1856 in science

The year 1856 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Archaeology

• First remains of Neanderthal Man found in the Neandertal Valley of Germany.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Astronomy

• N. R. Pogson proposes that the ratio used in Hipparchus' stellar apparent magnitude system should be adopted as a standard.
• NGC 6539 is discovered by Theodor Brorsen.

Biology

• Paul Du Chaillu becomes the first European to observe gorillas in the wild.<ref>Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chace of the Gorilla, Crocodile, and other Animals (1861).</ref>
• Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
• Lev Tsenkovsky introduces the concept that the lower algae and other infusoria are unicellular organisms.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Chemistry

• March – William Perkin first discovers an aniline dye, mauveine.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Alexander Parkes patents the first thermoplastic, Parkesine.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Louis Pasteur crystallizes galactose.<ref>Pasteur (1856). "Note sur le sucre de lait" (Note on milk sugar), Comptes rendus de l'Académie des sciences, 42:347-351.</ref>
• Charles-Adolphe Wurtz discovers the glycols.

Exploration

• May 20 – Dr David Livingstone arrives at Quelimane on the Indian Ocean having completed a 2-year transcontinental journey across Africa from Luanda.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Thomas Montgomerie of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India makes the first survey of the Karakoram Range, from Mount Haramukh, Template:Convert to the south, and designates the two most prominent peaks as K1 and K2.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Mathematics

• Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton invents the icosian game, which involves finding the Hamiltonian path on a dodecahedron.

Meteorology

• August 23 – Eunice Newton Foote's paper on "Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays" read at the American Association for the Advancement of Science presents the causes of the greenhouse effect.
• October 4 – American meteorologist William Ferrel demonstrates the tendency of rising and rotating warm air to pull in air from more southerly, warmer regions and transport it poleward.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Paleontology

• American paleontologist Joseph Leidy describes the new tyrannosaurid dinosaur genus and species Deinodon horridus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Physics

• Henry Darcy formulates Darcy's law on fluid flow.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Technology

• September 22 – British metallurgist Robert Mushet patents improvements to the Bessemer process for the production of steel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• English agricultural engineer John Fowler first demonstrates his steam-driven agricultural ploughing system.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• English engineer John Ramsbottom invents a tamper-proof spring safety valve for steam locomotives.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
• French chemist Alphonse Louis Poitevin invents the collotype photographic process.
• Tinsmith Ralph Collier of Baltimore, Maryland, patents the first egg beater with rotating parts.<ref>Template:US patent.</ref>
• James Harrison produces the world's first practical ice making machine and refrigerator using the principle of vapour compression in Geelong, Australia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Moravian Leopold Breit introduces Streichmelodion.
• Sarrusophone patented.
• Approximate date – Bandoneon invented.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Henri Milne-Edwards<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: William Edmond Logan

Births

• February 15 – Emil Kraepelin (died 1926), German psychiatrist.
• March 9 – Edward Goodrich Acheson (died 1931), American industrial chemist.
• May 6
  • Sigmund Freud (died 1939), Austrian psychoanalyst.
  • Robert Peary (died 1920), American polar explorer.
• May 19 – Nadezhda Ziber-Shumova (died 1916), Russian biochemist.
• July 10 – Nikola Tesla (died 1943), Serb inventor.
• August 27 – Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen (died 1921), Danish ornithologist.
• August 30 – Charles Alfred Ballance (died 1936), English surgeon.
• September 14 – Sergei Winogradsky (died 1953), Russian microbiologist.
• December 18 – J. J. Thomson (died 1940), English physicist and Nobel laureate in physics.

Deaths

• February 24 (February 12 Old Style) – Nikolai Lobachevsky (born 1792), Russian mathematician and geometer.
• February 25 – George Don (born 1797), Scottish botanist.
• July 9 – Amedeo Avogadro (born 1776), Italian chemist.
• August 24 – William Buckland (born 1784), English geologist and paleontologist.
• September 1 – William Yarrell (born 1784), English zoologist and bookseller.
• November 20 – Farkas Bolyai (born 1775), Hungarian mathematician.
• November 21 – James Meadows Rendel (born 1799), English civil engineer.
• December 23/24 – Hugh Miller (born 1802), Scottish geologist (suicide).
• date unknown – Enriqueta Favez (born 1791), Swiss physician and surgeon.