1856

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1820s  1830s  1840s  – 1850s –   1860s   1870s   1880s
Years:	1853 1854 1855 – 1856 – 1857 1858 1859

Year 1856 (MDCCCLVI) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Sunday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1856

January - June

• 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 26 - First Battle of Seattle (1856). Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after all day battle with settlers.
• January 29 - Queen Victoria institutes the Victoria Cross
• February - The Tintic War in Utah.
• February 1 - Auburn University is first chartered as the East Alabama Male College.
• February 2 - Dallas, Texas incorporated as a city.
• February 7 - The nawab of Oudh Wajid Ali Shah is exiled to Metiabruz
• February 18 - The American Party ( Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
• March 5 - Fire destroys Covent Garden Theatre
• March 6 - Maryland Agricultural College (present-day University of Maryland, College Park) chartered
• 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 24 - Taiping Rebellion: Suspecting treachery on the part of East King Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai garrisons Anhui and begins his march back to the Heavenly Capital, having defeated a strong Xiang Army dettachment.
• March 31 - The Treaty of Paris (1856) is signed, ending the Crimean War

• April 7 - Foundation of Nelson College, Nelson, New Zealand
• April 10 - Theta Chi Fraternity founded at Norwich University
• May 1 - The creation of Isabela province in the Philippines in honour to the Queen of Spain, Queen Isabela II.
• 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 pro- slavery 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 2 - Battle of Black Jack between proslavery and antislavery forces, led by John Brown, in Bleeding Kansas.
• June 9 - 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts.
• June 13 - Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at Nanjing.

July - December

• 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 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.
• September 1 - Seton Hall University was founded by Archdiocese of Newark Bishop James Roosevelt Bayley, a cousin of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and nephew of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
• September 2 - Taiping Rebellion: Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang assassinate Yang Xiuqing.
• October 8 - The Second Opium War between several western powers and China begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River.
• 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 11 - Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai arrives at the Heavenly Capital once more with 100,000 men and demands that Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang be executed. Shi subsequently becomes head of the government.
• 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 9 - Bushehr surrenders to the British.

Undated

• Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
• British Country and Borough Police Act extends London police model to all of England and Wales.
• Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency
• Pre-human remains found in the Neanderthal valley in Germany.
• National Portrait Gallery in London opened.
• Founding year of St. Paul's School, Camp, Belgaum.
• Western Union is founded.

Ongoing events

• Anglo-Persian War (1856-1857)
• Crimean War (1854-1856)
• Second Opium War (1856- 1860)
• Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

1856 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1856 MDCCCLVI
Ab urbe condita	2609
Armenian calendar	1305 ԹՎ ՌՅԵ
Assyrian calendar	6606
Bahá'í calendar	12–13
Bengali calendar	1263
Berber calendar	2806
British Regnal year	19 Vict. 1 – 20 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2400
Burmese calendar	1218
Byzantine calendar	7364–7365
Chinese calendar	乙卯年十一月廿四日 (4492/4552-11-24) — to — 丙辰年十二月初五日 (4493/4553-12-5)
Coptic calendar	1572–1573
Ethiopian calendar	1848–1849
Hebrew calendar	5616–5617
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1912–1913
- Shaka Samvat	1778–1779
- Kali Yuga	4957–4958
Holocene calendar	11856
Igbo calendar
- Ǹrí Ìgbò	856–857
Iranian calendar	1234–1235
Islamic calendar	1272–1273
Japanese calendar	Ansei 3 (安政3年)
Juche calendar	N/A (before 1912)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4189
Minguo calendar	56 before ROC 民前56年
Thai solar calendar	2399

January - June

• 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 4 - Alfred William Rich, English watercolour painter and author (d. 1921)
• March 8
  • Bramwell Booth, Salvation Army general (d. 1929)
  • Tom Roberts, Australian artist (d. 1931)
• 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)
  • 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 26 - Sir Joseph Ward, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1930)
• April 27 - Tongzhi Emperor, Emperor of China (d. 1875)
• May 6
  • Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist (d. 1939)
  • 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 - December

• July 23 - 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 13 - Louis Brandeis, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (d. 1941)
• November 21 - William Emerson Ritter, American biologist (d. 1944)
• November 22 - Heber J. Grant, seventh 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 11 - Georgi Plekhanov, Russian revolutionary and Marxist theoretician (d. 1918)
• 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 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)
• June 23 - Ivan Kireevsky, Russian literary critic and philosopher (b. 1806)
• July 9 - Amedeo Avogadro, Italian chemist (b. 1776)
• July 29 - Robert Schumann, German composer and pianist
• August 29 - Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck, British Christian writer (b. 1778)
• August 30 - Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, English writer (b. 1811)
• October 19 - William Sprague III, American politician from Rhode Island (b. 1799)
• December 20 - Francesco Bentivegna, Italian revolutionary (b. 1820)