1856

Years: 1853 1854 1855 - 1856 - 1857 1858 1859

Decades: 1820s 1830s 1840s - 1850s - 1860s 1870s 1880s

Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century 1856 in topic: Arts Architecture - Art - Literature - Music Other topics Canada - Rail transport - Science - South Africa - Sport Lists of leaders: Colonial governors - State leaders From Categories: births - deaths

1856 was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• January 8 - Borax is discovered (John Veatch).
• January 29 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross
• February,1856 - The only month in recorded history to not have a Full moon.
• 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 30 - 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
• May 16 - the Vigilance committee founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself in August 18
• May 21 - Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-Slavery forces.
• 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 Pottavatomie Massacre - group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill five homesteaders in Franklin County, 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.
• July 31 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.
• August 10 - A hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana - 400 dead. The whole island was broken up into several smaller islands by the storm.
• 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 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.
• 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 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.

Births

• 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 8 - Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
• March 9 - Eddie Foy, American singer, dancer, and vaudeville performer (d. 1928)
• March 20 - Frederick Winslow Taylor, American inventor and efficiency expert (d. 1915)
• April 5 - Booker T. Washington, African-American educator (d. 1915)
• April 12 - William Martin Conway, British art critic and mountaineer (d. 1937)
• 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 13 - Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
• September 18 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (d. 1931)
• November 22 - Heber J. Grant, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1945)
• November 24 - Bat Masterson, American lawman (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)

Deaths

• January 16 - Thaddeus William Harris, American naturalist (b. 1795)
• February 17 - Heinrich Heine, German writer (b. 1797)
• May 3 - Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (b. 1803)
• July 9 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
• July 29 - Robert Schumann , German pianist
• August 30 - Gilbert Abbott ŕ Beckett, English writer (b. 1811)