Historical Events in 1859

Jan 5 1st steamboat the North Star sails up the northern Red River, America

Brahms' 1st Piano Concerto

Jan 22 Johannes Brahms' 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premieres in Hanover

Jan 23 Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii begins an eruption that lasts 300 days
Jan 24 Political union of Moldavia and Wallachia; Alexandru Ioan Cuza is elected as ruler

4th Century Bible Discovered

Feb 4 One of the oldest known copies of the Bible, "The Codex Sinaiticus" (Sinai Bible), is seen in Egypt by Constantin von Tischendorf who takes the manuscript home with him

A page from the Codex Sinaiticus, displaying the Lord's Prayer. The first few letters are part of Matthew 6:4; the first new paragraph denotes Matthew 6:5. The last full sentence is Matthew 6:24; the last incomplete sentence on this page is Matthew 6:25.

Feb 5 Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza as the United Principalities

The Indian Mutiny

Feb 10 General Horsford defeats Begum of Oude and Nana Sahib in Indian Mutiny

Mutineers are executed by the Bengal Horse Artillery, in a painting by Orlando Noire

Feb 14 Oregon admitted as 33rd state of the Union
Feb 16 The French Government passes a law to set the A-note above middle C to a frequency of 435 Hz, in an attempt to standardize the pitch

Un Ballo in maschera

Feb 17 Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premieres in Naples

Chess History

Feb 26 Paul Morphy's chess match vs Augustus Mongredien begins; Morphy wins

Feb 28 Arkansas legislature requires free blacks to choose exile or slavery
Mar 1 Present seal of San Francisco adopted (its 2nd)
Mar 2 21st Grand National: Chris Green aboard 7/1 Half Caste wins by only a short neck from Jean Du Quesne
Mar 18 Vera Cruz besieged by Miramon (Cons) in Mexican War of Reform

Faust

Mar 19 Charles Gounod's opera "Faust" premieres at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris, France

Mar 21 Scottish National Gallery opens in Edinburgh
Mar 21 Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 1st in US, incorporated
Mar 26 1st supposed sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury; it doesn't exist
Mar 28 1st performance of Johannes Brahms' 1st Serenade for orchestra
Apr 4 Bryant's Minstrels debut "Dixie" in New York City in the finale of a blackface minstrel show
Apr 4 Opera "Dinorah" is produced in Paris
Apr 6 US recognizes Liberal government in Mexico's War of Reform
Apr 12 Hibernia Savings & Loan Society of San Francisco incorporates
Apr 25 Ground broken for Suez Canal
Apr 26 US Congressman Daniel E. Sickles is acquitted in the murder Philip Barton Key, on grounds of "temporary insanity" - 1st time this defense used successfully in the US [1]
Apr 27 "Pomona" sinks in North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard
Apr 30 American Paul Morphy, widely regarded as the world's best chess player, retires after returning from a 10-month chess tour of Europe

A Tale Of Two Cities

Apr 30 Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" is first published in literary periodical "All the Year Round" (weekly installments until Nov 26)

May 4 The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England.
May 17 Australian Rules Football first 'laws of the game' published
May 31 Philadelphia A's organize to play "town ball" became baseball 20 years later

Battle of Magenta

Jun 4 Second Italian War of Independence: Battle of Magenta, results in a French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III over the Austrians under Marshal Ferencz Gyulai

Jun 6 Australia: Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales (Queensland Day).
Jun 12 Comstock Silver Lode in Nevada discovered, first major silver discovery in the US
Jun 15 Pig War: Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty leads to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between U.S. and British/Canadian settlers

Battle of Solferino

Jun 24 Battle of Solferino, Northern Italy: French under Napoleon III and a Sardinian army under Victor Emmanuel II defeat the Austrian army led by Emperor Franz Joseph I

King of Sardinia and Italy Victor Emmanuel II

Jun 28 1st dog show held, in Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Jun 30 French acrobat Charles Blondin is 1st to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope
Jul 1 1st intercollegiate baseball game, Amherst beats Williams 66-32 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Jul 1 Balloon covers a record 809 miles over St Louis
Jul 5 American sealing ship Captain N. C. Brooks discovers the uninhabited Midway Islands in the North Pacific Ocean and claims for the US
Jul 8 King Charles XV/Carl IV accedes to the throne of Sweden-Norway
Jul 11 Big Ben's second and current bell first chimes from inside the Clock Tower [1]
Jul 12 Paper bag manufacturing machine patents by William Goodale, Massachusetts
Jul 22 Underarm slow right arm bowler V E Walker takes 10-74 in 1st innings for an All-England Cricket XI v Surrey CCC at The Oval in London
Aug 9 Otis Tufts patents the first passenger elevator in the US
Aug 17 1st air mail (in a balloon) took off from Lafayette, Indiana
Aug 27 1st successful oil well drilled, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake
Aug 28 A geomagnetic storm causes the Aurora Borealis to shine so brightly that it is seen clearly over parts of USA, Europe, and even as far afield as Japan
Sep 1 1st Pullman sleeping car in service
Sep 1 R C Carrington & R Hodgson make 1st observation of a solar flare
Sep 2 A solar super storm affects electrical telegraph service.
Sep 2 Gas lighting introduced to Hawaii

Livingstone Sights Lake Nyasa

Sep 16 British explorer David Livingstone is the first European to sight Lake Nyasa - now forms Malawi's boundary with Tanzania & Mozambique

Physician and Explorer David Livingstone

James Donnelly Sentenced

Sep 17 James Donnelly is sentenced to hang for murdering Patrick Farrell, but a petition for clemency reduces his sentence to 7 years in Kingston Penitentiary

Emperor Norton I

Sep 17 Joshua Abraham Norton, English-born resident of San Francisco, proclaims himself his Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, Emperor of the United States of America

Sep 20 George Simpson patents electric range
Sep 29 Great auroral display in US
Oct 12 Self-proclaimed Emperor of the USA, Emperor Norton issues edict abolishing the US Congress

John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

Oct 16 Abolitionist John Brown leads 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia

Oct 19 Wilhelm Tempel discovers diffuse nebula around Pleid star Merope
Oct 26 Steam clipper Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, Wales;, in a storm that took down over 100 vessels; approximately 450 passengers and crew killed on voyage returning to Liverpool from Australia
Oct 29 Spain declares war on Morocco
Nov 1 The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse was lit for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for about 19 miles (30 kilometers), in good conditions.
Nov 2 American abolitionist John Brown found guilty of murder, inciting slaves to revolt, and treason against the Virginia Territory during his raid of Harpers Ferry Armory, and sentenced to hang
Nov 12 Jules Leotard performs 1st Flying Trapeze circus act (Paris) He also designed garment that bears his name

Groza

Nov 16 Aleksandr Ostrovsky's play "Groza" (The Storm) premieres in Moscow

On the Origin of Species

Nov 24 English naturalist Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species" radically changing the view of evolution and laying the foundation for evolutionary biology

Nov 26 Last weekly installment of Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" is published in literary periodical "All the Year Round"
Dec 2 Abolitionist John Brown hanged for murder, treason, and conspiring slaves to revolt at Charles Town, Virginia

The Octaroon

Dec 5 Dion Boucicault's stage melodrama "The Octaroon" opens at The Winter Garden Theatre, NYC

Dec 15 GR Kirchoff describes chemical composition of the Sun
Dec 16 Frederiksborg Castle, largest Renaissance complex in Scandinavia, is badly damaged in a fire - later restored and turned into a museum
Dec 19 Grading started for Market Street RR in San Francisco
Dec 31 Dutch colony in Dutch Indies counts 4,800 slaves