1853

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1853 (MDCCCLIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (dominical letter B) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday (dominical letter D) of the Julian calendar, the 1853rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 853rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 53rd year of the 19th century, and the 4th year of the 1850s decade. As of the start of 1853, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1918.

Events

January–March

• January 6 – Florida Governor Thomas Brown signs the legislation that provides public support for the new East Florida Seminary, leading to the establishment of the University of Florida.
• January 8 – Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan is ordered to assist the governor of Hunan in organising a militia force to search for local bandits.
• January 12 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army occupies Wuchang.
• January 19 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premieres in performance at Teatro Apollo in Rome.
• February 10 – Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces assemble at Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang for the march on Nanjing.
• February 12 – Puerto Montt is founded in the Reloncaví Sound, Chile.
• February 22 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary.
• March – The clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. is founded in the United States.^[1]
• March 4 – Franklin Pierce is affirmed as President of the United States.
• March 20 – Taiping Rebellion: A rebel army of around 750,000 seizes Nanjing, killing 30,000 Imperial troops.

April–June

• April 16 – Foundation of Indian Railways: opening of first passenger railway in India, from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, 22 miles, 36 km.
• May
  • The world's first public aquarium opens at the London Zoo.
  • An outbreak of yellow fever kills 7,790 in New Orleans.^[2]
  • Isambard Kingdom Brunel accepts John Scott Russell's tender for construction of the SS Great Eastern passenger steamer.
• May 12–October 31 – Great Industrial Exhibition held in Dublin, Ireland.
• May 23 – The first plat for Seattle, Washington is laid out.
• June 27 – Taiping Rebellion: The Northern Expeditionary Force crosses the Yellow River.
• June 30 – Georges-Eugène Haussmann is selected as préfect of the Seine (department) to begin the re-planning of Paris.

July–September

• July 8 – U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Edo Bay, Japan, with a request for a trade treaty.
• July 25 – Outlaw and bandit Joaquin Murrieta is killed in California.
• July 27 – Iesada succeeds his father Ieyoshi as Japanese Shogun. The Late Tokugawa shogunate (the last part of the Edo period in Japan) begins.
• August 12 – New Zealand acquires self-government.
• August 23 – The first true International Meteorological Organization is established in Brussels, Belgium.
• August 24
  • The Royal Norwegian Navy Museum is founded at Karljohansvern in Horten, perhaps the world's first naval museum.
  • Potato chips are first prepared, by George Crum at Saratoga Springs, New York, according to popular accounts.
• September 19 – Hudson Taylor first leaves for China.

October–December

• October 1 – The Bechstein piano company is founded, one of three established in a "Golden year" in the history of the piano (Julius Blüthner and Steinway & Sons being the others).
• October 4–5 – Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire starts war with Russia.
• October 4 – On the east coast of the United States, Donald McKay launches the Great Republic, the world's biggest sailing ship, which at 4,500 tons is too large to be successful.
• October 28 – Crimean War: The Ottoman army crosses the Danube into Vidin/Calafat in Wallachia.
• October 30 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force comes within three miles (5 km) of Tianjin.
• November 3 – Troops of William Walker capture La Paz in Baja California Territory and declare the (short-lived) Republic of Lower California.
• November 4 – Crimean War – Battle of Oltenitza: Turkish victory over Russians.
• November 15 – Maria II of Portugal is succeeded by her son Pedro.
• November 30 (November 18 O.S.) – Crimean War – Battle of Sinop: The Russian fleet destroys the Turkish fleet.
• December 6 – Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the Cassini.
• December 30 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys approximately 77,000 km² (29,600 sq mi) of land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.

Battle of Sinop, the last major naval battle involving sailing warships.

Date unknown

• The Independent Santa Cruz Maya of Eastern Yucatán are recognized as an independent nation by the British Empire.
• Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood independently invent a practical hypodermic syringe.
• Wheaton Academy is founded in West Chicago, Illinois.
• The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China is incorporated in London by Scotsman James Wilson, under a Royal Charter from Queen Victoria.^[3][4]
• The Swiss watch company Tissot is founded.
• 1853–1873 – More than 130,000 Chinese laborers come to Cuba.
• Melbourne Cricket Ground, as known well for sport venues in Australia, officially open.

Births

January–June

Vincent van Gogh

• January 1 – Karl von Einem, German general (d. 1934)
• January 2 – Packy Dillon, American professional baseball player (d. 1902)
• January 10 – John Martin Schaeberle, German-American astronomer (d. 1924)
• January 16
  • Johnston Forbes-Robertson, English actor (d. 1937)
  • Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, British general (d. 1947)
• January 22 – Méry von Bruiningk, Estonian democrat (b. 1818)
• January 28
  • José Martí, Cuban revolutionary (d. 1895)
  • Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher), Russian philosopher (d. 1900)
• January 29 – Kitasato Shibasaburō, Japanese physician and bacteriologist (d. 1931)
• February 3 – Hudson Maxim, American inventor and chemist (d. 1927)
• February 4 – Kaneko Kentarō, Japanese politician and diplomat (d. 1942)
• February 6 – Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (d. 1901)
• February 18 – Ernest Fenollosa, Catalan American philosopher (d. 1908)
• February 31 – William O'Malley, Irish Parliament member. Notable for his bizarre date of birth. (d. 1939)
• March 5 – Howard Pyle, American artist and fictional writer (d. 1911)
• March 13 – Robert Felkin, British writer (d. 1926)
• March 14 – Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (d. 1918)
• March 25 – Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, fifth Qajarid Shah of Persia (d. 1907)
• March 29 – Elihu Thomson, English-American engineer and inventor who co-founded General Electric (d. 1937)
• March 30 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (d. 1890)
• April 1 – Marcello Amero D'Aste, Italian admiral and politician (d. 1931)
• April 6 – Emil Jellinek, German automobile entrepreneur (d. 1918)
• April 7 – Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany (d. 1884)
• April 8 – Laura Alberta Linton, American chemist (d. 1915)
• April 24 – Alphonse Bertillon, French police officer and forensic scientist (d. 1914)
• May 28 – Carl Larsson, Swedish painter (d. 1919)
• June 3 – William Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (d. 1942)
• June 12 – Chester Adgate Congdon, Minnesota mining magnate (d. 1916)

July–December

Hendrik Lorentz

Albrecht Kossel

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

• July 4 – Ernst Otto Beckmann, German chemist (d. 1923)
• July 5 – Cecil Rhodes, English businessman (d. 1902)
• July 18 – Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
• July 24 – William Gillette, American actor, playwright and stage-manager (d. 1937)
• August 19 – Aleksei Brusilov, Russian general (d. 1926)
• August 28
  • Vladimir Shukhov, Russian engineer-polymath, scientist and architect (d. 1939)
  • Franz I, Prince of Liechtenstein, (d. 1938)
• September 2 – Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)
• September 10 – Gertrud Adelborg, Swedish women's rights activist (d. 1942)
• September 16 – Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
• September 17 – Henry Churchill de Mille, American dramatist and playwright; father of film director Cecil B. DeMille (d. 1893)
• September 20 – Chulalongkorn, Rama V, king of Thailand (d. 1910)
• September 21
  • Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)
  • Edmund Leighton, English painter (d. 1922)
• October 13 – Lillie Langtry, English stage actress(d. 1929)
• October 14 – John William Kendrick, American railroad executive (d. 1924)
• October 17 – Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, wife of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (d. 1920)
• October 26 – Tokugawa Akitake, Japanese Daimyo, the last lord of Mito Domain, younger brother of the last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu (d. 1910)
• October 30 – Louise Abbéma French painter, sculptor, and designer of the Belle Époque (d. 1927)
• November 9 – Stanford White, American architect (d. 1906)
• November 13 – John Drew, Jr., American stage actor, (d. 1927)
• November 20 – Oskar Potiorek, Austro-Hungarian general, (d. 1933)
• December 6 – Haraprasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature (d. 1931)
• December 17 – Émile Roux, French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist (d. 1933)
• December 22 – Teresa Carreño, Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer, and conductor (d. 1917)
• December 23 – William Henry Moody, 35th United States Secretary of the Navy, 45th United States Attorney General, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1917)
• December 31 – Tasker H. Bliss, American general (d. 1930)

Date unknown

• Panagiotis Danglis, Greek general and politician (d. 1924)

Deaths

January–June

Christian Doppler

• January 8 – Mihály Bertalanits, Slovene (Prekmurje Slovene) poet in the Kingdom of Hungary (born 1788)
• January 16
  • Robert Lucas, governor of Ohio, United States (b. 1781)
  • Matteo Carcassi, Italian composer (b. 1792)
  • Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria, Archduke of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia (b. 1783)
• January 19 – Karl Faber, German historian (b. 1773)
• February 6 – Anastasio Bustamante, Mexican President
• February 15 – August, Prince of Hohenlohe-Öhringen (b. 1784
• March 17 – Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician (b. 1803)
• March 30 – Abigail Fillmore, First Lady of the United States (b. 1798)
• April 18 – William R. King, 13th Vice President of the United States (b. 1786)
• April 28 – Ludwig Tieck, German writer (b. 1773)
• May 18 – Lionel Kieseritzky, Baltic German chess player (b. 1806)
• June 2
  • Lucas Alamán, Mexican statesman and historian (b. 1792)
  • Henry Trevor, 21st Baron Dacre, British peer and soldier (b. 1777)
• June 8 – Richard William Howard Vyse (b. 1784)

July–December

Georg Friedrich Grotefend

• July 27 – Tokugawa Ieyoshi, 12th shogun of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan (b. 1793)
• August 9 – Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, Polish philosopher (b. 1776)
• August 19 – George Cockburn, British naval commander (b. 1772)
• August 23 – Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)
• September 3 – Augustin Saint-Hilaire, French botanist and traveller (b. 1799)
• October 2 – François Arago, French Catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician (b. 1786)
• October 3 – George Onslow, French composer (b. 1784)
• October 5 – Mahlon Dickerson, American judge and politician (b. 1770)
• October 13 – Jan Cock Blomhoff, Dutch director of Dejima, Japan (b. 1779)
• October 22 – Juan Antonio Lavalleja, 19th Century Uruguayan military and political figure (b. 1784))
• November 15 – Maria II of Portugal (b. 1819)
• December 15 – Georg Friedrich Grotefend, German epigraphist and philologist (b. 1775)
• December 23 – Juliette Bussière Laforest-Courtois, Haitian journalist (b. 1789)
• Maria Quitéria, Brazilian national heroine (b. 1792)
• Meta Forkel-Liebeskind, German writer and scholar (b. 1765)

References