Year 1856 (MDCCCLVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).
Events of 1856
January - June
- April 7 - Foundation of Nelson College, Nelson, New Zealand
- April 10 - Theta Chi Fraternity founded at Norwich University
- May 1 - The creation of Isabela province in the Philippines in honor to the Queen of Spain, Queen Isabela II.
- May 16 - the Vigilance Committee founded in San Francisco, California. It lynches two gangsters, arrests most Democratic Party officials and disbands itself on August 18
- 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 was unable to return to duty for three years while he recovered. Brooks became a hero across the South.
- May 24 - The Pottawatomie Massacre - group of followers of radical abolitionist John Brown kill five homesteaders in Franklin County, Kansas
- June 2 - Battle of Black Jack between proslavery and antislavery forces, led by John Brown, 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 - December
- July 17 - The Great Train Wreck of 1856 was the worst railroad calamity in the world to date, occurring near Philadelphia, PA, USA.
- July 31 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.
- August 10 - Hurricane destroys Last Island, Louisiana - 400 dead. The whole island was broken up into several smaller islands by the storm.
- August 30 - Battle of Osawatomie between proslavery and antislavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
- September 1 - Seton Hall University was 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 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 founded in Niagara Falls, New York.
- December 9 - Bushehr surrenders to the British.
Undated
Ongoing events
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 14 - Frank Harris, Irish author and editor (d. 1931)
- March 4 - Alfred William Rich, English watercolour painter and author (d. 1921)
- March 8
- March 16 - Napoléon Eugène Louis John Joseph, Prince Imperial, son of French Emperor Napoleon III (d. 1879)
- March 20
- April 5 - Booker T. Washington, American educator (d. 1915)
- April 12 - William Martin Conway, British art critic and mountaineer (d. 1937)
- 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, Emperor of China (d. 1875)
- May 6
- May 15 - L. Frank Baum, American author (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 26 - George Bernard Shaw, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1950)
- August 10 - William Willett, inventor 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 18 - Wilhelm von Gloeden, German photographer (d. 1931)
- 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 - 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 20 -- Woodrow Wilson is born, Staunton Virginia, President USA, Nobel Prize in Peace,
- See also Category: 1856 births.
Deaths
- January 16 - Thaddeus William Harris, American naturalist (b. 1795)
- January 31 - Khedrup Gyatso, eleventh Dalai Lama (b. 1838)
- 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 9 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
- July 29 - 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)
- December 20 - Francesco Bentivegna, Italian revolutionary (b. 1820)
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- See also Category: 1856 deaths.
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