Year 1859 (MDCCCLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). [edit] Events of 1859 [edit] January–March [edit] April–June [edit] July–September - July – Count Camillo Benso di Cavour resigns.
- July 1 – The first intercollegiate baseball game is played, between Amherst and Williams Colleges.
- July 8
- July 11 – The chimes of Big Ben ring for the first time in London.
- July 11 – By the preliminary treaty signed at Villafranca, Italy, Lombardy is ceded to the French (who immediately cede it to Sardinia), while the Austrians keep Venetia and the French promise to restore the Central Italian rulers expelled in the course of the war. This brings the Austro-Sardinian War effectively to a close.
- July 30 – Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps, is first ascended.
- August 16 – The Tuscan National Assembly formally deposes the House of Habsburg-Lorraine; ending an ascendancy of 109 years.
- August 27 – Edwin Drake drills the first oil well in the United States, near Titusville, Pennsylvania, starting the Pennsylvanian oil rush.
- August 28 – September 2 – The solar storm of 1859, the largest geomagnetic solar storm on record, causes the Northern lights aurora to be visible as far south as Cuba and knocks out telegraph communication. (This is also called the Carrington event). (Carrington is the first known person to observe solar flares, due to this storm. This is also the first major solar radiation storm to be recorded, according to Dr. Phillip C. Plait (Phil Plait) in his latest book: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/213308765 .)
[edit] October–December - October 16 – John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.
- October 18 – Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower Brown at the Federal arsenal.
- October 26 – The steamship Royal Charter is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey, Wales with 454 dead.
- November 1 – The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lighted for the first time (its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for 19 miles).
- November 10 – The Treaty of Zürich, reaffirming the terms of Villafranca, brings the Austro-Sardinian War to an official close.
- November 24 – The French Navy's La Gloire ("Glory"), the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.
- November 24 – British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species, a book which argues that species gradually evolve through natural selection (it immediately sells out its initial print run).
- December 2 – Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 raid on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
- December 4 – The Mekteb-i Mülkiye School is founded in the Ottoman Empire.
- December 10 – The Ateneo Municipal de Manila is founded.
[edit] Undated [edit] Ongoing events [edit] Births [edit] January–June - January 11 – Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, British statesman and Viceroy of India (d. 1925)
- January 27 – Wilhelm II of Germany, last Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia (d. 1941)
- February 1 – Henry Miller, stage actor & producer (d. 1926)
- February 1 – Victor Herbert, Irish-born composer (Babes In Toyland) (d. 1924)
- February 3 – Hugo Junkers, German industrialist and aircraft designer (d. 1935)
- February 6 – Elias Disney, American farmer and father of Walt Disney (d. 1941)
- February 14 – Henry Valentine Knaggs, English physician and author (d. 1954)
- February 16 – George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., inventor of the Ferris wheel (d. 1896)
- February 19 – Svante Arrhenius, Swedish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1927)
- February 28 – Florian Cajori, Swiss historian of mathematics (d. 1930)
- March 2 – Sholom Aleichem, Ukrainian Yiddish novelist (d. 1916)
- March 4 – Alexander Stepanovich Popov, Russian physicist (d. 1905)
- March 8 – Kenneth Grahame, English author (d. 1932)
- March 12 – Abraham H. Cannon, American Mormon apostle (d. 1896)
- March 26 – Alfred Edward Housman, English poet (d. 1936)
- April 8 – Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher (d. 1938)
- May 15 – Pierre Curie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1906)
- May 22 – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish writer (d. 1930)
- June 21 – Henry Ossawa Tanner, American artist (d. 1937)
[edit] July–December - July 6 – Verner von Heidenstam, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
- July 11 (June 29 Julian Calendar) – Peter Verigin, Doukhobor leader (d. 1924)
- August 4 – Knut Hamsun, Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1952)
- August 18 – Anna Ancher, Dansk painter (d. 1935)
- September 3 – Jean Jaurès, French socialist (d. 1914)
- September 16 – Yuan Shikai, Chinese dictator (d. 1916)
- September 18 – Lincoln Loy McCandless, Hawaiian politician and rancher (d. 1940)
- October 9 – Alfred Dreyfus, French military officer (d. 1935)
- October 18 – Henri Bergson, French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (d. 1941)
- October 20 – John Dewey, American philosopher, psychologist, and educator (d. 1952)
- October 21 – Francesc Macià, President of the Catalan Generalitat (d. 1933)
- November 14 – Alexandru Averescu, Romanian soldier and politician (d. 1938)
- November 19 – Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, Russian composer (d. 1935)
- November 23 – Billy the Kid, American outlaw (d. July 14, 1881)
- December 2 – Georges Seurat, French painter (d. 1891)
- December 15 – L. L. Zamenhof, Russo-Polish initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917)
- December 17 – Paul César Helleu, French artist (d. 1927)
- date unknown
[edit] Deaths [edit] January–June [edit] July–December - July 8 – King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway (b. 1799)
- August 2 – Horace Mann, American educator and abolitionist (b. 1796)
- August 4 – John Vianney, French Saint known as the Cure de Ars (b. 1786)
- August 15 – Nathaniel Claiborne, U.S. politician (b. 1777)
- August 28 – Leigh Hunt, British critic and essayist (b. 1784)
- September 15 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British engineer (b. 1806)
- September 28 – Carl Ritter, German geographer (b. 1779)
- October 4 – Karl Baedeker, German author and publisher (b. 1801)
- October 22 – Louis Spohr, German violinist and composer (b. 1784)
- November 28 – Washington Irving, American author (b. 1783)
- December 2 – John Brown, American abolitionist (hanged) (b. 1800)
- December 8 – Thomas de Quincey, English writer (b. 1785)
- December 16 – Wilhelm Grimm, German children's writer (b. 1786)
- date unknown – Abderrahmane, Sultan of Morocco (b. 1778)
[edit] References - ^ http://html.rincondelvago.com/venezuela_4.html Problemas Limítrofes de Venezuela (In Spanish)
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