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

  Events

  January–March

  January 29: Victoria Cross.

• January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch.
• January 24 – U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion.
• January 26 – First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the USS Decatur (1839) drive off American Indian attackers after an all day battle with settlers.
• January 29
  • The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.^[1]
  • Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross.
• February – The Tintic War breaks out in Utah.
• February 1 – Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
• February 2 – Dallas, Texas is incorporated as a city.
• February 7 – The nawab of Oudh (Wajid Ali Shah) is exiled to Metiabruz and the state is annexed by the British East India Company.
• February 18 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• March
  • Great Trigonometric Survey of India officially gives 'Peak XV' (later to be named Mount Everest) the height of 29,002 ft (8,840 m). 'Peak IX' (Kangchenjunga), previously thought to be the world’s highest, is confirmed as 28,156 ft (8,582 m).
  • Mauveine, the first synthetic organic dye, is discovered by William Henry Perkin while attempting to synthesize quinine. This eventually leads to the birth of the chemical industry.^[2]
• March – Nepalese-Tibetan War: The signing of the Treaty of Thapathali concludes the war.
• March 5 – Fire destroys the Covent Garden Theatre in London.
• March 6 – Maryland Agricultural College (present-day University of Maryland, College Park) is chartered.
• March 9 – National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
• 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 detachment.
• March 31 – The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War.

  March 5: Covent Garden Theatre fire.

  April–June

• April 7 – Nelson College is founded in Nelson, New Zealand.
• April 10 – The Theta Chi Fraternity is founded at Norwich University.
• April 17 – The Chicago Historical Society museum is established at 1601 N. Clark Street, Chicago.
• April 21 – Pioneers of the 8 hours Movement are photographed, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• May 1 – Isabela Province is created in the Philippines in honor of Queen Isabela II of Spain.
• May 3 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gives Norfolk Island to the population of the colony at Pitcairn Island.
• May 14 – A committee of Vigilance is founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18.
• May 20 – David Livingstone arrives at Quelimane on the Indian Ocean having completed a 2-year transcontinental journey across Africa from Luanda.^[3]
• May 21 – Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery 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 is unable to return to duty for 3 years while he recovers; Brooks becomes a hero across the South.
• May 24 – Pottawatomie Massacre: A group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill 5 homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas.
• June 2 – Battle of Black Jack: Antislavery forces, led by John Brown, defeat proslavery forces 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.

  July–September

• July 9 – Natal becomes a Crown Colony.^[4]
• July 17 – The Great Train Wreck (the worst railroad calamity in the world to date) occurs near Philadelphia, PA, USA.
• July 31 – Christchurch, New Zealand is chartered as a city.
• August 10 – A hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana, leaving 400 dead. The whole island is broken up into several smaller islands by the storm.
• August 30 – Battle of Osawatomie: Proslavery forces defeat antislavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
• September 1 – Seton Hall University is founded by Archdiocese of Newark Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
• September 2 – Taiping Rebellion: Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang assassinate Yang Xiuqing.

  October–December

• 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 is founded in Niagara Falls, New York.
• November 27 – The Coup of 1856 leads to Luxembourg's unilateral adoption of a new, reactionary constitution, as King-Grand Duke William III signs the new constitution without the Chamber of Deputies' consent.
• December 1 – Under the County and Borough Police Act, in any county or area of England and Wales where a police force has not already been established, the Justices of the Peace must from this date take steps to create one according to nationally defined standards.^[5]
• December 2 – National Portrait Gallery, London, established.^[6]
• December 9 – Bushehr surrenders to the British.

  Date unknown

• Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
• Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
• Pre-human remains are found in the Neanderthal valley in Germany.
• Legal protection of widow remarriage is extended in India.
• St. Paul's School, Belgaum is founded by the Jesuits in Belgaum, India.
• British Guiana 1c magenta postage stamp issued in British Guiana in limited numbers; the one surviving specimen will become regarded as the world's rarest stamp.^[7]

  Births

  January–June

• 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 12 – Eduard von Böhm-Ermolli, Austrian general and German field marshal (d. 1941)
• February 14 – Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (d. 1931)
• February 21 or February 28 – Maurycy Gottlieb, Ukrainian painter (d. 1879)
• February 29 – Frederic, Fictional character in The Pirates of Penzance
• March 4
  • Alfred William Rich, English watercolour painter and author (d. 1921)
  • Julius Drewe, English businessman, retailer and entrepreneur (d. 1931)
• March 8
  • Bramwell Booth, Salvation Army general (d. 1929)
  • Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
• 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)
  • 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 23 – Granville T. Woods, African-American inventor (d. 1910)
• 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 of China (d. 1875)
• May 6
  • Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist (d. 1939)
  • Robert Peary, American Arctic explorer (d. 1920)
• May 15 – L. Frank Baum, American author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker (The Wizard of Oz) (d. 1919)
• June 14 – Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (d. 1922)

  July–December

• July 23 – Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Indian political activist (d. 1920)
• July 10 – Nikola Tesla, Serbian inventor (d. 1943)
• July 11 – Georgiana Drew, American stage actress, married Maurice Barrymore in 1876, (d. 1893)
• July 26 – George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
• August 10 – William Willett, promoter 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 3 – Louis Sullivan, American architect (d. 1924)
• September 18 – Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (d. 1931)
• October 30 – Charles Leroux, American balloonist and parachutist (d. 1889)
• 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 11
  • Edward John Bevan, English chemist, and partner of Charles Frederick Cross (d. 1921)
  • Georgi Plekhanov, Russian revolutionary and Marxist theoretician (d. 1918)
• 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 28 – Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924)

  Date unknown

• Anna Sterky – Swedish politician, feminist and trade unionist

  Deaths

  January–June

• January 14 – Janko Drašković, Croatian politician and reformer (b. 1770)
• January 16 – Thaddeus William Harris, American naturalist (b. 1795)
• January 31 – Khedrup Gyatso, 11th Dalai Lama (b. 1838)
• February 4 – Anna Gottlieb, operatic soprano (b. 1774)
• 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–December

• July 9 – Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
• July 11 – Norberto Ramírez, Central American politician
• July 29
  • Karel Havlíček Borovský, Czech politician and writer (b. 1821)
  • 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)
• October 19
  • William Sprague III, American politician from Rhode Island (b. 1799)
  • Said bin Sultan, Sultan of Muscat and Oman
• December 20 – Francesco Bentivegna, Italian revolutionary (b. 1820)

  Date unknown

• Chiba Shusaku Narimasa, swordsman (b. 1794)

  References