Year 1855 (MDCCCLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1855

January–June

• January 1 – Ottawa, Ontario is incorporated as a city.

• January 23

• *The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota (a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge).

• *The region of Wairarapa, New Zealand is hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in New Zealand (Magnitude 8.1 on the Richter Scale); there are 5 deaths.

• January 26 – The Point No Point Treaty is signed in the Washington Territory.

• January 27 – The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

• January 29 – Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom over the management of the Crimean War.

• February 5 – Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

• February 11 – Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia.

• February 12 – Michigan State University (the "pioneer" land-grant college) is established.

• February 15 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the Western North Carolina Railroad to build a rail line from Salisbury to the western part of the state.

• February 22 – Pennsylvania State University is founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.

• March 3

• *The U.S. Congress appropriates $30,000 to create the U.S. Camel Corps.

• *Alexander II of Russia ascends the Russian throne, upon the death of his father Nicholas I.

• March 16 – Bates College is founded by abolitionists in Lewiston, Maine.

• March 17 – Taiping Rebellion: A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui.

• March 30 – Elections are held for the first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourians cross the border in large numbers to elect a pro-slavery body.

• May 15 – The Great Gold Robbery of 1855 occurs in England.

• May 17 – The Mount Sinai Hospital is dedicated (as the Jews' Hospital) in New York City; it opens to patients on June 5.

• June 28 – The Sigma Chi Fraternity is founded at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

• June 29 – The Daily Telegraph begins publication.

July–December

• July 1 – Quinault Treaty signed, Quinault and Quileute cede their land to the United States.

• July 2 – The Kansas territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.

• August 1 – First ascent of Dufourspitze (Monte Rosa), the second highest summit in the Alps.

• September 3 – The last Bartholomew Fair is held in London, England.

• September 11 – Sevastopol falls to British troops.

• November 17 – David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia–Zimbabwe.

• November 21 – Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to the Wakarusa War between antislavery and proslavery forces.

• December 22 – The Metropolitan Board of Works is established.

Undated

• Stamp duty is removed from newspapers in Britain, creating mass market media in the United Kingdom.

• Palm oil sales from West Africa to Britain reach 40,000 tons.

• Ramón Castilla starts to rule second time in Peru.

• Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855

• Dante Gabriel Rosetti paints Alfred, Lord Tennyson reading Maud.

Ongoing events

• Crimean War (1853–1856)

• Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864)

Births

• January 5 – King Camp Gillette, American razor inventor (d. 1932)

• January 20 – Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899)

• January 21 – John Moses Browning, American firearms inventor (d. 1926)

• January 28 – William Seward Burroughs, American bank clerk and inventor (d. 1898)

• February 20 – John R. Lindgren, Founder of the banking firm Haugan & Lindgren (d. 1915)

• March 4 – Luther Emmett Holt, American pediatrician (d. 1924)

• March 13 – Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)

• March 24 – Andrew Mellon, American banker and philanthropist (d. 1937)

• April 9 – John Marden, Australian Headmaster and pioneer of women's education (d. 1924)

• April 21 – Hardy Richardson, 19th century baseball player (d. 1931)

• April 27 – Caroline Rémy, French feminist (d. 1929)

• May 1 – Marie Corelli, English novelist (d. 1924)

• May 9 – Julius Röntgen, German-Dutch classical composer (d. 1932)

• May 10 – Sri Yukteswar Giri, Author of The Holy Science

• May 23 – Isabella Ford, English socialist, feminist, trade unionist and writer (d. 1924)

• July 26 – Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)

• October 12 – Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (d. 1922)

• October 21 – Howard Hyde Russell, American activist (d. 1946)

• November 5 – Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (d. 1913)

• November 6 – Ezra Seymour Gosney, American philanthropist and eugenicist (d. 1942)

• December 28 – John William Wood Sr., North Carolinan politician, founder of Benson, North Carolina (d. 1928)

Deaths

• January 6 – Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779)

• January 10 – Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist and dramatist (b. 1787)

• January 26 – Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)

• February 6 – Josef Munzinger, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1791)

• February 23 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777)

• March 2 – Nicholas I of Russia, 11th Tsar of Russia (b. 1796)

• March 8 – William Poole, infamous member of New York City's Bowery Boys gang (b. 1821)

• March 29 – Henri Druey, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1799)

• March 31 – Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816)

• May 5 – Robert Inglis, English politician (b. 1786)

• May 23 – Charles Robert Malden English explorer (b. 1797)

• June 28 – Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788)

• June 28 – Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (b. 1802)

• August 7 – Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)

• September 7 – William Barton Wade Dent, Congressman (b. 1806)

• November 11 – Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)

• September 20 – José Trinidad Reyes, Honduran Father, National Hero, and founder of Autonomus National University of Honduras (b. 1797)

• November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian-Polish poet and writer (b. 1798)

• December 6 – William John Swainson, English naturalist and artist (b. 1789)

Footnotes


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