1853
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Events
January–March
- January 6
- Florida Governor Thomas Brown signs legislation that provides public support for the new East Florida Seminary, leading to the establishment of the University of Florida.
- U.S. President-elect Franklin Pierce's only living child, Benjamin "Benny" Pierce, is killed in a train accident.
- January 8 – Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan is ordered to assist the governor of Hunan in organizing 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 at Teatro Apollo in Rome.
- January 20 – The United Kingdom proclaims its annexation of Lower Burma, ending the Second Anglo-Burmese War.<ref>{{#if: |
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- February 10 – Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces assemble at Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang for the march on Nanjing.
- February 12 – The city of Puerto Montt is founded in the Reloncaví Sound, Chile.
- February 22 – Washington University in St. Louis is founded as Eliot Seminary.
- March 5 – Saint Paul Fire and Marine, as predecessor of The Travelers Companies, a worldwide insurance service, founded in Minnesota, United States.
- March 6 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera La traviata premieres at La Fenice in Venice, but is poorly received at this time.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- March 20 – Taiping Rebellion: A rebel army of around 750,000 seizes Nanjing, killing 30,000 Imperial troops.
- March 29 – Manchester is granted city status in the United Kingdom.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref>
- March – The clothing company Levi Strauss & Co. is founded in San Francisco (US).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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April–June
- April 7 – Prince Leopold, the youngest son and the eighth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, is born in Buckingham Palace; he has inherited haemophilia. During the labour, Victoria chooses to use chloroform, thereby encouraging the use of anesthesia in childbirth.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- April 16 – Indian Railways: The first passenger railway in India opens from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, Template:Convert.
- May 5 – Perpetual Maritime Truce comes into force between the United Kingdom and the rulers of the Sheikhdoms of the Lower Gulf, later known as the Trucial States.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- May 12–October 31 – The Great Industrial Exhibition is held in Dublin, Ireland.
- May 23 – The first plat for Seattle, Washington, is laid out.
- May
- The world's first public aquarium opens, as a feature of the London Zoo.
- An outbreak of yellow fever kills 7,790 people in New Orleans.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel accepts John Scott Russell's tender for construction of the Template:SS passenger steamer.
- June 22 – Guimarães is elevated to city status by Queen Maria II of Portugal.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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- 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
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- July 8 – U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives in Edo Bay, Japan, with a request for a trade treaty.
- July 14 – Japan allows Commodore Perry to come ashore and begin negotiations.
- July 25 – Outlaw and bandit Joaquin Murrieta is killed in California.
- July 27 – Iesada succeeds his father Ieyoshi as Japanese shōgun. 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
- Potato chips are first prepared, by George Crum at Saratoga Springs, New York, according to popular accounts.
- The Royal Norwegian Navy Museum is founded at Karljohansvern in Horten, perhaps the world's first naval museum.
- September 19 – English missionary Hudson Taylor first leaves for China.
- September 20 – Otis Elevator, as predecessor of Otis Worldwide, is founded in the United States.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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October–December
- October 1 – C. Bechstein's piano factory 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 begins 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 25 – In Munich, the art museum Neue Pinakothek opens.
- October 28 – Crimean War: The Ottoman army crosses the Danube into Vidin/Calafat, Wallachia.
- October 30 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force comes within Template:Convert of Tianjin.
- November 3 – Troops of William Walker capture La Paz in Baja California Territory and declare the (short-lived) Republic of Sonora.
- November 4 – Crimean War: Battle of Oltenitza – Turkish forces defeat the Russians.
- November 15 – Maria II of Portugal is succeeded by her son Pedro V as King of Portugal.
- 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 14 – Compagnie Générale des Eaux, predecessor of Vivendi and Veolia, a global media conglomerate, is founded in Paris, France.
- December 30 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys approximately Template:Convert of land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
Date unknown
- French diplomat Arthur de Gobineau begins publication of his An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines), an early example of scientific racism.
- Charles Pravaz and Alexander Wood independently invent a practical hypodermic syringe.
- Wheaton Academy is founded as an evangelical high school 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
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- Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest sports stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, officially opens.
- 1853–1873 – More than 130,000 Chinese laborers come to Cuba.
Births
January–March
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- January 1 – Karl von Einem, German general (d. 1934)
- January 9 – Henning von Holtzendorff, German admiral (d. 1919)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- January 16
- Johnston Forbes-Robertson, English actor (d. 1937)
- Sir Ian Hamilton, British general (d. 1947)
- January 18 – Eusebio Hernández Pérez, Cuban eugenicist, obstetrician and guerrilla (d. 1933)
- January 23 – John Marks Moore, American politician (d. 1902)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- January 28
- José Martí, Cuban revolutionary (d. 1895)
- Vladimir Solovyov, Russian philosopher (d. 1900)
- c. February – William O'Malley, Irish politician (d. 1939)
- January 29 – Kitasato Shibasaburō, Japanese physician, bacteriologist (d. 1931)
- February 4 – Kaneko Kentarō, Japanese politician, diplomat (d. 1942)
- February 18 – Ernest Fenollosa, Catalan-American philosopher (d. 1908)
- February 22 – Annie Le Porte Diggs, Canadian-born state librarian of Kansas (d. 1916)
- March 2 – Ella Loraine Dorsey, American author, journalist and translator (d. 1935)
- March 5 – Howard Pyle, American artist, fiction writer (d. 1911)
- March 10 – Thomas Mackenzie, 18th Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1930)
- March 13 – Robert William Felkin, British writer (d. 1926)
- March 14 – Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (d. 1918)
- March 25 – Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, 5th Qajarid Shah of Persia (d. 1907)
- March 27 – Yakov Zhilinsky, Russian general (d. 1918)
- March 29 – Elihu Thomson, English-American engineer, inventor, co-founder of General Electric (d. 1937)
- March 30 – Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (d. 1890)
April–June
- April 6 – Emil Jellinek, German automobile entrepreneur (d. 1918)
- April 7
- Ella Eaton Kellogg, American pioneer in dietetics (d. 1920)
- Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, member of the British royal family (d. 1884)
- April 22 – Alphonse Bertillon, French police officer, forensic scientist (d. 1914)
- April 30 – Alexey Abaza, Russian admiral and politician (d. 1917)
- May 4 – Marie Robinson Wright, American travel writer (d. 1914)
- May 20
- Ella Hoag Brockway Avann, American educator (d. 1899)
- Vladimir Viktorovich Sakharov, Russian general (d. 1920)
- May 26 - Placido Moreira Dias, Brazilian military commander (d. ?)
- May 28 – Carl Larsson, Swedish painter (d. 1919)
- June 3 – William Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (d. 1942)
- June 12 – Chester Adgate Congdon, American mining magnate (d. 1916)
July–September
- July 4 – Ernst Otto Beckmann, German chemist (d. 1923)
- July 5 – Cecil Rhodes, English businessman (d. 1902)
- July 10 – Percy Scott, British admiral (d. 1924)
- July 18 – Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
- July 24 – William Gillette, American actor, playwright and stage-manager (d. 1937)
- July 26 – Philip Cowen, American Jewish publisher and author (d. 1943)
- July 29 – Ioan Culcer, Romanian general and politician (d. 1928)
- August 23
- João Marques de Oliveira, Portuguese painter (d. 1927)
- John Thomson, Australian politician (d. 1917)
- August 28
- Vladimir Shukhov, Russian engineer, polymath, scientist and architect (d. 1939)
- Franz I, Prince of Liechtenstein (d. 1938)
- September 1 – Aleksei Brusilov, Russian general (d. 1926)
- September 2 – Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)
- September 6 – Katherine Eleanor Conway, American journalist, editor, poet and Laetare Medalist (d. 1927)
- September 16 – Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
- September 20 – Chulalongkorn, Rama V, King of Siam (d. 1910)
- September 21 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)
- September 23 – Fritz von Below, German general (d. 1918)
October–December
- October 4 – Jane Maria Read, American poet and teacher (unknown year of death)
- October 13 – Lillie Langtry, Jersey-born stage actress and royal mistress (d. 1929)
- October 14 – John William Kendrick, American railroad executive (d. 1924)
- October 16 – Thadeus von Sivers, Baltic German-born Russian general (death date unknown)
- October 17 – Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, wife of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (d. 1920)
- October 26 – Tokugawa Akitake, Japanese daimyō, the last lord of Mito Domain, younger brother of the last shōgun 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 18 – Leopold Poetsch, Austrian history teacher, high school teacher of Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann (d. 1942)
- November 20 – Oskar Potiorek, Austro-Hungarian general (d. 1933)
- November 29 – Panagiotis Danglis, Greek general, politician (d. 1924)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- December 6 – Hara Prasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature (d. 1931)
- December 14 – Errico Malatesta, Italian anarchist (d. 1932)
- December 17 – Émile Roux, French physician, bacteriologist and immunologist (d. 1933)
- December 21 – Noda Utarō, Japanese entrepreneur and politician (d. 1927)
- December 22
- Teresa Carreño, Venezuelan pianist, singer, composer and conductor (d. 1917)
- Sarada Devi, Indian mystic and saint (d. 1920)
- 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)
Deaths
January–June
- January 8 – Mihály Bertalanits, Slovene (Prekmurje Slovene) poet in the Kingdom of Hungary (b. 1788)
- January 16
- Matteo Carcassi, Italian composer (b. 1792)
- Archduke Rainer Joseph of Austria, Archduke of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia (b. 1783)
- Robert Lucas, governor of Ohio, United States (b. 1781)
- January 19 – Karl Faber, German historian (b. 1773)
- January 22 – Méry von Bruiningk, Estonian democrat (b. 1818)
- February 4 – Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil, daughter of Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (b. 1831)
- February 6 – Anastasio Bustamante, 4th President of Mexico (b. 1780)
- 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, historian (b. 1792)
- Henry Trevor, 21st Baron Dacre, British peer, soldier (b. 1777)
- June 7 – Giuseppina Ronzi de Begnis, Italian opera singer (b. 1800)
- June 8 – Howard Vyse, English soldier and Egyptologist (b. 1784)
- June 27 – Lewis Brian Adams, English painter (b. 1809)
July–December
- July 27 – Tokugawa Ieyoshi, 12th shōgun 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 21 – Maria Quitéria, Brazilian national heroine (b. 1792)
- August 23 – Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)
- August 29 – Charles James Napier, British army general and colonial administrator (b. 1782)
- September 3 – Augustin Saint-Hilaire, French botanist, traveller (b. 1799)
- September 6 – George Bradshaw, English timetable publisher (b. 1800)
- 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, politician (b. 1770)
- October 13 – Jan Cock Blomhoff, Dutch director of Dejima, Japan (b. 1779)
- October 22 – Juan Antonio Lavalleja, Uruguayan military, political figure (b. 1784)
- October 27 – Maria White Lowell, American abolitionist (b. 1821)
- November 15 – Maria II of Portugal, queen regnant (b. 1819)
- December 15 – Georg Friedrich Grotefend, German epigraphist, philologist (b. 1775)
- December 23 – Juliette Bussière Laforest-Courtois, Haitian journalist (b. 1789)
Date unknown
- Barnard E. Bee, Sr., American attorney and Texan anti-annexation politician (b. 1787)
- Meta Forkel-Liebeskind, German writer and scholar (b. 1765)
- Qiu Ersao, Chinese rebel and military commander, died in action (b. 1822)
- Ferdinando Quaglia, Italian painter of portrait miniatures (b. 1780)