1855

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 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.
* March 3 - 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 2 - The Kansas territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.
* 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.

Ongoing events

* Crimean War (1854-1856)
* 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)
* 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"
* 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)
* November 11 - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)
* November 26 - Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian-Polish poet and writer (b. 1798)
* December 6 - William John Swainson, English naturalist and artist (b. 1789)