1855

Year '1855' ('MDCCCLV') was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Contents

Events of 1855

January - March

April - June

July - September

October - December

Undated

Ongoing events

Births

January - June

July - December

Deaths

January - June

July - December

Events of 1855

January - March

★ January 1 - Ottawa, Ontario is incorporated as a city.

★ January 23 - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.

★ January 23 - The region of Wairarapa, New Zealand was hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in New Zealand, which reached Magnitude 8.1 on the Richter Scale. There were five deaths.

★ January 26 - Point No Point Treaty signed in Washington Territory.

★ January 27 - The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

★ January 29

★
★ Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai wins a spectacular victory over Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army.

★
★ Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom over the management of the Crimean War.

★ February 5 - Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

★ February 11 - Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III in a ceremony at the church of Derasge Maryam.

★ February 17 - Taiping Rebellion: Triad uprising in Shanghai suppressed.

★ February 22 - Pennsylvania State University is founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.

★ March 3 - US Congress appropriates $30,000 to create US Camel Corps

★ March 16 - Bates College in Lewiston, Maine was founded.

★ March 17 - Taiping Rebellion: A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui.

★ March 30 - Elections held for first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourians cross border in large numbers to elect proslavery body.

April - June

★ May 15 - The Great Gold Robbery of 1855 in England.

★ May 17 - The town of Agawam, Massachusetts (home to Six Flags New England) was incorporated.

★ June 28 - Sigma Chi Fraternity was founded.

★ June 29 - The ''Daily Telegraph'' begins publication.

July - September

★ July 2 - Kansas Territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.

★ July 16 - Hell Gate Treaty was Created.

★ September 3 - Last Bartholomew Fair in London, England.

★ September 11 - Sevastapol falls to the British troops.

October - December

★ November 17 - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe.

★ November 21 - Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to "Wakarusa War" between antislavery and proslavery forces.

★ December 22

★
★ Metropolitan Board of Works established.

★
★ The battle of Santomé, where 3,000 Dominicans defeated 30,000 Haitian troops.

Undated

★ Stamp duty was removed from newspapers in Britain creating mass market media in the UK.

Ongoing events

★ Crimean War (1854-1856)

★ Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

January - June

★ January 5 - King Camp Gillette, American inventor (d. 1932)

★ January 20 - Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899)

★ January 21 - John Moses Browning, American firearms inventor (d. 1926)

★ January 28 - William Seward Burroughs, American bank clerk and inventor (d. 1898)

★ March 13 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)

★ March 24 - Andrew Mellon, American banker and philanthropist (d. 1937)

★ April 21 - Hardy Richardson, 19th century baseball player (d. 1931)

★ April 27 - Caroline Rémy, French feminist (d. 1929)

★ May 1 - Marie Corelli, English novelist (d. 1924)

★ May 9 - Julius Röntgen, German-Dutch classical composer (d. 1932)

★ May 10 - Sri Yukteswar Giri, Author of The Holy Science

July - December

★ July 26 - Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)

★ October 12 - Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (d. 1922)

★ October 21 - Howard Hyde Russell, American activist (d. 1946)

★ November 5 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (d. 1913)

★ November 6 - Ezra Seymour Gosney, American philanthropist and eugenicist (d. 1942)

★ December 28 - John William Wood Sr., North Carolinan politician, founder of Benson, North Carolina (d. 1928)
: ''See also .''

Deaths

January - June

★ January 6 - Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779)

★ January 10 - Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist and dramatist (b. 1787)

★ January 26 - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)

★ February 6 - Josef Munzinger, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1791)

★ February 23 - Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777)

★ March 2 - Nicholas I of Russia, the 11th Russian Tsar (b. 1796)

★ March 29 - Henri Druey, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1799)

★ March 31 - Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816)

★ May 5 - Robert Inglis, English politician (b. 1786)

★ May 23 - Charles Robert Malden English explorer (b. 1797)

★ June 28 - Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788)

★ June 28 - Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (b. 1802)

July - December

★ August 7 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)

★ November 11 - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)

★ November 26 - Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian - Polish poet and writer (b. 1798)
: ''See also .''