| January 1 | 1st illustrated weekly magazine in U.S. publishes 1st issue, New York City |
| January 2 | 1st U.S. wire suspension bridge for general traffic opens in Penn |
| January 6 | 4,500 British and Indian troops leave Kabul, massacred before India |
| January 7 | Gioacchino Rossini's opera "Stabat Mater" premieres in Paris |
| January 8 | Dutch King Willem II charters Technical College Delft |
| January 12 | Franciscan nuns begin missionary work on Netherland Antilles |
| January 31 | John Tyler's daughter Elizabeth marries in White House |
| February 15 | 1st adhesive postage stamps in U.S. (private delivery company), New York City |
| February 21 | 1st known sewing machine patented in U.S., John Greenough, Washington D.C. |
| March 3 | 1st performance of Felix Mendelssohn's 3rd "Scottish" Symphony |
| March 3 | 1st U.S. child labor law regulating working hours passed (Mass) |
| March 9 | Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Nabucco," premieres in Milan |
| March 17 | Indians land in Ohio, a 12 mile area in Upper Sandusky |
| March 30 | Ether was used as an anaesthetic for 1st time by Dr. Crawford Long |
| April 13 | Lord Rosse successfully casts 72" (183-cm) mirror for a telescope |
| May 5 | City-wide fire burns for over 100 hours (Hamburg Germany) |
| May 8 | Versailles to Paris train catches fire; 50 die |
| May 14 | 1st edition of London Illustrated News |
| May 30 | John Francis attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria |
| June 16 | Natchex Mississippi, hit by tornado; about 500 die |
| July 9 | Notary Stamp Law passes |
| August 1 | Rotherhithe Thames Tunnel opens |
| August 9 | U.S. - Canada border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty |
| August 14 | Seminole War ends; Indians removed from Florida to Oklahoma |
| August 29 | Great Britain and China sign Treaty of Nanking, ends Opium war |
| August 31 | Micah Rugg patents a nuts and bolts machine |
| August 31 | U.S. Naval Observatory authorized by an act of Congress |
| September 4 | Work on Koln cathedral recommences after 284-year hiatus |
| September 18 | 1st edition of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, published |
| October 8 | Princess Sophia weds her cousin duke Charles Saksen-Weimar-Eisenach |
| October 15 | Karl Marx becomes editor-in-chief of Rheinische Zeitung |
| November 4 | Abraham Lincoln marries Mary Todd in Springfield, Illinois |
| November 8 | Belgium King Leopold I proclaims child labor laws (for 1889) |
| November 17 | Fugitive slave George Latimer, captured in Boston |
| November 17 | Opera "Linda di Chamounix" is produced (London) |
| November 22 | Mount St. Helens in Washington, erupts |
| December 7 | NY Philharmonic's 1st concert |
| December 9 | St. M Glinka's opera "Russlan Ludmilla," premieres in Petersburg |
| December 19 | U.S. recognizes independence of Hawaii |
