1860

This article is about the year 1860. For the Italian film, see 1860 (film). For other uses, see Special:Search/intitle:1860.

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century 19th century 20th century
Decades:	1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s
Years:	1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863

1860 in various calendars

Gregorian calendar	1860 MDCCCLX
Ab urbe condita	2613
Armenian calendar	1309 ԹՎ ՌՅԹ
Assyrian calendar	6610
Baháʼí calendar	16–17
Balinese saka calendar	1781–1782
Bengali calendar	1267
Berber calendar	2810
British Regnal year	23 Vict. 1 – 24 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2404
Burmese calendar	1222
Byzantine calendar	7368–7369
Chinese calendar	己未年 (Earth Goat) 4557 or 4350     — to — 庚申年 (Metal Monkey) 4558 or 4351
Coptic calendar	1576–1577
Discordian calendar	3026
Ethiopian calendar	1852–1853
Hebrew calendar	5620–5621
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1916–1917
- Shaka Samvat	1781–1782
- Kali Yuga	4960–4961
Holocene calendar	11860
Igbo calendar	860–861
Iranian calendar	1238–1239
Islamic calendar	1276–1277
Japanese calendar	Ansei 7 / Man'en 1 (万延元年)
Javanese calendar	1788–1789
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4193
Minguo calendar	52 before ROC 民前52年
Nanakshahi calendar	392
Thai solar calendar	2402–2403
Tibetan calendar	阴土羊年 (female Earth-Goat) 1986 or 1605 or 833     — to — 阳金猴年 (male Iron-Monkey) 1987 or 1606 or 834

Year 1860 (MDCCCLX) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar.

Events

January–March

• January 10 – The Pemberton Mill collapses in Lawrence, Massachusetts, killing 145 workers.
• January 10 – Ezequiel Zamora, leader of the Federalist Army in Venezuela, was assassinated.
• January 13 – Spanish victory (under General Leopoldo O'Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetuanat) at the Battle of Tétouan in the Spanish-Moroccan War.
• January 20 – Count di Cavour is recalled as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia.
• February 22 – Shoe-making workers of Lynn, Massachusetts, struck successfully for higher wages. The strike in Lynn and Natick, Massachusetts, spread throughout New England and involved 20,000 workers. The strike was for higher wages and included women. The workers won their major demands.
• February 26 – White settlers massacred a band of Wiyot Indians at the village of Tuluwat on Indian Island near Eureka, California. At least 60 women, children and elders were killed. Bret Harte, newspaper reporter in Arcata, fed the news to newspapers in San Francisco.
• February 28 – The Artists Rifles is established, as the 38th Middlesex (Artists) Rifle Volunteer Corps, with headquarters at Burlington House.
• March 17 – The First Taranaki War begins at Waitara, New Zealand, when Māori refuse to sell land to British settlers.
• March 6 – While campaigning for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln made a speech defending the right to strike.
• March 9 – The first Japanese ambassador to the United States, Niimi Buzennokami, and his staff arrived in San Francisco.
• March 12 – US Congress accepted the Pre-emption Bill. It provided free land in West for colonists.
• March 22 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany is annexed to the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.
• March–August – The second rout of the Jiangnan DaYing (Army Group Jiangnan) destroys the Qing's army of 180,000.

April–June

• April 2 – The first Italian Parliament met at Turin. Italy was unified. The Rothschild banking empire bankrolled Italy’s independence.
• April 3 – The Pony Express begins its first run from Saint Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California.
• April 4 – A new uprising erupts in Palermo.
• April 9 – French typesetter Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville sings the French folk song "Au Clair de la Lune" to his phonautograph; producing the world's earliest known sound recording (however, it is not rediscovered until 2008).
• May 1 – A Chondrite type meteorite falls to earth in Muskingum County, Ohio near the town of New Concord.
• May 6 – Giuseppe Garibaldi and his troops depart from Quarto on the Expedition of the Thousand.
• May 8 – In New Granada (modern-day Colombia) the southern state of Cauca secedes from the central government in protest at the suggestion of increase of presidential powers; Magdalena and Bolívar join it.
• May 9 – The U.S. Constitutional Union Party holds its convention and nominates John Bell for President of the United States.
• May 15 – Battle of Calatafimi: Troops under Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat the army of Naples in Sicily, during the Second Italian independence war.
• May 17 – The German soccer club TSV 1860 München is founded.
• May 18 – Abraham Lincoln is selected as the U.S. presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
• May 27 – Garibaldi's forces take Palermo, the capital of Sicily.
• May 28 – One of the worst storms ever experienced in the region hits the east coast of England, sinking more than 100 ships and killing at least 40 people.
• 12 June [O.S. 31 May] 1860 – The State Bank of the Russian Empire is established.
• June 30 – The historic debate about evolution is held at the Oxford University Museum.

July–September

July 20: Garibaldi.

• July 2 – Vladivostok is founded in Russia.
• July 9 – The Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses, the first nursing school based on the ideas of Florence Nightingale, is opened at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
• July 11 – Mutsuhito (the future Emperor Meiji) becomes Crown Prince of Japan.
• July 20 – Battle of Milazzo: The forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat royal Neapolitan forces near Messina, bringing nearly all of Sicily under Garibaldi's control.
• August 22 – Assisted by the British navy, the troops of Giuseppe Garibaldi cross from Sicily to the Italian mainland.
• September 3–September 5 – The First International Chemistry Congress is held in Karlsruhe, Baden.
• September 7
  • The PS Lady Elgin is accidentally rammed and sunk in Lake Michigan; hundreds drown.
  • Giuseppe Garibaldi's forces capture Naples.
• September 10 – Piedmontese forces invade the Papal States, hoping to link up with Garibaldi in Naples.
• September 18 – Battle of Castelfidardo: The Piedmontese decisively defeat the Papal forces, allowing them to continue their march into Neapolitan territory, and effectively reducing the Papal States to the territory around Rome.
• September 24 – Battle of Guayaquil: Ecuadorian forces led by Juan José Flores and Gabriel García Moreno take the port of Guayaquil from Supreme Chief Guillermo Franco, who is backed by Peruvian forces.

October–December

• October – John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant leave Zanzibar to search for the source of the Nile River.
• October 1 – Battle of the Volturno: Garibaldi defeats the last organized army of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.
• October 5 – Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and the Ottoman Empire form a commission to investigate the causes of the massacres of Maronite Christians, committed by Druzes in Lebanon earlier in the year.
• October 17 – The Open Championship, also known as the British Open, is played for the first time at Prestwick Golf Club in Ayrshire, Scotland. The event is won by Willie Park Snr.
• October 18 – The first Convention of Peking formally ends the Second Opium War.
• October 18–21 – Beijing's Old Summer Palace is burned to the ground by orders of British general Lord Elgin in retaliation for mistreatment of several prisoners of war during the Second Opium War.
• October 19 – A new Māori revolt begins in New Zealand.
• October 26
  • Garibaldi again defeats the Neapolitan forces, advancing on Gaeta, the last remaining Neapolitan strong-point.
  • Meeting at Teano: Giuseppe Garibaldi gives Naples to the king Victor Emmanuel II, recognizing him as King of Italy.
• November 3 – The combined forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi and King Victor Emmanuel II besiege King Francis II of the Two Sicilies in Gaeta, his last remaining stronghold.
• November 6 – U.S. presidential election: Abraham Lincoln beats John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell and is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.
• December 1 – Charles Dickens publishes the first installment of Great Expectations in his magazine All the Year Round.
• December 7 – after a fiercely contested campaign, Monier Williams is elected as the new Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University.
• December 20 – South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States Union.

December 29: HMS Warrior (restored).

• December 29 – The world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled and armoured battleship, the (British) HMS Warrior, is launched.

Date unknown

• Christians and Druzes clash in Damascus, Syria.
• In Buenos Aires, leader Bartolomé Mitre subverts the Argentine Confederation and begins to establish a new centralist government with the help of Uruguayan Colorado party leader Venancio Flores.
• China agrees in an unequal treaty imposed on it to allow missionaries to proselytize throughout the country.
• Discovery of the chemical elements: Robert Wilhelm Bunsen discovers caesium and rubidium.
• Augustana College is founded in Chicago, Illinois, United States by Scandinavian immigrants.
• Britain produces 20% of the entire world's output of industrial goods.
• The Russian Empire has c. 1,250 miles (2,010 km) of railroads.
• The American South has c. 4 million slaves.
• 1860–1900 – 14 million immigrants come to the USA.

Births

January

• January 1
  • John Cassidy, Irish sculptor and painter (d. 1939)
  • Dan Katchongva, Native American leader (d. 1972)
  • Michele Lega, Roman Catholic Cardinal (d. 1935)
  • Dirk van Erp, Dutch American coppersmith (d. 1933)
  • Jan Vilímek, Czech illustrator and painter (d. 1938)
• January 2
  • William Corless Mills, American museum curator (d. 1928)
  • Dugald Campbell Patterson, American pioneer (d. 1931)
• January 3
  • Nathan Edwin Brill, American physician (d. 1925)
  • Henry Clay Hall, American attorney (d. 1936)
  • John Pocknee, English cricketer (d. 1938)
  • Yashiro Rokurō, Japanese naval admiral (d. 1930)
  • Harold M. Sewall, American politician (d. 1924)
  • Kato Takaaki, 24th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1926)
• January 4
  • Otto Lubarsch, German pathologist (d. 1933)
  • Charles Joseph O'Reilly, Canadian clergyman (d. 1923)
  • Victor Westerholm, Finnish painter (d. 1919)
• January 5 – Edgar Young Mullins, American Baptist minister (d. 1928)
• January 6
  • Sir William Cameron Gull, English politician (d. 1922)
  • Raoul Gunsbourg, Romanian opera composer and impresario (d. 1955)
  • William Richard Motherwell, Canadian politician (d. 1933)
  • Morton Selten, British stage and film actor (d. 1939)
  • Lucius Smith, Bishop of Knaresborough (d. 1934)
• January 8
  • Emma Booth, the fourth child of William and Catherine Booth (d. 1903)
  • Carl Lebrecht Udo Dammer, German botanist (d. 1920)
• January 9
  • Valborg Aulin, Swedish pianist and composer (d. 1928)
  • Franklin W. Olin, American businessman (d. 1951)
• January 10
  • Charles G.D. Roberts, Canadian poet (d. 1943)
  • Soyen Shaku, Zen Buddhist master (d. 1919)
  • Stanyarne Wilson, American politician (d. 1928)
• January 11 – William E. Reynolds, Commandant of the United States Coastguard (d. 1944)
• January 12
  • Henry Larkin, American baseball player (d. 1942)
  • Charles Lemonnier, Belgian politician (d. 1930)
  • Charles Oman, British military historian (d. 1946)
  • John Waltz, American baseball player (d. 1931)
• January 13
  • Alfred W. Anthony, American Baptist leader and professor of religion (d. 1939)
  • Louis Dutfoy, French sport shooter (d. 1904)
  • Emil Kemény, Hungarian-American chess master (d. 1925)
  • Robert Spence, Archbishop of Adelaide (d. 1934)
• January 14
  • James William Armstrong, Canadian politician (d. 1928)
  • Atanas Badev, Bulgarian composer (d. 1908)
  • George Oliver Curme, American philologist (d. 1948)
  • George Hampson, British insect specialist (d. 1936)
  • Ernst von Hoeppner, German cavalry officer (d. 1922)
• January 15 – Katherine Bement Davis, American social reformer and criminologist (d. 1935)
• January 17
  • Charles K. French, American film actor (d. 1952)
  • Douglas Hyde, Irish scholar and first president of Ireland (d. 1949)
  • Jack Pease, 1st Baron Gainford, British businessman (d. 1943)
  • Erik Ramstad, co-founder of Minot, North Dakota (d. 1951)
  • Carlos José Solórzano, President of Nicaragua (d. 1936)
  • Mary Watson, American folk heroine (d. 1881)
• January 19
  • Harry Green, English footballer (d. 1900)
  • Pat Harrower, Scottish rugby union player
• January 20
  • Walter Heath, English cricketer (d. 1937)
  • Henry Norman Rae, English merchant and politician (d. 1928)
• January 21
  • George Green Foster, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 1931)
  • Benjamin Prins, Dutch artist (d. 1934)
  • Karl Staaff, Swedish politician (d. 1915)
  • Sir Robert Williams, 1st Baronet, of Park, Scottish entrepreneur and explorer (d. 1938)
• January 22
  • Walter L. Cohen, African-American politician and businessman (d. 1930)
  • Chase Osborn, American politician and explorer (d. 1949)
• January 24
  • Bernard Kroger, American businessman (d. 1938)
  • Francis Xavier Lasance, American priest and author (d. 1946)
  • Charles E. Sawyer, American physician (d. 1924)
• January 25
  • Daniel Blumenthal, French politician (d. 1930)
  • Charles Curtis, Vice President of the United States (d. 1936)
  • Paul Féval, fils, French adventure novelist (d. 1933)
• January 26
  • Harry M. Daugherty, American politician (d. 1941)
  • Emilio Diena, Italian stamp expert (d. 1941)
  • Cleveland Hoadley Dodge, American philanthropist (d. 1926)
  • Pierre-Calixte Neault, Canadian politician (d. 1924)
• January 27
  • Robert Herbert McElroy, Canadian politician and merchant (d. 1920)
  • George Sitwell, British writer and politician (d. 1943)
• January 28
  • Julius Bauschinger, German astronomer (d. 1934)
  • Sir Charles Solomon Henry, 1st Baronet, Australian businessman (d. 1919)
  • John McPherson, Australian politician (d. 1897)
• January 29
  • William Jacob Baer, American painter (d. 1941)
  • Bart Cantz, American baseball player (d. 1943)
  • Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (d. 1904)
  • John Coleman, American baseball player (d. 1915)
  • John William Lambert, American automobile manufacturer (d. 1952)
  • Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, American farmer and frontiersman (d. 1944)
  • William Robertson, British army officer (d. 1933)
• January 31 – Atrpet, Armenian writer (d. 1937)

February

• February 1
  • Victor Allard, Canadian lawyer and politician (d. 1931)
  • Milan Rešetar, Serb linguist and historian (d. 1942)
  • Maynard Sinton, Irish industrialist and High Sheriff (d. 1942)
  • Gustav Weigand, German linguist (d. 1930)
  • Michel Zevaco, French journalist and activist (d. 1918)
• February 2
  • Curtis Guild, Jr., Governor of Massachusetts (d. 1915)
  • Ed Halbriter, American baseball player (d. 1936)
  • John T. Hunt, American politician (d. 1916)
  • Buckey O'Neill, American newspaper editor and politician (d. 1898)
  • Ram Thakur, Hindu saint (d. 1949)
• February 3 – Gene Derby, American baseball player (d. 1917)
• February 4
  • Thomas Henley, Australian politician (d. 1935)
  • William Ledyard Rodgers, American admiral and military and naval historian (d. 1944)
• February 5
  • William N. Baltz, American politician (d. 1943)
  • Edmond H. Barmore, American football player (d. 1931)
  • Andrew Melrose, British publisher (d. 1938)
  • Arthur Richardson, British merchant and politician (d. 1936)
  • Jackson Showalter, American chess champion (d. 1935)
• February 6
  • Alfred S. Gage, American businessman (d. 1928)
  • Alexandre-Achille Souques, French neurologist (d. 1944)
  • Bruno Wille, German politician (d. 1928)
• February 8 – Wojciech Trąmpczyński, Polish lawyer and politician (d. 1953)
• February 9
  • Lincoln Dixon, American politician (d. 1932)
  • Ernest Cushing Richardson, American theologian (d. 1939)
  • John Strachey, British journalist (d. 1927)
  • Francis Walters, Australian cricketer (d. 1922)
• February 10 – Matteo Martinolich, Croatian shipbuilder (d. 1934)
• February 11
  • Nathan W. Hale, American politician (d. 1941)
  • Vicente Lukbán, Filipino military officer (d. 1916)
  • Frederick Orr-Lewis, Canadian businessman (d. 1921)
  • Rachilde, French author (d. 1953)
  • Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Italian painter and film director (d. 1932)
• February 12
  • Joe Ambler, English cricketer (d. 1899)
  • John W. Lieb, American electrical engineer (d. 1929)
  • G. P. Nerli, Italian painter (d. 1926)
  • Thomas Parran, Sr., American politician (d. 1955)
• February 13 – Nienke van Hichtum, Dutch children's author (d. 1939)
• February 14
  • John Clayton Allen, American politician (d. 1939)
  • Malcolm Beaton, Canadian farmer (d. 1916)
  • Waldemar Lindgren, Swedish-American geologist (d. 1939)
  • Eugen Schiffer, German politician (d. 1954)
  • Jim Tray, American baseball player (d. 1905)
  • Daniel Berkeley Updike, American printer and historian (d. 1941)
  • Jan Verheul, Dutch architect and watercolourist (d. 1948)
• February 15
  • Scott Cordelle Bone, Third Governor of Alaska (d. 1936)
  • Benjamin B. Gunn, Canadian politician (d. 1907)
  • Samuel Cook Edsall, American Episcopal Church bishop (d. 1917)
  • Jacques Isnardon, French bass-baritone (d. 1930)
  • Peter Kirk, British-born American businessman (d. 1916)
• February 16
  • Jean-Baptiste Chabot, French Roman Catholic priest and Syriac scholar (d. 1948)
  • Samuel Simeon Fels, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1950)
  • Carl Venth, German-American composer, violinist and scholar (d. 1938)
  • John Joseph McCort, American Roman Catholic prelate (d. 1936)
• February 17
  • Henry F. Mason, American politician (d. 1927)
  • Tom Seeberg, Norwegian rifle shooter (d. 1938)
  • Walter Slaughter, English composer and conductor (d. 1908)
  • George Robert Smith, Canadian politician (d. 1922)
• February 18
  • Malayapuram Singaravelu Chettiar, Indian social reformer (d. 1946)
  • Frank Fennelly, Major League Baseball player (d. 1920)
  • John C. McKenzie, American Congress Representative from Illinois (d. 1941)
  • Baron Wladimir Giesl von Gieslingen, Austro-Hungarian general during World War I (d. 1936)
  • Anders Zorn, Swedish painter, sculptor and printmaker (d. 1920)
• February 19 – Jacob Vilhelm Rode Heiberg, Danish civil servant (d. 1946)
• February 20
  • William Henry Howell, American physiologist (d. 1945)
  • Mathias Lerch, Czech mathematician (d. 1922)
• February 21
  • Alfred Canning, Western Australian government surveyor (d. 1936)
  • Karel Matěj Čapek-Chod, Czech naturalistic writer and journalist (d. 1927)
  • Charles E. Cox, American lawyer and 55th Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court (d. 1936)
  • Goscombe John, Welsh sculptor (d. 1952)
  • Reuben Wells Leonard, Canadian soldier (d. 1930)
  • Duncan Sayre MacInnes, Canadian soldier (d. 1918)
  • G. P. Nerli, Italian painter (d. 1926)
  • Douglas Arthur Teed, American painter (d. 1929)
• February 22 – Harry Hayley, English Rugby Union footballer (d. 1922)
• February 23
  • William Louis Abbott, American explorer and ornithologist (d. 1936)
  • Szidor Bátor, Hungarian composer (d. 1929)
  • Joseph Robert Cowgill, English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church (d. 1936)
  • Celeste de Longpré Heckscher, American composer (d. 1928)
  • David Hunter, English cricketer (d. 1927)
  • Percy Lefroy Mapleton, British journalist and murderer (d. 1881)
• February 25 – Sir William Ashley, economic historian (d. 1927)
• February 28 – Carl Georg Barth, American mathematician and mechanical engineer (d. 1939)
• February 29 – Herman Hollerith, American businessman and inventor (d. 1929)

March

• March 2 – Susanna M. Salter, first woman mayor in the United States (d. 1961)
• March 5 – Sam Thompson, baseball player (d. 1922)
• March 11 – Thomas Hastings, architect of the New York Public Library (d. 1929)
• March 13 – Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (d. 1903)
• March 19 – William Jennings Bryan, American politician (d. 1925)
• March 22 – Alfred Ploetz, German physician, biologist, and eugenicist (d. 1940)
• March 27 – Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar (d. 1924)

April

• April 6 – Rene Lalique, French goldsmith, jeweler, glassmaker and artist. He helped mold the shape of 20th century art nouveau, art deco and architectural ornamentation. (d.1945)
• April 7 – Will Keith Kellogg, American industrialist, founder of the Kellogg Company (d. 1951)
• April 13 – James Ensor, Belgian painter and printmaker (d. 1949)

May

• May 2 – Theodor Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism (d. 1904)
• May 7 – Tom Norman, English freak showman (d. 1930)
• May 9 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish author (d. 1937)
• May 16 – Herman Webster Mudgett, American serial killer (d. 1896)
• May 20 – Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1917)
• May 21 – Willem Einthoven, Dutch inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
• May 25 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist (d. 1944)
• May 29 – Isaac Albéniz, Spanish composer (d. 1909)

June

• June 20 – Jack Worrall, Australian cricketer, footballer, and coach (d. 1937)
• June 22 – Tom O'Brien, American 19th century baseball player (d. 1921)
• June 23 – Albert Giraud, Belgian poet (d. 1929)

July–December

• July 3 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American feminist (d. 1935)
• July 7 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (d. 1911)
• July 16 – Otto Jespersen, Danish linguist, creator of Ido and Novial languages (d.1943)
• July 19 – Lizzie Borden, American murder suspect (d. 1927)
• August 3 – W.K. Dickson, Scottish inventor (d. 1935)
• August 7 – Alan Leo, British astrologer (d. 1917)
• August 10 – Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, Indian musician (d. 1936)
• August 16 – Jules Laforgue, French poet (d. 1887)
• August 13 – Annie Oakley, American west show performer (d. 1926)
• August 15 – Henrietta Vinton Davis, American elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator (d. 1941)
• August 20 – Raymond Poincare, French President (d. 1934)
• September 5 – Andrew Volstead, American politician (d. 1947)
• September 6 – Jane Addams, American social worker, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1935)
• September 7 – Anna Mary Robertson Moses aka Grandma Moses, painter & centoginerean (d. 1961)
• September 13 – John J. Pershing, American general (d. 1948)
• September 15 – Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya, Indian engineer and statesman (d. 1962)
• October 31 – Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts (d. 1927)
• November 1 – Boies Penrose, United States Senator from Pennsylvania (d. 1921)
• November 6 – Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1941)
• November 16 – John Henry Kirby, Texas legislator and American businessman (d. 1940)
• November 22 – Fusajiro Yamauchi, founder of Nintendo (d. 1940)
• November 23 – Hjalmar Branting, Prime Minister of Sweden, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1925)
• December 4 – Charles de Broqueville, Belgian Prime Minister (d. 1940)
• December 7 – Joseph Cook, sixth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1947)
• December 15
  • Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1904)
  • Abner Powell, Major league baseball player (d. 1953)
• December 25 – Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (d. 1921)
• December 31 – Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, founder of Texaco (d. 1937)

Date unknown

• Frederick George Jackson, British Arctic explorer (d. 1938)
• John Coughlin, American politician (d. 1938)
• Lancelot Speed, British illustrator (d. 1931)
• Soapy Smith (Jefferson R. Smith), infamous American confidence man and crime boss (d. 1898)

Deaths

January–June

• January 1 – Thomas Hobbes Scott, English clergyman (b. 1783)
• January 5 – St. John Neumann, Saint and Roman Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia (b. 1811)
• January 13 – William Mason, American politician (b. 1786)
• January 27
  • János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician (b. 1802)
  • Thomas Brisbane, Scottish astronomer (b. 1773)
• January 29 – Stephanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden (b. 1789)
• March 6 – Justus Johann Friedrich Dotzauer, German cellist and composer (b. 1783)
• March 17 – Anna Jameson, British author
• March 25 – James Braid, Scottish surgeon (b. 1795)
• May 10 – Theodore Parker, American preacher, Transcendentalist, and abolitionist (b. 1810)
• May 12 – Sir Charles Barry, English architect (b. 1795)
• May 16 – Anne Isabella Milbanke, wife of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (b. 1792)

July–December

• July 1 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor (b. 1800)
• September 12 – William Walker, American filibuster who was briefly President of Nicaragua (executed)
• September 21 – Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (b. 1788)
• October 12 – Sir Harry Smith, English soldier and military commander, (b. 1787)
• October 31 – Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, British admiral (b. 1775)
• November 1 – Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia), the Empress Consort of Russian Emperor Nicholas I (b. 1798)
• December 14 – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)

Date unknown

• Dai Xi, Chinese painter (b. 1801)