/15/18, p.D1)
1859 The town of Bodie, east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Calif., was founded. It was 8,400 feet high and later the site of a gold find. William S. Body found gold in Mono County and prompted the growth of the town of Bodie. It was later made a State Historic Park maintained in its original condition. In 2002 it became the state’s official Gold Rush ghost town. Neighboring Calico was designated the state’s official Silver Rush ghost town in 2003.
(SFC, 6/23/96, p.T3)(SFEC,11/23/97, p.D5)(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A2)
1859 Colonel Frederick W. Lander led an expedition to the West to survey a railroad route across Nevada to California. Artist Alfred Bierstadt accompanied the expedition.
(www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/sherman2.html)
1859 Richard Tobin, SF attorney, co-founded the Hibernia Savings and Loan Society.
(Daly City Fog Cutter, Vol 8 No. 3, 2008)
1859 San Francisco police Chief Martin Burke boasted that many prostitutes have been removed from the Chinatown area and other streets. There was no effort to actually end prostitution.
(SFC, 1/20/18, p.C2)
1859 In San Francisco the Chinese Presbyterian Mission Church founded the first school in the US to admit Chinese students. It closed after four months.
(SFC, 4/15/17, p.C1)
1859 The SF Call reported on the “Hoochie Coochie" dancers on the stages of the Bella Union, The Olympic and the Midway Plaisance and other dance halls: “dances of licentious and profane character, obscenity were served in superior style."
(SFEM,11/30/97, p.20)
1859 Milton Slocum Latham became governor of California. He resigned within hours after receiving an appointment to the US Senate. His SF home at 656 Folsom St. was alleged to be one of the most sumptuous in America.
(Ind, 1/9/98, p.5A)
1859 The population of SF was about 50,000 people.
(SFEM, 3/2/97, p.10)
1859 Claire Brown was the first black woman to come to Colorado. She helped establish the Adriance Church, one of the state’s first churches.
(Hem., 5/97, p.20)
1859 A law banning the carrying of concealed weapons was passed in Ohio.
(http://tinyurl.com/d337x96)
1859 Gustave Stomps (1827-1890), a German immigrant, founded a furniture company in Dayton, Ohio. The Stomps Burkhardt Co. of Dayton operated from 1890 to 1928.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1859 The Riemann Hypothesis was first proposed.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A2)
1859 One of the first reports relating tobacco to cancer was published in France.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1859 John Augustus, Boston businessman, died. He had instituted a practice called probation and helped spare some 2,000 convicted offenders from prison sentences. In 1891 the Mass. state legislature established the 1st official judicial probation system. In 1925 the US Congress passed the National Probation Act.
(ON, 5/02, p.5)
1859 Peter Lassen was killed at Paiute Peak near the Black Rock Desert by a single shot through the skull.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.A9)
1859 In Australia the Yalumba Winery in the Barossa Valley, South Australia, was begun by the Sam Smith family.
(SFEC, 10/25/98, p.T5)
1859 A treaty between Britain and Guatemala defined the boundaries of Belize.
(SFC, 11/2/00, p.A12)
1859 There was a rain of tiny fish over England.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1859 James Whistler (1834-1903), American painter, moved to London.
(Econ, 5/10/14, p.83)
1859 The British took Baluchistan, and Afghanistan became completely landlocked.
(https://www.afghan-web.com/history/chronology/)
1859 Imam Shamil (1797-1871), Caucasian (Chechen) warrior, surrendered and became an honorary captive of Alexander II.
(SFC, 8/13/99, p.A14)
1859 The Muslim North Caucasus region of Chechnya was incorporated into the Russian empire after hundreds of years of fighting. Czarist armies conquered Chechnya after decades of fighting.
(SFC, 5/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 10/26/02, p.A10)
1859 One of the first reports relating tobacco to cancer was published in France.
(HNQ, 11/10/98)
1859 Gaston Plante, French physicist, invented the first rechargeable battery.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1859 Leon Benouville (b.1821), French painter, died. His paintings included “The Wrath of Achilles" (1847).
(www.insecula.com/us/contact/A005594.html)
1859 A series of at least 4 Olympic competitions began in Athens, Greece.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.R16)
1859 Roatan Island, 40 miles off the mainland, was ceded to Honduras. The British had settled the island with African slaves and the islanders speak English with a Caribbean accent. It was controlled for a time by the pirate Henry Morgan.
(SFEC, 5/4/97, p.T10)
1859 The onion-domed Great Synagogue was erected in the Jewish quarter of Budapest, Hungary.
(Sm, 3/06, p.76)
1859 The present church in Thingvellir, Iceland, was constructed.
(NH, 6/96, p.53)
1859 The first polo club, The Retreat in Silchar, India, was founded. It was organized by British soldiers in northern India.
(Hem., 7/95, p.87)
1859 Dr. David Livingstone, Scottish missionary, arrived in Malawi. The town of Livingstonia was later named in his honor.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.A10)
1859 Melchor Ocampo, a Mexican lawyer, scientist and liberal politician, penned a 537-word ode to marriage, which was incorporated as the vows in a new civil marriage law. They were meant to replace religious vows as Mexican liberals stripped away the Roman Catholic Church’s control over much of the country’s political, social and economic life. Conservative foes summarily executed Ocampo by firing squad for promoting the separation of church and state, but kept the amended vows in the new civil marriage law.
(AP, 7/30/06)
1859 Russia purchased the Alexander courtyard in Jerusalem.
(AP, 1/22/20)
1859 In Serbia the Zastava manufacturing plant in Kragujevac began operations.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A12)
1859 After four years in the United States, Alfred Nobel returned to Sweden and built a factory to manufacture the explosive nitroglycerin.
(HNPD, 10/21/98)
1859-1909 The Indian-head penny was minted over this time.
(WSJ, 12/12/03, p.W15)
1859-1927 Jerome K. Jerome, English author and humorist: "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do."
(AP, 5/30/97)
1859-1947 Carrie Chapman Catt, American feminist: "No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion."
(HN, 7/19/98)
1859-1954 The colonial period of Vietnam.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.T1)
