1858

Year 1858 (MDCCCLVIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1858

January - March

* January 14 - Felice Orsini and his accomplices fail to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris but their bombs kill 8 and wound 142 people. Because of the involvement of French émigrés living in Britain, there is a brief anti-British feeling in France, but the emperor refuses to support it. Orsini is executed by guillotine on March 13 of the same year.
* January 25 - The "Wedding March" by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter Victoria, "Vicky," the Princess Royal to Prince Friedrich of Prussia in St. James's Palace, London.
* February 11 - The Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to St Bernadette of Lourdes.
* March 30 - Hyman Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser.

April - June

* April 16 - The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up.
* April 28-May 1 - Battle of Grahovac (between Ottoman and Montenegrin forces)
* May 11 - Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
* May 19 - The Marais des Cygnes massacre is perpetrated by pro-slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
* June 20 - The last rebels of the Indian Mutiny surrender in Gwalior.
* June 23 - Police of the Papal States seize Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara and take him away to be raised as a Catholic.
* May-July - Mahtra War: Peasants in the Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire revolt against serfdom (which was officially abolished in 1816).

July - September

* July
**Count Camillo Benso di Cavour goads Austria into attacking Sardinia.
**Forty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.
* July 1 - Papers by Darwin and Wallace announcing a theory of evolution by natural selection are read at London's Linnean Society.
* July 12 - "The Advertiser", the daily news paper still in circulation, begins publication in Adelaide, Australia.
* July 17 - The Lutine bell, is salvaged and subsequently hung in Lloyd's of London.
* July 28 - In Bengal/India, British officer William James Herschel uses the hand impression of Rajyadhar Konai as a contract fingerprint signature.
* July 29 - The United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
* August 5 - Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. The service ends on September 1 due to weak current.
* September 18 - John Christoph Reichert, immigrant from Roigheim, Germany, granted United States citizenship at Terre Haute, Vigo County, Indiana.

* August 7 - The first claimed Australian rules football match is held between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College.
* August 11 - First ascent of the Eiger.
* August 16 - U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.

October - December

* November 17 - The Epoch of the Modified Julian Day is reached.
* November 17 - The city of Denver, Colorado is founded.

Undated

* The British Empire takes over the powers & properties of the British East India Company(see also history of Bangladesh).
* India starts to be ruled by the British Parliament and administered by a civil service in India.
* William Marcy Tweed begins his 13-year term as "Boss" of Tammany Hall.
* The British stop using prison hulks.
* The last Cape Lion is seen.
* The haute couture firm of "Worth and Bobergh" is established.
* The Lincoln-Douglas Debates are held in Illinois.
* The Miners Association is established in Cornwall, UK.
* Feudalism and serfdom in Bulgaria are abolished in the Ottoman Empire (practically in 1880).
* William I of Prussia becomes a regent.

Ongoing events

* Second Opium War (1856-1860)
* Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

January - June

* January 7 - Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Russian-born advocate of the Hebrew language (d. 1922)
* January 10 - Heinrich Zille, German illustrator and photographer (d. 1929)
* January 11 - Harry Gordon Selfridge, American department store magnate (d. 1947)
* January 27 - Cornelia Hubertina Doff French author of Dutch origin known as Neel Doff, nominee of the 1911 Prix Goncourt (d. 1942)
* February 15 - John Joseph Montgomery, American glider pioneer (d. 1911)
* March 9 - Gustav Stickley, American furniture designer and architect. (d. 1942)
* March 10 - Kokichi Mikimoto, Japanese pearl farm pioneer (d. 1954)
* March 18 - Rudolf Diesel, German inventor (d. 1913)
* March 23 - Ludwig Quidde, German pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1941)
* April 23 - Max Planck, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1947)
* April 30 - Mary Dimmick Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison (d. 1948)
* June 16
** King Gustaf V of Sweden (d. 1950)
**William Dickson Boyce, founder of the Boy Scouts of America (d. 1929)

July - December

* July 9 - Franz Boas, German anthropologist (d. 1942)
* July 14 - Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette, mother of Christabel, Sylvia and Adela Pankhurst (d. 1928)
* August 1 - Hans Rott, Austrian composer (d. 1884)
* August 2 - Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Dutch Queen and regent (d. 1934)
* August 11 - Christiaan Eijkman, Dutch physician and pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1930)
* August 19 - Alfred Dyke Acland, British military officer (d. 1937)
* August 27 - Giuseppe Peano, Italian mathematician (d. 1932)
* September 1 - Andrew Jackson Zilker, American philanthropist (d. 1934)
* September 16 - Andrew Bonar Law, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1923)
* October 3 - Eleonora Duse, Italian actress (d. 1924)
* October 19 - George Albert Boulenger, Belgian naturalist (d. 1937)
* October 27 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1919)
* November 20 - Selma Lagerlöf, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940)
* November 26 - Katharine Drexel, Roman Catholic saint
* November 30 - Jagdish Chandra Bose, Indian physicist (d. 1937)
* December 22 - Giacomo Puccini, Italian composer (d. 1924)
* December 25 - Herman P. Faris, American temperance movement leader (d. 1936)

Deaths

January - June

* January 5 - Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, Austrian field marshal (b. 1766)
* January 9 - Anson Jones, 5th and last President of Texas (suicide) (b. 1798)
* March 4 - Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, American naval officer (b. 1794)
* April 7 - Anton Diabelli, composer (b. 1781)
* June 3 - Julius Reubke, German composer (b. 1834)
* June 28 - Auguste de Montferrand, French architect (b. 1786)

July - December

* August 14 - Tokugawa Iesada, shogun (b. 1824)
* September 9 - Thomas Assheton Smith II, politician and cricketer (b. 1776)
* September 17 - Dred Scott, American slave (b. ca 1795)
* November 12 - Alois II, Prince of Liechtenstein (b. 1796)
* November 15 - Li Hsu-pin, military leader (b. 1817)
* November 17 - Robert Owen, social reformer (b. 1771)
* November 24 - Wincenty Krasiński, Polish military leader (b. 1782)
* December 3 - Joseph Marie Elisabeth Durocher, geologist (b. 1817)
* December 13 - Karl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher, botanist (b. 1799)
* December 17 - Koca Mustafa Reşid Pasha, Ottoman statesman (b. 1800)
*"date unknown" - Georgios Kountouriotis, Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1782)