Today in History for Year 1853

Months in Year 1853: January February March April May June July August September October November December

Historical Events

Events 1 - 58 of 58

Jan 1st - 1st practical fire engine (horse-drawn) in US enters service
Jan 8th - 1st US bronze equestrian statue (of Andrew Jackson) unveiled, Wash
Jan 10th - Charles Reade's "Gold," premieres in London
Jan 19th - Verdi's opera "Il Trovatore," premieres in Rome
Jan 21st - Envelope-folding machine patented by Russell Hawes, Worcester, Mass
Feb 21st - US authorizes minting of $3 gold pieces
Mar 2nd - Territory of Washington organized after separating from Oregon Ter
Mar 3rd - Transcontinental railroad survey is authorized by Congress
Mar 3rd - US Assay Office in NYC authorized
Mar 4th - Pope Pius IX recovers Catholic hierarchy in Netherlands
Mar 4th - William Rufus de Vane King (D) sworn in as 13th US VP
Mar 6th - Giuseppe Verdi's Opera "La Traviata," premieres in Venice
Apr 1st - Cincinnati became 1st US city to pay fire fighters a regular salary
Apr 14th - Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape
Apr 15th - Protestant church questions king Willem III RC bishops
Apr 16th - The first passenger rail opens in India, from Bori Bunder, Bombay to Thane.
Apr 17th - Thorbecke government resigns
Apr 17th - US Marine Hospital at Presidio (SF) forms
Apr 18th - 1st train in Asia (Bombay to Tanna, 36 km)
Composer Giuseppe Verdi Apr 19th - Netherlands Van Hall government forms
Apr 20th - Harriet Tubman starts Underground Railroad
Apr 26th - Dutch King William III disbands 2nd Chamber
Apr 29th - Comet C/1853 G1 (Schweizer) approaches within 0.0839 AUs of Earth
May 1st - Argentina adopts it's constitution
May 2nd - Franconi's Hippodrome opens (NYC)
May 6th - 1st major US rail disaster kills 46 (Norwalk, Connecticut)
May 14th - Gail Borden patents her process for condensed milk
May 17th - Thorbeckes liberals win 2nd-Parliamentary election
May 23rd - Buenos Aires gains independence from Argentina (reunited 1859)
May 31st - Elisha Kane's Arctic expedition leaves NY aboard Advance
Jun 24th - Gadsden Purchase 29,670-square-mile (76,800 square km) from Mexico (now southern Arizona and New Mexico) for $10 million signed by President Franklin Pierce
Jul 3rd - Commodore Matthew Perry reach Japan
Jul 6th - National Black convention meets (Rochester NY)
Jul 6th - William Wells Brown publishes "Clotel," 1st novel by black American
Jul 8th - Commodore Matthew Perry sails his frigate Susquehanna into Tokyo Bay
Jul 9th - Adm Perry & US Navy visit Japan
Jul 14th - 1st US World's fair opens (Crystal Palace NY)
Jul 14th - Commodore Perry requests trade relations with Japan
Jul 14th - Pres Franklin Pierce opens 1st industrial exposition (NY)
Jul 18th - Completion of Grand Trunk Line, trains begin running over 1st North American railroad between Portland, Maine & Montreal
Jul 25th - Joaquin Murietta, the famous Californio bandit known as "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
Aug 8th - Russian fleet appears at Nagasaki Japan
Aug 24th - 1st potato chips prepared by Chef George Crum (Saratoga Springs NY)
Sep 6th - Women's Right's Convention met (NYC)
Sep 11th - 1st electric telegraph used (Merchant's Exchange to Pt Lobos)
Sep 15th - 1st US woman ordained a minister, Antoinette Blackwell
Sep 24th - 1st round-the-world trip by yacht (Cornelius Vanderbilt)
Sep 24th - France annexes Caledonia
Sep 24th - Northern Daily Times, 1st provincial daily newspaper, starts in London
Sep 29th - Emigrant ship "Annie Jane" sinks off Scotland, drowning 348
Oct 2nd - Austrian law forbids Jews from owning land
Oct 12th - John Morrissey wins boxing title, when Yankee Sullivan leaves ring after 36th round to slug Morrissey's fans
Oct 19th - 1st flour mill in Hawaii begins operations
Oct 23rd - Maastricht-Aken railway in Neth opens
Nov 9th - Origin of Carrington rotation numbers for rotation of Sun
Nov 17th - Street signs authorized at San Francisco intersections
Nov 28th - Olympia forms as capital of Washington Territory
Dec 30th - A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London.

Famous Birthdays

Birthdays 1 - 90 of 90

Jan 1st - Hans Koessler, composer
Jan 3rd - Iwan Knorr, composer
Jan 7th - Nikolai Arkas, composer
Jan 11th - Gustav Falke, German author/poet (Der Mann im Nebel)
Jan 11th - Georgios Jakobides, Greek painter (d. 1926)
Jan 12th - Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, Italian mathematician (tensor analysis)
Jan 16th - Andre Michelin, France, industrialist/tire manufacturer (Michelin)
Jan 16th - Johnston Forbes-Robertson, English actor/theater director (Kathleen)
Jan 16th - Gen Sir Ian Hamilton, British military commander (d. 1947)
Jan 16th - Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov, Russian philosopher (d. 1900)
Jan 17th - Alva Belmont, American socialite & suffragette (d. 1933)
Jan 28th - Jose Martí y Perez, Cuba, poet/essayist/politician
Jan 30th - Leland Hone, cricketer (England keeper 1879 without county experience)
Feb 6th - Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (d. 1901)
Feb 9th - Leander Starr Jameson, PM of South African Cape colony
Feb 12th - Bertram Luard-Selby, composer
Feb 14th - Jan van Rijswijck, Flemish journalist/mayor (Antwerp)
Feb 18th - August Belmont Jr, breeder (Man 'O War)/founder (NY Jockey Club)
Mar 5th - Arthur W Foote, Salem Mass, organist/composer (Suite for Strings in E)
Industrialist Andre Michelin (Jan 16th) Mar 5th - Howard Pyle, illustrator/painter/author (King Stork)
Mar 8th - Edward Hubertus Joannes Keurvels, Flemish composer (Parisina)
Mar 14th - Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (d. 1918)
Mar 20th - George Godfrey, Chelsea Mass, heavyweight boxer (Old Chocolate)
Mar 28th - Rudolf Kittel, German theologist (Psalms)
Mar 30th - Vincent van Gogh, Groot-Zundert, Netherlands, artist, painter and pioneer of Expressionism (The Potato Eaters, Irises)
Apr 4th - Tad Lincoln, son of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln
Apr 5th - Alfonso Randano, composer
Apr 21st - Charles-Theodore Malherbe, composer
Apr 22nd - Alphonse Bertillon, France, anthropologist, devised crime ID system
Apr 23rd - Winthrop M. Crane, 40th Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1920)
Apr 27th - Jules Lemaître, French critic and dramatist (d. 1914)
Apr 30th - Alfred v Berger, writer
May 2nd - Marie Verstraete, actress (Louise-Frou Frou)
May 8th - Charles Lee Williams, composer
May 8th - Dan Brouthers, baseball player (d. 1932)
May 21st - Jacques Marie Eugène Godefroy Cavaignac, French politician (d. 1905)
May 26th - Monroe A Althouse, composer
May 28th - Carl Larsson, Swedish painter (d. 1919)
May 30th - Andries Andre, Dutch actor/husband of Geertruida Meeuwissen
May 30th - Karl Fritjof Valentin, composer
Jun 3rd - William Matthew Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (d. 1942)
Jun 16th - Johan Gustaf Emil Sjogren, composer
Jun 28th - Edwin Arthur Jones, composer
Jul 5th - Cecil John Rhodes, South Africa, politician/diamond merchant
Jul 7th - Albert Vandal, French earl/historian (Le Pacha Bonneval)
Jul 17th - Francesco Fanciulli, composer
Jul 18th - Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Holland, physicist (Nobel 1902)
Jul 20th - Geo[rge] Poggenbeek, Dutch water colors painter
Jul 22nd - Victor Roger, composer
Jul 23rd - William H Gillette, actor (Sherlock Holmes on stage)
Jul 27th - Vladimir Korolenko, Russian writer (d. 1921)
Jul 29th - Esther de Boer-van Rijk, Dutch actress (Kniertje-Hope of Blessing)
Jul 29th - Henry Morton Dunham, composer
Aug 12th - Jean Louis Nicode, composer
Aug 19th - Aleksei Brusilov, Russian general (d. 1926)
Aug 28th - Vladimir Shukhov, Russian engineer and inventor (d. 1939)
Sep 2nd - Wilhelm Ostwald, Germany, physical chemist (Nobel 1909)
Sep 4th - Hermann von Wissmann, German Africa explorer/governor East-Africa
Sep 9th - Frederick R Spofforth, Australia, cricketer (Demon)
Sep 16th - Albrecht Kossel, German physician, Nobel laureate (d. 1927)
Sep 17th - Clemens Baeumker, German historian (Patristischen Philosophie)
Sep 20th - Rama V, King of Thailand (d. 1910)
Sep 21st - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist (liquid helium, Nobel 1913)
Sep 23rd - Marcel Planiol, French private law scholar
Sep 29th - Princess Thyra, daughter of Christian IX of Denmark (d. 1933)
Oct 13th - Lillie Langtry, [Jersey Lily], vaudevillian actress (Lillie)
Oct 13th - Maria E "Beppie" Bakker, Dutch actress/wife of Piet Vink Sr
Oct 14th - Ciprian Porumbescu, composer
Oct 17th - Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (d. 1920)
Oct 29th - Josephine B Willson Bruce, US theorist (NACW)
Nov 1st - Jose Santos Zelaya, (L), ruler of Nicaragua (1893-1910)
Nov 9th - Stanford White, American architect (d. 1906)
Nov 12th - Oskar Panizza, writer
Nov 13th - John Drew Jr., American actor (d. 1927)
Nov 21st - Hussain Kamil, sultan of Egypt (1914-17)
Nov 24th - Bat Masterson, American gunfighter (d. 1921)
Nov 28th - Helen Magill White, first American woman to earn a Ph.D. (d. 1944)
Dec 6th - Haraprasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature (d. 1931)
Dec 9th - Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn, Rochester NY, pitcher (60-12 in 1884)
Dec 13th - Joseph Sickman Corsen, Curacao, musician/composer/screenwriter
Dec 14th - Salvador Diaz Miron, Mexican poet (Los Cien Mejores Poemas)
Dec 15th - Jean B A Kessler, director of oil on Dutch Indies
Dec 17th - Herbert Beerbohm Tree, England, actor/theater manager (Trilby)
Dec 17th - Émile Roux, French physician (d. 1933)
Dec 19th - Charles Fitzpatrick, Canadian politician, lieutenant-governor of Quebec (d. 1942)\
Dec 21st - Isolde Kurz, German writer/poetess (Meine Mutter)
Dec 22nd - Maria Teresa Carreno, Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor
Dec 22nd - Yevgraf Fyodorov, Russian mathematician (d. 1919)
Dec 26th - René Bazin, French novelist (d. 1932)
Dec 30th - Andre-Charles-Prosper Messager, composer

Famous Weddings

Weddings 1 - 2 of 2

Jan 30th - Emperor and French President Napoleon III marries Eugenie de Montijo, Countess of Teba
May 19th - Dutch prince Henry marries princess Amalia of Saxony-Weimar

Famous Deaths

Deaths 1 - 38 of 38

Jan 1st - Gregory Blaxland, Australian explorer (b. 1778)
Jan 3rd - Theodor Uhlig, composer, dies at 30
Jan 9th - Juan N Gallego, Spanish poet/interpreter (El dos de Mayo), dies at 75
Jan 13th - Theophilos Kairis, Greek priest, humanist and revolutionary (b. 1783)
Mar 4th - Christian Leopold von Buch, German geologist (b. 1774)
Mar 5th - Georg A Kestner, German art collector/diplomat, dies at 75
Mar 17th - Christian Doppler, Austrian physicist, dies at 49
Apr 8th - Jan W Pieneman, historical painter (Battle at Waterloo), dies at 73
Apr 11th - Louis Emmanuel Eadin, composer, dies
Apr 13th - Leopold Gmelin, German chemist (b. 1788)
Apr 13th - James Iredell, Jr., American politician (b. 1788)
Apr 15th - Johann Leopold Fuchs, composer, dies at 67
Apr 18th - William King, US VP, dies a month after his inauguration
Apr 23rd - Auguste Laurent, chemist, dies
Apr 25th - William Beaumont, physiologist, dies at 67
Apr 28th - Ludwig Tieck, writer, dies at 79
May 8th - Joannes P Roothaan, 1st Dutch lt col-gen of Jesuits, dies at 67
May 9th - Johann Philipp Samuel Schmidt, composer, dies at 73
Jun 12th - John C de Jonge, Dutch historian/archivist, dies at 60
Surgeon William Beaumont (Apr 25th) Jun 18th - Branko Radicevic, Serbian poet (1st Serbian Uprising), dies
Jul 23rd - Andries Pretorius, Boer leader (b. 1798)
Jul 25th - Joaquin Murieta, Mexican born Californian outlaw
Aug 6th - Josif Josifovich Genishta, composer, dies at 57
Aug 15th - Giovanni Battista Polledro, composer, dies at 72
Aug 18th - Peter Lichtenthal, composer, dies at 73
Aug 23rd - Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)
Sep 4th - Jonathan Blewitt, composer, dies at 71
Sep 8th - Frédéric Ozanam, founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul (b. 1813)
Oct 2nd - D Francois J Arago, French astronomer/physicist (chromosome), dies
Oct 3rd - Andre Georges Louis Onslow, composer, dies at 69
Oct 29th - Pierre-Joseph-Guillaume Zimmermann, composer, dies at 68
Oct 29th - William Richard Bexfield, composer, dies at 29
Oct 30th - Pietro Raimondi, Italian composer (Potifar, Giacobbe), dies at 66
Nov 4th - Alexander Stadtfeld, composer, dies at 27
Nov 15th - Queen Maria II of Portugal (b. 1819)
Nov 23rd - Francisco Andrevi y Castellar, composer, dies at 67
Nov 23rd - Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider, composer, dies at 67
Dec 5th - Johann Peter Heuschkel, composer, dies at 80