| January 5 | 1st steamboat sails, Red River |
| January 22 | Brahms' 1st piano concerto (in D minor) premieres, Hanover |
| February 10 | General Horsford defeats Begum of Oudh and Nana Sahib in Indian mutiny |
| February 14 | Oregon admitted as 33rd state |
| February 17 | Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Un Ballo in maschera" premieres in Napoli |
| February 19 | Dan Sickles is acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity 1st time this defense is successfully used |
| February 25 | 1st use of "insanity plea" to prove innocence |
| February 26 | Paul Morphy's chess match vs Augustus Mongredien begins; Morphy wins |
| February 28 | Arkansas legislature requires free blacks to choose exile or slavery |
| March 1 | Present seal of San Francisco adopted (its 2nd) |
| March 18 | Vera Cruz besieged by Miramon (Cons) in Mexican War of Reform |
| March 19 | Opera "Faust" by Charles Gounod premieres in Paris |
| March 21 | 1st Zoological Society incorporates in Philadelphia |
| March 21 | Scottish National Gallery opens in Edinburgh |
| March 21 | Zoological Society of Philadelphia, 1st in U.S., incorporated |
| March 26 | 1st sighting of Vulcan, a planet thought to orbit inside Mercury |
| March 28 | 1st performance of John Brahms' 1st Serenade for orchestra |
| April 4 | Opera "Dinorah" is produced (Paris) |
| April 6 | U.S. recognizes Liberal government in Mexico's War of Reform |
| April 12 | Hibernia Savings and Loan Society of San Francisco incorporates |
| April 14 | Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" published |
| April 25 | Ground broken for Suez Canal |
| April 27 | "Pomona" sinks in North Atlantic drowning all 400 aboard |
| April 30 | Paul Morphy returns from 10-month chess tour of Europe, retires |
| May 31 | Philadelphia A's organize to play "town ball" became baseball 20 years later |
| June 11 | Comstock silver load discovered near Virginia City, Nevada |
| June 12 | Comstock Silver Lode in Nevada discovered |
| June 24 | Battle of Solferino, N-Italy: France/Sardinia-Austria |
| June 28 | 1st dog show held, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England |
| June 30 | Charles Blondin is 1st to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope |
| July 1 | 1st intercollegiate baseball game, Amherst beats Williams 66-32 |
| July 1 | Balloon covers a record 809 miles over St. Louis |
| July 5 | Captain N. C. Brooks discovers Midway Islands |
| July 11 | Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" is published |
| July 12 | Paper bag manufacturing machine patents by William Goodale, Massachusetts |
| July 22 | V E Walker takes 10-74 in an innings for England vs. Surrey |
| August 9 | Elevator patented |
| August 17 | 1st air mail (in a balloon) took off from Lafayette Ind |
| August 27 | 1st successful oil well drilled, near Titusville, Penn by Edwin Drake |
| September 1 | 1st Pullman sleeping car in service |
| September 1 | R C Carrington and R Hodgson make 1st observation of solar flare |
| September 2 | Gas lighting introduced to Hawaii |
| September 16 | Lake Nyasa, which forms Malawi's boundary with Tanzania and Mozambique discovered by British explorer David Livingstone |
| September 17 | Man in San Francisco claims himself Norton I, emperor of America |
| September 20 | George Simpson patents electric range |
| September 29 | Great auroral display in US |
| October 16 | John Brown leads 20 in raid on federal arsenal, Harper's Ferry, Va |
| October 19 | Wilhelm Tempel discovers diffuse nebula around Pleid star Merope |
| October 25 | Merchant vessel Royal Charter runs aground at Liverpool, 459 die |
| November 12 | Jules Leotard performs 1st Flying Trapeze circus act (Paris) He also designed garment that bears his name |
| November 16 | Aleksandr Ostrovsky's "Groza," premieres in Moscow |
| November 24 | Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species" |
| December 5 | Dion Boucicault's "Octaroon," premieres in New York City |
| December 15 | GR Kirchoff describes chemical composition of Sun |
| December 18 | South Carolina declared an "independent commonwealth" |
| December 19 | Grading started for Market Street RR |
| December 31 | Dutch colony in Dutch Indies counts 4,800 slaves |
BrainyHistory
