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

1856 in topic:

Subjects:     Archaeology - Architecture -

Art - Literature - Music - Science

Sports - Rail Transport

Countries:         Australia - Canada -

Ireland - Mexico - South Africa - U.S. - UK

Leaders:   State leaders - Colonial governors

Category: Establishments - Disestablishments

Births - Deaths - Works v • d • e

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

Contents 1 Events of 1856 1.1 January - March 1.2 April - June 1.3 July - September 1.4 October - December 1.5 Undated 1.6 Ongoing events 2 Births 2.1 January - June 2.2 July - December 2.3 Unknown dates 3 Deaths 3.1 January - June 3.2 July - December 3.3 Unknown dates

• January - The first free public school west of the Mississippi River was established in Tipton, Iowa.
• January 8 - Borax is discovered (John Veatch).

• January 24 - U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion.
• January 29 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross
• February - The Tintic War in Utah.
• February 1 - Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.

• February 18 - The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• March 5 - Fire destroys Covent Garden Theatre
• March 9 - National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL.
• March 20 - Costa Rican troops rout Walker's soldiers
• March 24 - Taiping Rebellion: Suspecting treachery on the part of East King Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai garrisons Anhui and begins his march back to the Heavenly Capital, having defeated a strong Xiang Army dettachment.
• March 31 - The Treaty of Paris (1856) is signed, ending the Crimean War

• April 7 - Foundation of Nelson College, Nelson, New Zealand
• April 10 - Theta Chi Fraternity founded at Norwich University
• April 21 - Stonemasons and building workers on building sites around Melbourne, Australia, stopped work and marched from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight hour day.
• May 16 - the Vigilance Committee founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18
• May 21 - Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by proslavery forces (the "Sacking of Lawrence").
• May 22 - Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made attacking Southerners who sympathized with the pro-slavery violence in Kansas ("Bleeding Kansas"). Sumner was unable to return to duty for three years while he recovered. Brooks became a hero across the South.
• May 24 - The Pottawatomie Massacre - group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill five homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas
• June 2 - Battle of Black Jack between proslavery and antislavery forces, led by John Brown, in Bleeding Kansas.
• June 9 - 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
• June 13 - Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at Nanjing.
• June 20 - Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army overruns the Southern Imperial Barracks south of Nanjing. The East King orders Shi Dakai to return to Hubei.

• July 17 - The Great Train Wreck of 1856 was the worst railroad calamity in the world to date, occurring near Philadelphia, PA, USA.
• July 31 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.
• August 9 - Taiping Rebellion: Qin Rigang returns to Nanjing, fearing an attempt on Hong Xiuquan's life by the would-be usurper, the East King and supreme commander Yang Xiuqing.
• August 10 - Hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana - 400 dead. The whole island was broken up into several smaller islands by the storm.
• August 30 - Battle of Osawatomie between proslavery and antislavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
• September 1 - Seton Hall University was founded by Archdiocese of Newark Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
• September 1 - Taiping Rebellion: Wei Changhui returns to the Heavenly Capital.
• September 2 - Taiping Rebellion: Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang assassinate Yang Xiuqing.
• September 18 - Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at Nanjing, but leaves soon after fearing that Wei Changhui plans to kill him.

• October 8 - The Second Opium War between several western powers and China begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River.
• November 1 - Anglo-Persian War: War Is declared between Great Britain and Persia.
• November 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1856: Democrat James Buchanan defeats former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of "Know-Nothings" and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party to become the 15th President of the United States.
• November 11 - Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at the Heavenly Capital once more with 100,000 men and demands that Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang be executed. Shi subsequently becomes head of the government.
• November 17 - American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
• November 21 - Niagara University founded in Niagara Falls, New York.
• December 9 - Bushehr surrenders to the British.

• British Country and Borough Police Act extends London police model to all of England and Wales.
• Western Union is founded.

• Kate Warner, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency
• Pre-human remains found in the Neanderthal valley in Germany.

• Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
• National Portrait Gallery in London opened.
• Sale of Land starts suburb of Ashgrove, Queensland.
• The first session concludes at St. Paul's School, the prestigious New England Prep School in Concord, New Hampshire.
• Founding year of St. Paul's School, Camp, Belgaum.
• Henry Dunant created a business to operate in foreign colonies, and, after granted a land concession by Algeria, a corn-growing and trading company called the "Financial and Industrial Company of Mons-Djémila Mills"

• Anglo-Persian War (1856-1857)
• Crimean War (1854-1856)
• Second Opium War (1856-1860)
• Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

1856 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1856 MDCCCLVI
Ab urbe condita	2609
Armenian calendar	1305 ԹՎ ՌՅԵ
Bahá'í calendar	12 – 13
Buddhist calendar	2400
Chinese calendar	4492/4552-11-24 (乙卯年十一月廿四日) — to — 4493/4553-12-5 (丙辰年十二月初五日)
Ethiopian calendar	1848 – 1849
Hebrew calendar	5616 – 5617
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1911 – 1912
- Shaka Samvat	1778 – 1779
- Kali Yuga	4957 – 4958
Holocene calendar	11856
Iranian calendar	1234 – 1235
Islamic calendar	1272 – 1273
Japanese calendar	Ansei 3 (安政3年)
- Imperial Year	Kōki 2516 (皇紀2516年)
- Jōmon Era	11856
Julian calendar	1901
Korean calendar	4189
Thai solar calendar	2399
v • d • e

• January 11 - Christian Sinding, Norwegian composer (d. 1941)
• January 12 - John Singer Sargent, American-born artist (d. 1925)
• February 2 - Frederick William Vanderbilt, American railway magnate (d. 1938)
• February 14 - Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (d. 1931)
• March 4 - Alfred William Rich, English watercolour painter and author (d. 1921)
• March 8 - Bramwell Booth, Salvation Army general (d. 1929)
• March 8 - Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
• March 9 - Eddie Foy, American singer, dancer, and vaudeville performer (d. 1928)
• March 16 - Napoléon Eugène Louis John Joseph, Prince Imperial, son of French Emperor Napoleon III (d. 1879)
• March 20 - Sir John Lavery, Irish artist (d. 1941)
• March 20 - Frederick Winslow Taylor, American inventor and efficiency expert (d. 1915)
• April 5 - Booker T. Washington, American educator (d. 1915)
• April 12 - William Martin Conway, British art critic and mountaineer (d. 1937)
• April 24 - Henri Philippe Pétain, French soldier and statesman (d. 1951)
• April 26 - Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1930)
• April 27 - Tongzhi Emperor, Emperor of China (d. 1875)
• May 6 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist (d. 1939)
• May 6 - Robert Peary, American Arctic explorer (d. 1920)
• May 15 - L. Frank Baum, American author (d. 1919)
• June 14 - Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (d. 1922)

• July 2 - Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian political activist (d. 1920)
• July 10 - Nikola Tesla, Serbian inventor (d. 1943)
• July 26 - George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
• August 10 - William Willett, inventor of Daylight Saving Time (d. 1915)
• August 13 - Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
• August 15 - Ivan Franko, Ukrainian poet, critic, journalist and political activist (d. 1916)
• September 1 - Sergei Winogradsky, Russian scientist (d. 1953)
• September 18 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (d. 1931)
• November 3 - Jim McCormick, baseball player (d. 1918)
• November 13 - Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1941)
• November 21 - William Emerson Ritter, American biologist (d. 1944)
• November 22 - Heber J. Grant, seventh president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1945)
• November 24 - Bat Masterson, American lawman (d. 1921)
• November 29 - Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1921)
• December 13 - Svetozar Boroević, Austrian field marshal (d. 1920)
• December 18 - J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
• December 22 - Frank B. Kellogg, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
• December 25 - Hans von Bartels, German painter (d. 1913)
• December 25 - Sir Samuel William Knaggs, British civil servant in the West Indies (d. 1924)
• December 28 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924)

• (none)

See also Category: 1856 births.

• January 16 - Thaddeus William Harris, American naturalist (b. 1795)
• January 31 - Khedrup Gyatso, eleventh Dalai Lama (b. 1838)
• February 17 - Heinrich Heine, German writer (b. 1797)
• May 3 - Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (b. 1803)
• June 23 - Ivan Kireevsky, Russian literary critic and philosopher (b. 1806)

• July 9 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
• July 29 - Robert Schumann, German composer and pianist
• August 29 - Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, British Christian writer (b. 1778)
• August 30 - Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English writer (b. 1811)

• (none)

See also Category: 1856 deaths.