Today in History for Year 1854

Months in Year 1854: January February March April May June July August September October November December

Historical Events

Events 1 - 82 of 82

Jan 1st - Lincoln University, a black college, chartered (Oxford, Penn)
Jan 4th - The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.
Jan 5th - Steamship San Francisco wrecked-300 die
Jan 9th - Astor Library opens in NYC
Jan 13th - Anthony Foss patents accordion
Jan 18th - Filibuster William Walker proclaims Republic of Sonora in NW Mexico
Jan 25th - Aleksandr Ostrovsky's "Bednost ne Porok," premieres in Moscow
Jan 30th - 1st election in Washington Territory; 1,682 votes cast
Jan 31st - Dutch KNMI established (Royal Meteorological Institute)
Feb 2nd - Pope Pius IX encyclical "On persecution of Armenians"
Feb 4th - Alvan Bovay proposes name "Republican Party," Ripon, Wisc
Feb 6th - Composer R Schumann is saved from suicide attempt into the Rhine
Feb 11th - Major streets lit by coal gas for 1st time
Feb 16th - Franz Liszts symphony "Orpheus," premieres
Feb 17th - British recognize independence of Orange Free State (South Africa)
Feb 22nd - 1st meeting of Republican Party (Michigan)
Feb 23rd - Great-Britain & Orange Free state sign Convention of Bloemfontein
Feb 27th - Composer Robert Schumann saved from suicide attempt in Rhine
Feb 28th - Republican Party formally organized at Ripon, Wisc
Composer/Pianist Franz Liszt Mar 1st - SS City of Glasgow leaves Liverpool harbor & is never seen again
Mar 1st - German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears; two years later his remains are found in a canal near Charlottenburg.
Mar 7th - Charles Miller patents 1st US sewing machine to stitch buttonholes
Mar 8th - US Commodore Matthew C Perry's 2nd trip to Japan
Mar 17th - 1st park land purchased by a US city, Worcester, Mass
Mar 28th - During the Crimean War, Britain & France declare war on Russia
Mar 31st - Treaty of Kanagawa: Commodore Perry forces Japan to opens ports to US
Apr 1st - Hard Times begins serialisation in Charles Dickens magazine, Household Words.
Apr 16th - Franz Liszt's "Mazeppa," premieres
Apr 16th - San Salvador destroyed by earthquake
Apr 16th - Steamer "Long Beach" sinks off Long Beach NY, 311 die
May 1st - Amsterdam begins transferring drinking water out of the dunes
May 5th - English pirate Plumridge robs along pro-English Finnish coast
May 24th - Anthony Burns, slave, arrested by US Deputy marshals in Boston
May 24th - Lincoln University, Penn, 1st Black college in US founded by John Miller Dickey and Sarah Emlen Cresson
Novelist Charles Dickens May 27th - Marine Telegraph from Ft Point to SF completed
May 30th - Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed Missouri Compromise opens north slavery
May 30th - Territories of Kansas & Nebraska created
Jun 10th - Georg F B Reiman proposes that space is curved
Jun 10th - The first class of the United States Naval Academy students graduate.
Jun 21st - First Victoria Cross won during bombardment of Bomarsund in the Aland Islands.
Jun 23rd - Antwerp-Roosendaal railway goes into use
Jun 29th - Netherlands allows corporal punishment
Jul 6th - 1st Republican state convention (Ripon Wisc)
Jul 13th - US forces shell & burn San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua
Jul 13th - In the Battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General Jose Maria Yanez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon.
Aug 4th - The Hinomaru is established as the official flag to be flown from Japanese ships.
Aug 6th - Congress passes Confiscation Act
Aug 8th - Smith & Wesson patents metal bullet cartridges
Aug 9th - Henry David Thoreau publishes "Walden"
Naturalist/Pacifist Henry David Thoreau Aug 24th - National emigration convention meets in Cleveland
Aug 29th - Self-governing windmill patented (Daniel Halladay)
Aug 30th - John Fremont issues proclamation freeing slaves of Missouri rebels
Sep 4th - English/French assault on Petropavlovsk Kamchatka
Sep 14th - Allied armies, including those of Britain & France, land in Crimea
Sep 19th - Henry Meyer patents sleeping rail car
Sep 20th - Battle at Alma: first major battle of Crimean War. British & French alliance defeat the Russians
Sep 27th - Steamship "Arctic" sinks with 300 people on board
Oct 1st - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
Oct 4th - Abraham Lincoln made his 1st political speech at Illinois State Fair
Oct 6th - The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead started shortly after midnight, leading to 53 deaths and hundreds injured.
Oct 9th - the siege of Sebastopol begins.
Oct 10th - US Assay Office in NY City, NY opens
Oct 12th - Lincoln University founded as Ashmun Institute
Oct 21st - Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
Nurse Florence Nightingale Oct 23rd - The Times give precise British positions in Krim
Oct 25th - Charge of Light Brigade (Battle of Balaklava, Crimean War), 409 die
Oct 25th - Prince Menshikov of Krim occupies British base at Balaclava
Nov 2nd - Cobblestone paving of Washington St between Dupont & Kearny starts
Nov 4th - Lighthouse forms on Alcatraz Island
Nov 5th - Crimean War: British & French defeat Russian force of 50,000
Nov 9th - Franz Liszt's "Fest-Long," premieres
Nov 13th - "New Era" sinks off NJ coast with loss of 300
Nov 15th - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is given the necessary royal concession.
Nov 28th - Dutch army stops Chinese uprising in Borneo
Dec 3rd - Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
Dec 5th - Aaron Allen of Boston patents folding theater chair
Dec 8th - Pope Pius IX proclaims Immaculate Conception, makes Mary, free of Original Sin
Dec 9th - Lord Tennyson's poem, "Charge of the Light Brigade," published
Dec 15th - 1st street-cleaning machine in US 1st used in Philadelphia
Dec 19th - Allen Wilson of Conn patents sewing machine to sew curving seams
Dec 26th - Wood-pulp paper 1st exhibited, Buffalo
Dec 30th - Pennsylvania Rock Oil Co, 1st in US, incorporated in NYC

Famous Birthdays

Birthdays 1 - 100 of 104

Jan 1st - James Frazer, Britain, anthropologist/author (The Golden Bough)
Jan 6th - Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft, fictional detective (via Arthur Conan Doyle)
Jan 9th - Jennie Jerome, American society beauty and mother of Winston Churchill (d. 1921)
Jan 10th - Peter Gast, composer
Jan 18th - Thomas A Watson, needed by Bell, inventor assistant (Telephone)
Jan 29th - Willem PC Knuttel, Dutch bibliographer/librarian
Feb 9th - Aletta [Henriette] Jacobs, 1st Dutch female physician
Feb 9th - Edward Carson, 1st Baron Carson, lawyer/leader (Irish Unionist Party)
Feb 16th - Oscar Fetras, composer
Feb 17th - Friedrich A Krupp, German arms manufacturer
Feb 20th - Louis F M van Westerhoven, actor/singer/opera director (Youth)
Feb 24th - Franz Courtens, Flemish painter (Golden Rain)
Feb 28th - Juliusz Zarebski, composer
Mar 4th - Sir Napier Shaw, British meteorologist (d. 1945)
Mar 8th - Tom Felix Horan, cricketer (Ireland Pioneering Aust all-rounder)
Mar 14th - Paul Ehrlich, Germany, bacteriologist (Nobel-1908)
Mar 14th - Thomas Riley Marshall, (D) 28th VP (1913-21)
Mar 14th - Alexandru Macedonski, Romanian writer (d. 1920)
Mar 14th - John Lane, British publisher (d. 1925)
Mar 15th - Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician; Nobel laureate (d. 1917)
Mar 21st - Alick A C Bannerman, cricketer (bro of Charles, Australia 1878-1893)
Mar 23rd - Alfred Milner, Giessen Germany, British governor (Cape colony)
Mar 26th - Braulio Dueno Colon, composer
Mar 31st - Dugald Clerk, inventor (2-stroke motorcycle engine)
Apr 1st - Bill Traylor, American artist (d. 1949)
Apr 5th - Vicente Goicoechea Errasti, composer
Apr 9th - Seaborn M Denson, composer
Apr 10th - Jozef M T Orelio, baritone
Apr 11th - Hugh Massie, cricketer (Australian batsman of the 1880's)
Apr 13th - Richard T Ely, US economist (Hard Times)
Apr 21st - Eusapia Palladino, Napolitanse with parergische phenomenons
Apr 21st - Wladyslaw Rzepko, composer
Apr 21st - William Stang, Roman Catholic Bishop (d. 1907)
Apr 22nd - Henri-Marie Lafontaine, Belgium, international lawyer (Nobel 1913)
Apr 29th - Henri Poincaré, France, mathematician/astronomer/philosopher
May 5th - Antonio Smareglia, composer
May 11th - John Blackham, cricketer (Australia's 1st wicketkeeper)
May 11th - Ottmar Mergenthaler, Hachtel Germany, inventor (linotype)
May 13th - Louis H Chrispijn, Dutch director (Lost & Found, Silvia Silombra)
May 13th - Paul Klengel, composer
May 18th - Bernard Zweers, Dutch composer (To my Fatherland)
May 24th - Louis Mountbatten, admiral (WW I)
May 24th - John Riley Banister, American law officer and cowboy (d. 1918)
May 27th - Georges Eekhoud, Belgian writer (Jeune Belgium)
Jun 8th - Douglas Colin Cameron, Canadian politician (d. 1921)
Jun 9th - Gerardus J P J Bolland, Dutch philosopher (Bolland Society)
Jun 13th - Charles Algernon Parsons, British inventor (steam turbine)
Jun 14th - Frederik Rung, composer
Jun 18th - Edward Wyllis Scripps, publisher/journalist
Jun 19th - Alfredo Catalani, composer
Jun 26th - Robert Laird Borden, (C), 8th Canadian PM (1911-20)
Jul 3rd - Leoš Janáček, Czech composer (d. 1928)
Jul 4th - Heinrich Zollner, composer
Jul 4th - Victor Babeş, Romanian bacteriologist (d. 1926)
Jul 12th - George Eastman, Waterville NY, inventor (Kodak camera)
Jul 14th - Alexander Alexandrovich Kopilov, composer
Jul 19th - Daniel Josephus Jitta, Dutch High Court lawyer
Jul 29th - Georg Kerschensteiner, German educator (Theory of Education)
Jul 31st - Jose Canalejas contributes Mendez, premier of Spain (1910-12)
Aug 2nd - Francis Marion Crawford, British author
Aug 3rd - Fernand de La Tombelle, composer
Aug 10th - J Scott Lidgett, London, theologist
Aug 12th - Alfred Gilbert, sculptor/goldsmith
Aug 12th - Johannes P Kelly, Dutch [Kellij], actor/operetta writer
Aug 22nd - Milan I, King of Serbia
Aug 23rd - Moritz Moszkowski, composer
Aug 24th - Nikolay Vladimirovich Scherbachov, composer
Aug 26th - Arnold Fothergill, England cricketer (d. 1932)
Sep 1st - Engelbert Humperdinck, Germany, opera composer (Parisfal)
Sep 2nd - Hans Jæger, Norwegian writer and political activist (d. 1910)
Sep 8th - Willem M van Rossum, Dutch cardinal/prefect of Propaganda File
Sep 10th - Anton CR Dreesmann, German/Neth manufacturer (Vroom & Dreesman)
Sep 17th - Hans Muller, music historian
Sep 17th - David Dunbar Buick, American automobile pioneer (d.1929)
Sep 23rd - Cornelis W Lely, Dutch engineer/gov of Suriname (1902-05)
Sep 28th - Adam Sedgwick, Norwich England, English zoologist (Peripatus)
Sep 29th - Martin Pluddemann, composer
Oct 3rd - William Crawford Gorgas, US, Surgeon-Gen, help cure yellow fever
Oct 7th - Christiaan R de Wet, South African rebel leader, politician and general in the Boer War
Oct 10th - Jeronimo Gimenez y Bellido, composer
Oct 16th - Karl J Kautsky, Austrian marxist/socialist
Writer/Poet Oscar Wilde (Oct 16th) Oct 16th - Oscar Wilde, [Fingal O'Flahertie Wills], Dublin, (Pic of Dorian Gray), (d. 1900)
Oct 18th - Bill Murdoch, cricketer (great pioneer of Australian Test cricket)
Oct 18th - Solomon A Andree, Swedish engineer/balloonist/Artic explorer
Oct 20th - Alphonse Allais, French author/humorist (Pass the Bile)
Oct 20th - Arthur Rimbaud, France, poet/adventurer (Illuminations)
Oct 24th - Hendrik W Bakhuis Roozeboom, chemist (Heterogenen Gleichgewichte)
Oct 26th - August T C Kiehl, Dutch actor (Pearl of Zaandam)
Oct 26th - C. W. Post, American entrepreneur (d. 1914)
Oct 27th - Sir William Smith, Scottish founder of the Boys' Brigade (d. 1914)
Oct 31st - Georg A Erman, German Egyptologist (Grammar of Ancient Egypt)
Nov 5th - Paul Sabatier, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)
Nov 5th - Alphonse Desjardins, founder of the Caisses populaires Desjardins (d. 1920)
Nov 6th - John Philip Sousa, Wash DC, march king (Stars & Stripes Forever), (d. 1932)
Nov 8th - Johannes Rydberg, Swedish physicist (d. 1919)
Nov 9th - Joseph Miroslav Weber, composer
March King John Philip Sousa (Nov 6th) Nov 13th - George Whitfield Chadwick, Lowell Mass, composer (Judi Van Winke)
Nov 16th - Jules van de Heuvel, Belgian lawyer/politician
Nov 17th - Louis HG Lyautey, French minister of Defense (1916-17)
Nov 21st - Benedict XV, [Giacomo PGB marques della Chiessa], 258th Pope (1914-22)

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Famous Weddings

Weddings 1 - 2 of 2

Apr 24th - Austria's Franz Joseph I marries Elisabeth A E "Sissi"
Jun 29th - English Novelist and author of "Jane Eyre" Charlotte Bronte marries curate Arthur Bell Nicholls

Famous Deaths

Deaths 1 - 35 of 35

Jan 8th - William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, British general and politician (b. 1768)
Jan 9th - Filippo Traetta, [Philip Trajetta], Ital composer, dies at 77
Jan 18th - Juda Turo, American philanthropist, dies
Feb 4th - Carl Ludwig Cornelius Westenholz, composer, dies at 66
Feb 17th - Hugues F R de Lamennais, French priest/writer, dies at 71
Feb 17th - John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)
Mar 6th - Caspar GC Reinwardt, German/Dutch biologist, dies at 80
Mar 6th - Charles William Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, British soldier and politician (b. 1778)
Mar 11th - Willard Richards, American religious leader (b. 1804)
Apr 6th - William Strickland, US architect, dies
Apr 11th - Karl Adolph von Basedow, German DR (Ziekte van Basedow), dies at 55
Apr 15th - Arthur Aikin, English chemist, mineralogist, and writer (b. 1773)
Apr 17th - Gottlob Wiedebein, composer, dies at 74
Apr 18th - Joseph Antoni Frantiszek Elsner, composer, dies at 84
Apr 19th - Robert Jameson, Scottish naturalist (b. 1774)
Apr 22nd - Nicolás Bravo, Mexican politician and soldier (b. 1786)
Apr 29th - Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, English general (b. 1768)
May 3rd - William Beale, composer, dies at 70
May 31st - Vatroslav Lisinski, composer, dies at 34
Jun 7th - Charles Baudin, French admiral (b. 1792)
Jul 4th - Karl F Eichhorn, German law historian, dies at 72
Jul 6th - Georg Ohm, German physicist (b. 1789)
Jul 15th - Wincenty Studzinski, composer, dies at 39
Jul 18th - Abbas Hilmi I, viceroy of Egypt, dies at about 41
Aug 9th - Frederik Augustus II, king of Saxon (1836-54), dies at 57
Aug 11th - Macedonio Melloni, Italian physicist (b. 1798)
Aug 16th - Duncan Phyfe, furniture maker, dies
Aug 20th - Friedrich WJ von Schelling, German philosopher, dies at 79
Oct 22nd - J Gotthelf, writer, dies at 57
Oct 28th - James P Carrell, composer, dies at 67
Nov 5th - Soimonov, Russian general, dies in battle of Inkermann
Nov 19th - Alberich Zwyssig, composer, dies at 46
Nov 25th - John G Lockhart, [scorpion], English biographer, dies at 60
Nov 26th - Matthijs Siegenbeek, literature (Defeated German Spelling), dies
Dec 9th - Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (b. 1799)