1859

1859 (MDCCCLIX) is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar).

Years: 1856 1857 1858 - 1859 - 1860 1861 1862
Decades: 1820s 1830s 1840s - 1850s - 1860s 1870s 1880s
Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century Template:C19YearInTopic

Events

January 2 - Erastus Beadle publishes The Dime Book of Practical Etiquette.
January 24 - Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexander John Cuza under the name Romania (see December 1 1918 for the final unification, Transylvania and other regions were still missing at this time).
January 28 - The city of Olympia is incorporated in the state of Washington in the United States of America.

February 14 - Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
February 27 - US congressman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton Key for having an affair with his wife

March 9 - The army of Piedmont-Sardinia mobilizes against Austria, beginning the crisis which will lead to the Austro-Sardinian War.
March 26 - French amateur astronomer claims to have noticed a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury - later named Vulcan

April 9 - The Austrian army in Italy mobilizes against Piedmont.
April 23 - The Austrians send an ultimatum to Piedmont, demanding demobilization. This puts Austria in the position of an aggressor, and leads to French intervention. Piedmont rejects the ultimatum, and war breaks out.
April 25 - Ground is broken for the Suez Canal
April 26 - Austro-Sardinian War - Giuseppe Garibaldi's Hunters of the Alps confront Austrian forces led by Field Marshal-Lieutenant Carl Baron Urban at Varese.
April 29 - Austrian troops begin to cross the Ticino River to Piedmont

June 4 - Battle of Magenta in Austro-Sardinian War - French and Sardinians defeat Austrians
June 6 - The British Crown colony of Queensland in Australia is created by devolving part of the territory of New South Wales
June 8 - French and Piedmontese forces enter Milan.
June 8 - Battle of Marignaro (1859) French victory over Austrians
June 24 - Battle of Solferino: Kingdom of Sardinia and Napoleon III of France armies defeat Franz Josef I of Austria in northern Italy. Battle inspires Henri Dunant to found the Red Cross

July 6 - Australia: Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales.
July 8 - Charles XV succeeds his father Oscar I King of Sweden and Norway (as Charles IV).
July 8 - Armistice between Austria and others
July 11 - Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, faced with an expensive war against France and the Kingdom of Sardinia and potential revolution in Hungary, meets Napoleon III, who also worries at the costs of extending the war and fears the effects of Italian nationalism, at Villafranca. By the preliminary treaty signed there, hostilities cease. Lombardy is ceded to the French (who immediately cede it to Sardinia), while the Austrians keep Venetia and the French promise to restore the Central Italian rulers expelled in the course of the war. This brings the Austro-Sardinian War effectively to a close.

October 6 - Thomas Austin takes 24 rabbits and 5 hares to Australia in order to release them there as a game. They will multiply exponentially.
October 12 - Self-described "Emperor of the United States" Joshua A. Norton 'orders' the U.S. Congress to dissolve.
October 16 - John Brown raids Harper's Ferry in Virginia, the signal for a general slave rebellion.
October 18 - Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower Brown at the Federal arsenal.
October 26 - The Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, Wales with 454 dead.

November 1 - The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse was lighted for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for nineteen miles.
November 10 - The Treaty of Zurich, reaffirming the terms of Villafranca, brings the Austro-Sardinian War to an official close.
November 19 - Opera "Genevieve de Brabant", composed by Jacques Offenbach, debuts at the Theatre de Bouffes Parisians in Paris.
November 24 - British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, a book which argues that organisms gradually evolve through natural selection. (It immediately sold out its initial print run.)