1859

Year 1859 () was a (link will display the full calendar) of the  (or a  of the 12-day slower ).

January - March

 * - and  are united under  under the name  (see   for the final unification, Transylvania and other regions were still missing at this time).
 * - The city of is incorporated in the state of  in the.
 * - is admitted as the 33rd.
 * - congressman  shoots  for having an affair with his wife.
 * - The army of mobilizes against Austria, beginning the crisis which will lead to the.
 * - A French amateur astronomer claims to have noticed a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury - later named.

April - June

 * - by Charles Dickens is published.
 * - Ground is broken for the.
 * - - 's  confront Austrian forces led by Field Marshal-Lieutenant Carl Baron Urban at.
 * - The is wrecked off the English coast, with 424 dead
 * - n troops begin to cross the to.
 * - opened across the  linking the counties of  and  in.
 * - The bell first activated.
 * - is succeeded by his 23-year-old son.
 * - ns defeat the n army at.
 * - in  - French and Sardinians defeat Austrians.
 * - The  of  in  is created by devolving part of the territory of.
 * - The so called border dispute between the Americans and the British on the  begins by the death of the namesake pig.
 * - : and  of France armies defeat  in northern . Battle inspires  to found the.
 * - crosses  on a  for the first time.

July - September

 * - First intercollegiate game is played, between  and  Colleges.
 * succeeds his father King of  and  (as Charles IV).
 * between and others.
 * - By the preliminary treaty signed at Villafranca, Italy, is ceded to the French (who immediately cede it to Sardinia), while the Austrians keep  and the French promise to restore the Central Italian rulers expelled in the course of the war. This brings the  effectively to a close.
 * - drills the first  in the, near.
 * - drills the first  in the, near.

October - December

 * - raids the  in, , in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.
 * - Troops under  overpower  at the.
 * - The steamship is wrecked on the coast of,  with 454 dead.
 * - The current, , was lighted for the first time. Its first-order  can be seen for nineteen miles.
 * - The, reaffirming the terms of , brings the to an official close.
 * - The French Navy's  ("Glory"), the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.
 * - naturalist  publishes , a book which argues that  gradually  through . (It immediately sold out its initial print run.)
 * - Militant leader  is hanged for his th raid on.
 * - founded.

Undated

 * Island of is divided between  and the.
 * Land Grant confirmed to Rafael Alvisa, (part of the present.
 * found by on his third visit to the monastery of, on.
 * formulates the, one of the most important open problems of contemporary mathematics.
 * s first observed on the by English astronomer.
 * declared the capital of newly-made-separate colony,.
 * founded.

January - June

 * - Lord, British statesman and (d. )
 * -, last Emperor of Germany and (d. )
 * -, Irish-born composer (d. )
 * -, German industrialist and aircraft designer (d. )
 * -, American farmer and father of (d. )
 * -, English physician and author (d. )
 * -, inventor of the (d. )
 * -, Swedish chemist, laureate (d. )
 * -, Swiss historian of mathematics (d. )
 * -, Ukrainian Yiddish novelist (d. )
 * -, Russian physicist (d. )
 * -, English author (d. )
 * -, American Morman apostle (d. )
 * -, English poet (d. )
 * -, Austrian philosopher (d. )
 * -, French physicist, laureate (d. )
 * -, Scottish writer (d. )

July - December

 * -, Swedish writer, laureate (d. )
 * -, Norwegian author, laureate (d. )
 * -, French military officer (d. )
 * -, French philosopher, recipient of the (d. )
 * -, President of the Catalan Generalitat (d. )
 * -, Romanian soldier and politician (d. )
 * -, Russian composer (d. )
 * -, Outlaw (d. July 14, )
 * -, French painter (d. )
 * -, Russo-Polish initiator of Esperanto (d. )
 * -, French artist (d. )
 * date unknown
 * , American painter (d. )

January - June

 * -, (b. )
 * -, English cookery writer (b. )
 * -, U.S. (b. )
 * -, French historian (b. )
 * -, German naturalist and geographer (b. )
 * -, Austrian diplomat (b. )
 * -, Grand duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach (b. )

July - December

 * -, King of Sweden and Norway (b. )
 * -, American educator and abolitionist (b. )
 * -, British engineer (b. )
 * -, German author and publisher (b. )
 * -, German violinist and composer (b. )
 * -, American author (b. )
 * -, American abolitionist (hanged) (b. )
 * -, English writer (b. )
 * -, German writer (b. )
 * date unknown -, (b. )


 * See also .