1856 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

January

• January - The first free public school west of the Mississippi River was established in Tipton, Iowa.
• January 8 - Borax is discovered (John Veatch).
• January 24 - U.S. President Franklin Pierce declares the new Free-State Topeka government in Bleeding Kansas to be in rebellion.
• January 29 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross

February

• February - The only month in recorded history to not have a full moon.
• February - The Tintic War in Utah.
• February 1 - Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
• February 18 - The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.

March

• March 5 - Fire destroys Covent Garden Theatre
• March 9 - National Fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon is founded at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL.
• March 20 - Costa Rican troops rout Walker's soldiers
• March 30 - The Treaty of Paris (1856) is signed, ending the Crimean War

April

• April 7 - Foundation of Nelson College, Nelson, New Zealand
• April 10 - Theta Chi Fraternity founded at Norwich University

May

• 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 proslavery 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

• June 9 - 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.

July

• 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

• 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.

November

• 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 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

• December 9 - Bushehr surrenders to the British.

Unknown dates

• British Country and Borough Police Act extends London police model to all of England and Wales
• Western Union founded
• Kate Warner, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency
• Pre-human remains found in the Neanderthal valley in Germany
• Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
• National Portrait Gallery in London opened.
• Sale of Land starts suburb of Ashgrove, Queensland.
• The first session concludes at Saint Paul's School, the prestigious New England Prep School in Concord, NH.
• Founding year of St. Paul's School, Camp, Belgaum.

Births

• 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 8 - Bramwell Booth, Salvation Army general (d. 1929)
• March 8 - Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
• March 9 - Eddie Foy, American singer, dancer, and vaudeville performer (d. 1928)
• March 16 - Napoléon Eugène Louis John Joseph, Prince Imperial, son of French Emperor Napoleon III (d. 1879)
• March 20 - Sir John Lavery, Irish artist (d. 1941)
• March 20 - Frederick Winslow Taylor, American inventor and efficiency expert (d. 1915)
• 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 27 - Tongzhi Emperor, Emperor of China (d. 1875)
• May 6 - Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist (d. 1939)
• May 6 - Robert Peary, American Arctic explorer (d. 1920)
• May 15 - L. Frank Baum, American author (d. 1919)
• June 14 - Andrey Markov, Russian mathematician (d. 1922)
• July 2 - 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 3 - Jim McCormick, baseball player (d. 1918)
• November 13 - Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1941)
• November 22 - Heber J. Grant, 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 13 - Svetozar Boroević, Austrian field marshal (d. 1920)
• December 18 - J.J. Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
• December 22 - Frank B. Kellogg, United States Secretary of State, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1937)
• December 25 - Hans von Bartels, German painter (d. 1913)
• December 25 - Sir Samuel William Knaggs, British civil servant in the West Indies (d. 1924)
• December 28 - Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924)

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)
• July 9 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
• July 29 - Robert Schumann , German pianist
• August 29 - Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, British Christian writer (b. 1778)
• August 30 - Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English writer (b. 1811)

1856

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