1865 (MDCCCLXV) is a common year starting on Sunday.

Events

January

• January 13 - American Civil War: The Second Battle of Fort Fisher begins when United States forces launch a major amphibious assault against the Confederate stronghold of Fort Fisher.
• January 15 - American Civil War: United States forces capture Fort Fisher.
• January 31 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.

February

The only month in any year that might not have had a Full moon.

• February 17 - American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.
• February 22 - Tennessee adopts a new constitution that abolishes slavery.

March

• March 3 - The U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the Freedmen's Bureau.
• March 4 - US President Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for second term. Andrew Johnson becomes Vice President.
• March 13 - American Civil War: The Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of African American troops.
• March 18 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
• March 19 - American Civil War: The Battle of Bentonville begins. By the end of the battle on the 21st the Confederate forces had retreated from Greenville, North Carolina.
• March 25 - The "Claywater Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin. Fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg were recovered.
• March 25 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Steadman from the Union.

April

• April 1 - American Civil War: Battle of Five Forks - In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
• April 2 - American Civil War: Confederate President Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia which is taken the next day.
• April 6 - German Chemicals producer, Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik(BASF) founded in Mannheim.
• April 9 - American Civil War: General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.
• April 14 - US President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
• April 15 - Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States, upon the death of US President Abraham Lincoln.
• April 21 - German Chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.
• April 26
  • Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth and cavalryman Boston Corbett shoots the assassin dead.
  • American Civil War: Confederate General Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina.
• April 27
  • The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.
  • Governor of New York, Reuben Fenton, signed a bill formally creating Cornell University.

May

• May 1 - Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed - War of the Triple Alliance has already begun.
• May 4 - American Civil War: Confederate General Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in Alabama, Mississippi, and eastern Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General E.R.S. Canby at Citronelle, Alabama.
• May 5 - In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the United States takes place.
• May 10 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is captured by Union troops near Irwinville, Georgia.
• May 13 - American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch - In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war ends with a Confederate victory.
• May 23 - Parade down Pennsylvania Ave in Washington, DC to celebrate the ending of the American Civil War.
• May 25 - Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in Mobile, Alabama when an ordnance depot explodes.

June

• June 2 - American Civil War ends - Confederate forces west of the Mississippi under General Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at Galveston, Texas, becoming the last to do so.
• June 11 - Brazilian navy squadron defeats Paraguayan navy at Riachuelo.
• June 19 - American Civil War: Union Major General Gordon Granger lands at Galveston, Texas and informs the people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation. This event is celebrated each year as Juneteenth.
• June 23 - American Civil War: At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory Confederate General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant rebel army.

July

• July 2 - Salvation Army founded in Whitechapel, London
• July 4 - Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
• July 5
  • William Booth founds the Christian Mission (later renamed to the Salvation Army).
  • US Secret Service founded.
  • First speed limit introduced in Britain - 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country
• July 14 - The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time; four of the party of seven die in a fall during the descent.
• July 21 - In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
• July 27 - Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.

October

• October 11 - Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica, starting the Morant Bay rebellion.

November

• November 10 - Major Henry Wirz, the superintendent of a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is hanged, becoming the only American Civil War soldier to be executed for war crimes.

December

• November 26 -Battle of Papudo; Spanish ship Covadonga captured by Chileans and Peruvians.
• December 10 - Léopold II becomes King of Belgium.
• December 11 - U.S. Congress created the Appropriations Committee and the Committee on Banking and Commerce. Reducing the tasks of the Committee on Ways and Means.
• December 18 - Thirteenth Constitutional amendment declared ratified by three-fourths of the States of the United States. It forever abolished slavery.
• December 24 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the Ku Klux Klan.

Undated

• Gregor Mendel formulates his theories of Mendelian inheritance- they are mainly ignored for years.
• A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres (4,000 km²) of timber.
• Last volume of Annals of Joseon Dynasty published.
• National Temperance Society and Publishing House founded by James Black
• Francis Galton introduces Eugenics.

Births

January

• January 5 - Julio Garavito Armero, Colombian astronomer (d. 1920)
• January 28 - Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, President of Finland (d. 1952)

February

• February 12 - Kazimierz Tetmajer, Polish writer (d. 1940)
• February 19 - Sven Hedin, Swedish scientist and explorer (d. 1952)
• February 21 - John Haden Badley, author and educator (d. 1967)
• February 28 - Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Newfoundland and Labrador (d. 1940).

March

• March 10 - Tan Sitong, Chinese reformist leader (d. 1898)
• March 15 - Edith Maude Eaton, English-born writer (d. 1914)
• March 19 - William Morton Wheeler, American entomologist (d. 1937)

April

• April 1 - Richard Adolf Zsigmondy, Austrian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1929)
• April 9 - Laurence Hope, English poetess (d. 1904)
• April 9 - Erich Ludendorff, German general (d. 1937)

May

• May 2 - Clyde Fitch, American dramatist (d. 1909)
• May 25 - John Mott, American YMCA leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1955)
• May 25 - Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)
• May 26 - Robert W. Chambers, American artist (d. 1933)

June

• June 2 - George Lohmann, English cricketer (d. 1901)
• June 3 - King George V of the United Kingdom (d. 1936)
• June 9 - Albéric Magnard, French composer (d. 1914)
• June 13 - William Butler Yeats, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1939)
• June 26 - Bernard Berenson, American art historian (d. 1959)
• June 29 - Shigechiyo Izumi, Oldest supercentenarian male (disputed) (d. 1986)

July

• July 23 - Max Heindel, Danish-born Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic (d. 1919)
• July 26 - Philipp Scheidemann, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1939)
• July 29 - Alexander Glazunov, Russian composer (d. 1936)

August

• August 2 - Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (d. 1933)
• August 24 - King Ferdinand of Romania (d. 1927)
• August 27 - James Henry Breasted, American Egyptologist (d. 1935)
• August 27 - Charles G. Dawes, Vice President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1951)

September

• September 11 - Rainis, Latvian poet and playwright (d. 1929)

October

• October 1 - Paul Dukas, French composer (d. 1935)
• October 12 - Arthur Harden, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
• October 17 - James Rudolph Garfield, U.S. politician (d. 1950)
• October 26 - Benjamin Guggenheim, American businessman (d. 1912)
• October 27 - Tinsley Lindley, English footballer (d. 1940)

November

• November 2 - Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States (d. 1923)

December

• December 8 - Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer (d. 1957)
• December 20 - Elsie De Wolfe, American socialite and interior decorator (d. 1950)
• December 25 - Evangeline Booth, the 4th General of The Salvation Army (d. 1950)
• December 30 - Rudyard Kipling, British writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)

Deaths

• • April 1 - John Milton, Governor of Florida (b. 1807)
  • April 1 - Giuditta Pasta, Italian soprano (b. 1798)
• April 2 - A.P. Hill, American Confederate general (b. 1825)
• April 13 - Achille Valenciennes, French zoologist (b. 1794)
• April 15 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (b. 1809)
• April 18 - Léon Jean Marie Dufour, French medical doctor and naturalist (b. 1780)
• April 26 - John Wilkes Booth, American actor and assassin of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1838)
• July 25 - James Barry, British military surgeon (b. 1795)
• August 12 - William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (b. 1785)
• September 2 - William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician (b. 1805)
• October 16 - Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, teacher, philosopher and sociologist (b. 1781)
• October 18 - Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)
• November 12 - Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist and biographer (b. 1810)
• November 28 - William Machin Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (b. 1789)
• December 6 - Sebastián Iradier, Spanish composer (b. 1809)
• December 10 - Léopold I of Belgium (b. 1790)
• December 17 - Luigi Ciacchi, Italian cardinal (b. 1788)

1865

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