1853
Events
JanuaryâÂÂMarch
- January 6
- Florida Governor Thomas Brown signs legislation that provides public support for the new East Florida Seminary, leading to the establishment of the University of Florida.
- U.S. President-elect Franklin Pierce's only living child, Benjamin "Benny" Pierce, is killed in a train accident.
- January 8 â Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan is ordered to assist the governor of Hunan in organizing a militia force to search for local bandits.
- January 12 â Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army occupies Wuchang.
- January 19 â Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premieres at Teatro Apollo in Rome.
- January 20 â The United Kingdom proclaims its annexation of Lower Burma, ending the Second Anglo-Burmese War.
- February 10 â Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces assemble at Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang for the march on Nanjing.
- February 12 â The city of Puerto Montt is founded in the ReloncavàSound, Chile.
- February 22 â Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary.
- March 5 â Saint Paul Fire and Marine, as predecessor of The Travelers Companies, a worldwide insurance service, founded in Minnesota, United States.
- March 6 â Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata premieres at La Fenice in Venice, but is poorly received at this time.
- March 20 â Taiping Rebellion: A rebel army of around 750,000 seizes Nanjing, killing 30,000 Imperial troops.
- March 29 â Manchester is granted city status in the United Kingdom.
- March â The clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. is founded in San Francisco (US).
AprilâÂÂJune
- April 7 – Prince Leopold, the youngest son and the eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, is born in Buckingham Palace; he has inherited haemophilia. During the labour, Victoria chooses to use chloroform, thereby encouraging the use of anesthesia in childbirth.
- April 16 – Indian Railways: The first passenger railway in India opens from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, .
- May 5 – Perpetual Maritime Truce comes into force between the United Kingdom and the rulers of the Sheikhdoms of the Lower Gulf, later known as the Trucial States.
- May 12âÂÂOctober 31 – The Great Industrial Exhibition is held in Dublin, Ireland.
- May 23 – The first plat for Seattle, Washington, is laid out.
- May
- The world's first public aquarium opens, as a feature of the London Zoo.
- An outbreak of yellow fever kills 7,790 people in New Orleans.
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel accepts John Scott Russell's tender for construction of the passenger steamer.
- June 22 – Guimarães is elevated to city status by Queen Maria II of Portugal.
- June 27 – Taiping Rebellion: The Northern Expeditionary Force crosses the Yellow River.
- June 30 – Georges-Eugène Haussmann is selected as préfect of the Seine (department) to begin the re-planning of Paris.
JulyâÂÂSeptember
OctoberâÂÂDecember
- October 1 – C. Bechstein's piano factory is founded, one of three established in a "golden year" in the history of the piano (Julius Blüthner and Steinway & Sons being the others).
- October 4–5 – Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire begins war with Russia.
- October 4 – On the east coast of the United States, Donald McKay launches the Great Republic, the world's biggest sailing ship, which at 4,500 tons is too large to be successful.
- October 25 – In Munich, the art museum Neue Pinakothek opens.
- October 28 – Crimean War: The Ottoman army crosses the Danube into Vidin/Calafat, Wallachia.
- October 30 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force comes within of Tianjin.
- November 3 – Troops of William Walker capture La Paz in Baja California Territory and declare the (short-lived) Republic of Sonora.
- November 4 – Crimean War: Battle of Oltenitza â Turkish forces defeat the Russians.
- November 15 – Maria II of Portugal is succeeded by her son Pedro V as King of Portugal.
- November 30 (November 18 O.S.) – Crimean War: Battle of Sinop – The Russian fleet destroys the Turkish fleet.
- December 6 – Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital, aboard the Cassini.
- December 14 – Compagnie Générale des Eaux, predecessor of Vivendi and Veolia, a global media conglomerate, is founded in Paris, France.
- December 30 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys approximately of land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
Date unknown
Births
JanuaryâÂÂMarch
- January 1 â Karl von Einem, German general (d. 1934)
- January 9 â Henning von Holtzendorff, German admiral (d. 1919)
- January 16
- Johnston Forbes-Robertson, English actor (d. 1937)
- Sir Ian Hamilton, British general (d. 1947)
- January 18 â Eusebio Hernández Pérez, Cuban eugenicist, obstetrician and guerrilla (d. 1933)
- January 23 – John Marks Moore, American politician (d. 1902)
- January 28
- José MartÃÂ, Cuban revolutionary (d. 1895)
- Vladimir Solovyov, Russian philosopher (d. 1900)
- c. February â William O'Malley, Irish politician (d. 1939)
- January 29 â Kitasato ShibasaburÃ
Â, Japanese physician, bacteriologist (d. 1931)
- February 4 â Kaneko KentarÃ
Â, Japanese politician, diplomat (d. 1942)
- February 18 â Ernest Fenollosa, Catalan-American philosopher (d. 1908)
- February 22 â Annie Le Porte Diggs, Canadian-born state librarian of Kansas (d. 1916)
- March 2 â Ella Loraine Dorsey, American author, journalist and translator (d. 1935)
- March 5 â Howard Pyle, American artist, fiction writer (d. 1911)
- March 10 â Thomas Mackenzie, 18th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1930)
- March 13 â Robert William Felkin, British writer (d. 1926)
- March 14 â Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (d. 1918)
- March 25 â Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, 5th Qajarid Shah of Persia (d. 1907)
- March 27 â Yakov Zhilinsky, Russian general (d. 1918)
- March 29 â Elihu Thomson, English-American engineer, inventor, co-founder of General Electric (d. 1937)
- March 30 â Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (d. 1890)
AprilâÂÂJune
- April 6 â Emil Jellinek, German automobile entrepreneur (d. 1918)
- April 7
- Ella Eaton Kellogg, American pioneer in dietetics (d. 1920)
- Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, member of the British royal family (d. 1884)
- April 22 â Alphonse Bertillon, French police officer, forensic scientist (d. 1914)
- April 30 â Alexey Abaza, Russian admiral and politician (d. 1917)
- May 4 â Marie Robinson Wright, American travel writer (d. 1914)
- May 20
- Ella Hoag Brockway Avann, American educator (d. 1899)
- Vladimir Viktorovich Sakharov, Russian general (d. 1920)
- May 26 - Placido Moreira Dias, Brazilian military commander (d. ?)
- May 28 â Carl Larsson, Swedish painter (d. 1919)
- June 3 â William Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (d. 1942)
- June 12 â Chester Adgate Congdon, American mining magnate (d. 1916)
JulyâÂÂSeptember
- July 4 â Ernst Otto Beckmann, German chemist (d. 1923)
- July 5 â Cecil Rhodes, English businessman (d. 1902)
- July 10 â Percy Scott, British admiral (d. 1924)
- July 18 â Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
- July 24 â William Gillette, American actor, playwright and stage-manager (d. 1937)
- July 26 â Philip Cowen, American Jewish publisher and author (d. 1943)
- July 29 â Ioan Culcer, Romanian general and politician (d. 1928)
- August 23
- João Marques de Oliveira, Portuguese painter (d. 1927)
- John Thomson, Australian politician (d. 1917)
- August 28
- Vladimir Shukhov, Russian engineer, polymath, scientist and architect (d. 1939)
- Franz I, Prince of Liechtenstein (d. 1938)
- September 1 â Aleksei Brusilov, Russian general (d. 1926)
- September 2 â Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)
- September 6 â Katherine Eleanor Conway, American journalist, editor, poet and Laetare Medalist (d. 1927)
- September 16 â Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
- September 20 â Chulalongkorn, Rama V, King of Siam (d. 1910)
- September 21 â Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)
- September 23 â Fritz von Below, German general (d. 1918)
OctoberâÂÂDecember
- October 4 â Jane Maria Read, American poet and teacher (unknown year of death)
- October 13 â Lillie Langtry, Jersey-born stage actress and royal mistress (d. 1929)
- October 14 â John William Kendrick, American railroad executive (d. 1924)
- October 16 â Thadeus von Sivers, Baltic German-born Russian general (death date unknown)
- October 17 â Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, wife of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (d. 1920)
- October 26 â Tokugawa Akitake, Japanese daimyÃ
Â, the last lord of Mito Domain, younger brother of the last shÃ
Âgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu (d. 1910)
- October 30 â Louise Abbéma, French painter, sculptor and designer of the Belle ÃÂpoque (d. 1927)
- November 9 â Stanford White, American architect (d. 1906)
- November 13 â John Drew, Jr., American stage actor (d. 1927)
- November 18 â Leopold Poetsch, Austrian history teacher, high school teacher of Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann (d. 1942)
- November 20 â Oskar Potiorek, Austro-Hungarian general (d. 1933)
- November 29 â Panagiotis Danglis, Greek general, politician (d. 1924)
- December 6 â Hara Prasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature (d. 1931)
- December 14 â Errico Malatesta, Italian anarchist (d. 1932)
- December 17 â ÃÂmile Roux, French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist (d. 1933)
- December 21 â Noda UtarÃ
Â, Japanese entrepreneur and politician (d. 1927)
- December 22
- Teresa Carreño, Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer and conductor (d. 1917)
- Sarada Devi, Indian mystic and saint (d. 1920)
- December 23 â William Henry Moody, 35th United States Secretary of the Navy, 45th United States Attorney General and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1917)
- December 31 â Tasker H. Bliss, American general (d. 1930)
Deaths
JanuaryâÂÂJune
- January 8 â Mihály Bertalanits, Slovene (Prekmurje Slovene) poet in the Kingdom of Hungary (b. 1788)
- January 16
- Matteo Carcassi, Italian composer (b. 1792)
- Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria, Archduke of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia (b. 1783)
- Robert Lucas, governor of Ohio, United States (b. 1781)
- January 19 â Karl Faber, German historian (b. 1773)
- January 22 â Méry von Bruiningk, Estonian democrat (b. 1818)
- February 4 â Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil, daughter of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (b. 1831)
- February 6 â Anastasio Bustamante, 4th President of Mexico (b. 1780)
- February 15 â August, Prince of Hohenlohe-ÃÂhringen (b. 1784)
- March 17 â Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician (b. 1803)
- March 30 â Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States (b. 1798)
- April 18 â William R. King, 13th Vice President of the United States (b. 1786)
- April 28 â Ludwig Tieck, German writer (b. 1773)
- May 18 â Lionel Kieseritzky, Baltic-German chess player (b. 1806)
- June 2
- Lucas Alamán, Mexican statesman, historian (b. 1792)
- Henry Trevor, 21st Baron Dacre, British peer, soldier (b. 1777)
- June 7 â Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis, Italian opera singer (b. 1800)
- June 8 â Howard Vyse, English soldier and Egyptologist (b. 1784)
- June 27 â Lewis Brian Adams, English painter (b. 1809)
JulyâÂÂDecember
- July 27 â Tokugawa Ieyoshi, 12th shÃ
Âgun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan (b. 1793)
- August 9 â Józef Maria Hoene-WroÃ
Âski, Polish philosopher (b. 1776)
- August 19 â George Cockburn, British naval commander (b. 1772)
- August 21 â Maria Quitéria, Brazilian national heroine (b. 1792)
- August 23 â Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)
- August 29 â Charles James Napier, British army general and colonial administrator (b. 1782)
- September 3 â Augustin Saint-Hilaire, French botanist, traveller (b. 1799)
- September 6 â George Bradshaw, English timetable publisher (b. 1800)
- October 2 â François Arago, French Catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician (b. 1786)
- October 3 â George Onslow, French composer (b. 1784)
- October 5 â Mahlon Dickerson, American judge, politician (b. 1770)
- October 13 â Jan Cock Blomhoff, Dutch director of Dejima, Japan (b. 1779)
- October 22 â Juan Antonio Lavalleja, Uruguayan military, political figure (b. 1784)
- October 27 â Maria White Lowell, American abolitionist (b. 1821)
- November 15 â Maria II of Portugal, queen regnant (b. 1819)
- December 15 â Georg Friedrich Grotefend, German epigraphist, philologist (b. 1775)
- December 23 â Juliette Bussière Laforest-Courtois, Haitian journalist (b. 1789)
Date unknown
References