General
Population: 1.27 Billion*
- Entertainment: Writers include WIlhelm Busch, Octave Feuillet, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Morris, Henry Carey (social science),
Thomas Carlyle (re: Frederick the Great), Philip Schaff (history of Christian church)
Art includes William P. Frith "Derby Day", Menzel "Bon soir Messieurs"
Music includes Peter von Cornelius, Offenbach, Berlioz
- Communication: First trans-Atlantic telegraph cable completed - fails less than a month later
- Medicine: Joseph Lister studies coagulation of blood
Gray's Anatomy first published
- Science: TH Huxley writes the theory of vertebrate skulls
Darwin publishes Origin of Species along with Wallace's abstract
Virchow finalizes cell theory founded on Schleiden and Schwann's works
- Technology: William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) invents mirror galvanometer
- Deaths: Reformer Robert Owen, Artist Andro Hiroshige, Golfer Allan Robertson
South Foreland lighthouse lit by electricity, SS Great Eastern launched (largest ship of the time),
Africa
- General: Richard Burton and John Speke discover Lake Tanganyika and lake Victoria Nyanza
- Egypt: Suez Canal Company formed
Americas
- Canada: Ottawa becomes capital
Eight reservations established
- Mexico: Reformer Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president
War of Reform begins May 5th
Asia
- China: Treaty of Tientsin (Tianjin) ends Anglo-Chinese war
Treaty of Augin – Russia gains Amur region from China
- India: Indian Mutiny - troops increase and Lucknow siege relieved - British win
East India Company abolished - transfer to British crown
British proclaim peace in India
- Indo-China: French and Spanish naval force bombards Tourane and occupies Saigon
- Japan: Ansei Treaties between Japan and foreign powers
Europe
- Austria: Austria retreats from supporting Pope and leaves Italy
Rebuilding of the Ringstrasse in Vienna
- France: Italian nationalist Felice Orsini's attempt to assassinate Napoleon III
English designer Charles Worth creates first haute couture house in Paris
Reported sighting of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes France to Bernadette Soubirous
France's "Third Estate" tries to take control of the nobility, clergy and king of France - they vow to take control and swore an oath on a tennis court
Storming the Bastille
- German States: Prince William of Prussia declared regent for the insane King Frederick William IV
- Great Britain: Irish foundation of Fenian movement to break from Britain
Lionel de Rothschild becomes the first Jewish member of British Parliament
Lord Derby (Conservative) beomces British Prime Minister
First meeting of General Medical Council in London
Charles Barry designs the third Covent Garden Opera House in London
- Italy: Inquisition Bologna - Edgardo Mortara case where child was abducted by Papal power by Pius IX, other Italian states demand Papal reforms
Secret alliance between Napoleon III and Count Cavour Premier of Piedmont
- Montenegro: Turkish attack on Montenegro repulsed
- Serbia: Alixander Karageorgevich deposed by Serbian Diet – Milos Obrenovic declared king
Middle East
- Ottoman Empire: Turks attack Montenegro - fail
Pacific