1856
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| Years: 1853 1854 1855 - 1856 - 1857 1858 1859 |
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| Decades: 1820s 1830s 1840s - 1850s - 1860s 1870s 1880s |
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| Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century 1856 in topic: Lists of leaders: |
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1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).
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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.
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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)
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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 à Beckett, English writer (b. 1811)
