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 art 1856 in literature 1856 in music 1856 in rail transport 1856 in science 1856 in sports List of state leaders in 1856 List of religious leaders in 1856

Events

• January 8 - Borax is discovered (John Veatch).
• January 29 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross
• 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 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 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.
• 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 11 – Hurricane in Last Island, Louisiana - 400 dead
• November - James Buchanan defeats John C. Fremont in the U.S. presidential election
• 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.

• British Country and Borough Police Act extends London police model to the entire country
• 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, composer (d. 1941)
• January 12 - John Singer Sargent, artist (d. 1925)
• January 20 - Harriot Eaton Stanton Blatch, women's rights activist (d. 1940)
• February 2 - Frederick William Vanderbilt, railway magnate (d. 1938)
• February 14 - Frank Harris, author and editor (d. 1931)
• March 8 - Tom Roberts, artist (d. 1931)
• March 9 - Eddie Foy, singer, dancer, vaudeville performer (d. 1928)
• March 20 - Frederick Winslow Taylor, inventor, efficiency expert
• 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, founder of psychoanalysis
• May 6 - Robert Peary, explorer (d. 1920)
• May 15 - L. Frank Baum, 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, inventor (d. 1943)
• July 26 - George Bernard Shaw, writer (d. 1950)
• August 13 - Alfred Deakin, second Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1919)
• September 18 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, 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, "Wild West" legend (d. 1921)
• December 25 - Hans von Bartels, German painter
• December 25 - Sir Samuel William Knaggs, civil servant (West Indies) (d. 1924)

Deaths

• February 17 - Heinrich Heine, writer
• July 9 - Amedeo Avogadro, chemist
• August 30 - Gilbert Abbott a Beckett, writer. (b. 1811)

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