Today in History for Year 1855

Months in Year 1855: January February March April May June July August September October November December

Historical Events

Events 1 - 48 of 48

Jan 9th - Clipper Guiding Star disappears in Atlantic, 480 dead
Jan 23rd - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
Jan 28th - The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway.
Jan 31st - Western railroads blocked by snow
Feb 3rd - Wisconsin Supreme Ct declares US Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional
Feb 4th - Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela
Feb 5th - British government of Palmerston forms
Feb 8th - The Devil's Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon.
Feb 10th - US citizenship laws amended all children of US parents born abroad granted US citizenship
Feb 11th - Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III in a ceremony at the church of Derasge Maryam.
Feb 12th - Michigan State University was established.
Feb 14th - Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
Feb 24th - US Court of Claims forms for cases against government
Mar 2nd - Aleksandr Romanov becomes tsar of Russia
Mar 3rd - Congress approves $30,000 to test camels for military use
Mar 3rd - Congress authorizes registered mail
Mar 6th - Gustave Flaubert writes goodbye to Louise Colet
Mar 8th - 1st train crosses 1st US railway suspension bridge, Niagara Falls
Mar 15th - Louisiana establishes 1st health board to regulate quarantine
Mar 24th - Manhattan Kansas founded as New Boston Kansas
Mar 27th - Abraham Gesner patents kerosene
Apr 21st - 1st train crosses Miss River's 1st bridge, Rock Is Ill-Davenport Ia
Apr 26th - Composer Gioacchino Rossini leaves Italy
Apr 28th - 1st veterinary college in US incorporated in Boston
May 3rd - Antwerp-Rotterdam railway opens
May 5th - NYC regains Castle Clinton, to be used for immigration
Jun 1st - US adventurer Wm Walker conquers Nicaragua, reestablishes slavery
Jun 2nd - The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
Jun 5th - Anti-foreign anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party's 1st convention
Jun 13th - Opera "Les Vêpres Sicilenne" is produced (Paris)
Jun 17th - Heavy French/British bombing of Sebastopol, 2000+ killed
Jun 20th - Commissioners appointed to lay out SF streets west of Larkin
Jun 28th - The Sigma Chi Fraternity was founded at Miami University
Jul 4th - In Brooklyn, New York, the first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, titled Leaves of Grass, is published.
Jul 20th - 1st train from Rotterdam to Utrecht in Netherlands
Jul 31st - Hottest July in Stockholm since at least 1756 (21.4°C avg)
Aug 1st - Castle Clinton in NYC opens as 1st US receiving station for immigrants
Aug 3rd - Rotterdam-Gouda railway opens
Aug 4th - John Bartlett publishes "Familiar Quotations"
Aug 9th - Battle of Acapulco during Mexican Liberal uprising
Sep 3rd - Indian Wars: In Nebraska, 700 soldiers under American General William S. Harney avenge the Grattan Massacre by attacking a Sioux village, killing 100 men, women, and children.
Sep 8th - Crimean war - assault of Malakof Tower under Mac-Mahon)
Sep 27th - George F Bristow's "Rip Van Winkle," 2nd American opera, opens in NYC
Oct 9th - Isaac Singer patents sewing machine motor
Oct 9th - Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Mass patents 1st calliope
Oct 17th - Bessemer steelmaking process patented
Composer/Pianist Franz Liszt Oct 18th - Franz Liszt's "Prometheus," premieres
Nov 17th - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe.

Famous Birthdays

Birthdays 1 - 88 of 88

Jan 3rd - Hubert Bland, English socialist (d. 1914)
Jan 5th - King Camp Gillette, inventor (safety razor)
Jan 10th - Peter J Blok, Dutch historian (History of the Dutch People)
Jan 15th - Jacques Damala, Greek military officer and actor (d. 1889)
Jan 20th - Amedee-Ernest Chausson, composer
Jan 21st - John M Browning, US, weapons manufacturer
Jan 22nd - Ernst Kullak, composer
Jan 23rd - John Moses Browning, American inventor (d. 1926)
Jan 26th - Arthur Hervey, composer
Jan 28th - William Seward Burroughs, NY, inventor (recording adding machine)
Feb 13th - Paul Deschanel, French President (d. 1922)
Feb 15th - Gustav Hollaender, composer
Feb 17th - Otto Liman von Sanders, German general in Turkey (WW I)
Feb 21st - Alice Freeman Palmer, educator (Hall of Fame)
Feb 25th - George Bonnor, cricketer (big-hitting Aussie batter 1880-1888)
Feb 25th - Cesário Verde, Portuguese poet (d. 1886)
Mar 12th - John White, composer
Mar 13th - Percival "Percy" Lowell, US astronomer (predicted discovery of Pluto)
Mar 24th - Andrew W Mellon, founder (Mellon Bank)/US Sec of Treasury
Astronomer Percival Lowell (Mar 13th) Mar 24th - Olive Schreiner, South African writer (Portrait of a South African Woman)
Mar 31st - Alfred E. Hunt, founder of Alcoa (d. 1899)
Apr 9th - Gyula Reviczky, Hungarian author/poet
Apr 18th - Abraham Bredius, Dutch art historian (Jan Steen)
Apr 18th - Josef Gruber, composer
Apr 29th - Anatol K Liadov, Russian composer (Bewitched Lake) [OS]
Apr 29th - Edmund van der Straeten, composer
May 2nd - Theodore Moses Tobani, composer
May 9th - Julius Rontgen, composer
May 10th - Anatoli Liadov, St Petersburg, Russia, composer (Enchanted Lake) [NS]
May 11th - Anatol Konstantinovich Lyadov, Russian composer (Bewitched Lake)
May 15th - Eduard von Keyserling, Baltic German writer (Dritte Stiege)
May 21st - Emile A G Verhaeren, Belgian poet/writer (Les Flammes Hautes)
May 24th - Arthur Wing Pinero, British playwright
Jun 14th - Robert Marion La Follette, Wisconsin, pres candidate (Progressive)
Jun 17th - Fritz Steinbach, composer
Jun 22nd - Sam Morris, Hobart, cricketer (Barbados parents only black Aus player)
Jun 23rd - Maude Valerie White, composer
Jul 3rd - Piotr Maszynski, composer
Jul 7th - Ludwig Ganghofer, German writer (d. 1920)
Jul 9th - Johann P Zilcher, German composer
Jul 14th - Richard Samuel Hughes, composer
Jul 16th - Charles Francis Abdy Williams, composer
Jul 25th - Edward Solomon, composer
Jul 26th - Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)
Jul 30th - James Edward Kelly, US, sculptor "Sculptor of American History"
Aug 3rd - Joe Hunter, Former Australian cricketer (d. 1891)
Aug 11th - John Hodges, Australian cricketer (d. 1933)
Aug 18th - Alfred Wallis, English artist and mariner (d. 1942)
Aug 29th - Emil Pauer, composer
Aug 31st - Stefan Surzynski, composer
Sep 1st - Innokenty Annensky, Russian poet (d. 1909)
Sep 6th - Ferdinand B Hummel, composer
Sep 7th - William Friese-Greene, British photographer (d. 1921)
Sep 9th - Houston S Chamberlain, British/German race theorist
Sep 9th - Anthony Francis Lucas Croatian-born oil exploration pioneer (d. 1921)
Sep 12th - Simon-Napoléon Parent, Canadian politician (d. 1920)
Sep 28th - Thomas F Tout, London, historian (Manchester school of historiography)
Sep 29th - Michele Esposito, composer
Oct 8th - Gustav Ehrismann, German germanist
Oct 12th - Arthur Nikisch, Szent-Miklos Hungary, conductor (Berlin Philharmonic)
Oct 12th - August Sauer, Austria literature historian (Euphorion)
Oct 12th - Jacobus of Looy, Dutch writer/painter (Death of My Cat) [or 9/12]
Oct 14th - George Edwardes, British composer (Gaiety Girl)
Oct 16th - Camille Looten, Belgian priest/literature historian
Oct 16th - Samedbey Mehmandarov, Russian general (d. 1931)
Oct 24th - James S. Sherman, Vice President of the United States (d. 1912)
Oct 26th - Charles Post, who had a way with breakfast cereals (Post Cereals)
Oct 28th - Ivan V Mitshurin, Russian botanist (new types of fruit)
Oct 29th - Paul Bruchési, archbishop of Montreal (d. 1939)
Nov 1st - Guido Adler, Austria, musicologist (Still in the Music)
Nov 5th - Eugene V Debs, labor organizer, Socialist presidential candidate
Nov 5th - Leon P Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (stratosphere)
Nov 6th - Eduard Yosif Kotek, composer
Nov 6th - Ezra Seymour Gosney, American philanthropist and eugenicist (d. 1942)
Nov 7th - Edwin H Hall, US physicist (Hall effect)
Nov 10th - Josiah Royce, US, philosopher (conception of God)
Nov 13th - Daniel F Scheurleer, Dutch musicologist/banker
Nov 19th - Billy Bates, cricketer (England all-rounder 1882-87, hat-trick 1883)
Nov 30th - Marie WF Treub, Dutch economist/minister of Agriculture/Finance
Dec 5th - Clinton Hart Merriam, American ornithologist (d. 1942)
Dec 10th - Marios Varvoglis, Greek Composer (d. 1967)
Dec 11th - Julian Edwards, composer
Dec 23rd - Alan Gray, composer
Dec 25th - James Galvin, pitcher, shut-out every opposing team in 1884
Dec 26th - Arnold Ludwig Mendelssohn, composer
Dec 27th - Paul Ehrenreich, German etnologist/mythologist
Dec 30th - Heinrich Hart, German writer (Song of Humanity)
Dec 31st - Giovanni Pascoli, Italian classicist/poet

Famous Weddings

Weddings 1 - 1 of 1

Jun 16th - Salvation Army founder William Booth marries Catherine Mumford

Famous Deaths

Deaths 1 - 39 of 39

Jan 6th - Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779)
Jan 10th - Mary Russell Mitford, Engl playwright/poet (Julian), dies at 67
Jan 25th - Dorothy Wordsworth, writer, dies at 83
Jan 26th - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)
Feb 6th - Josef Munzinger, Swiss Federal Councilor (b. 1791)
Feb 20th - Joseph Hume, social reformer, dies
Feb 23rd - Carl Friedrich Gauss, mathematician, dies
Mar 2nd - Nicholas I Pavlovitch, tsar of Russia (1825-55), dies at 58
Mar 8th - William Poole, Infamous member of New York City's Bowery Boys gang (b. 1821)
Mar 17th - Ramon Carnicer y Batlle, composer, dies at 65
Mar 20th - Joseph Aspdin, English mason and inventor (b. 1788)
Mar 29th - Henri Druey, Swiss Federal Councilor (b. 1799)
Mar 31st - Charlotte Bronte, English author (Jane Eyre), dies at 38
Apr 13th - Henry De la Beche, English geologist (b. 1796)
Apr 18th - Jean-Baptiste Isabey, painter, dies
Apr 24th - Walenty Karol Kratzer, composer, dies at 75
Apr 30th - Henry Rowley Bishop, British composer/conductor, dies at 68
May 4th - Camille Pleyel, Austria piano builder/composer, dies at 66
May 5th - Sir Robert Inglis, Bt, English politician (b. 1786)
May 15th - Jan Mazereeuw, Frisian farmer/sect leader, dies at 75
May 23rd - Charles Robert Malden, English explorer (b. 1797)
May 27th - Nikolaj A Bestoezjev, Russ writer/painter (Account of Holland), dies
Jun 16th - John Gorrie, American physician (b. 1803)
Jun 28th - Giovanni Agostino Perotti, composer, dies at 86
Jun 29th - John Gorrie, American scientist (b. 1802)
Jul 7th - Konstantin Batyushkov, Russian poet (b. 1787)
Jul 8th - Sir William Edward Parry, English Arctic explorer (b. 1790)
Jul 9th - Lord Raglan Commander of the British forces during the Crimean War
Aug 7th - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)
Aug 16th - Henry Colburn, British publisher (b. ?)
Aug 27th - Francisco Eduardo da Costa, composer, dies at 36
Sep 24th - Alexandre Stievenard, composer, dies at 86
Oct 6th - August L Crelle, inventor/mathematician (Rechentafeln), dies at 75
Oct 13th - Gottfried Rieger, composer, dies at 91
Oct 25th - Willem F earl van Bylandt, military, dies at 84
Nov 11th - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)
Nov 26th - Adam B Mickiewicz, Polish poet (Polish Legion), dies at 56
Dec 6th - William John Swainson, English naturalist and artist (b. 1789)
Dec 15th - Jacques Charles François Sturm, French mathematician (b. 1803)