Major Events
- Feb 7 Colonial Tasmanian Parliament passes the 1st piece of legislation (the Electoral Act of 1856) anywhere in the world providing for elections by way of a secret ballot
- Mar 30 The Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain, France and the Kingdom of Sardinia sign the Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War
- Jun 9 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa, and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts
- Jun 17 Republican Party opens its 1st national convention in Philadelphia
- Oct 8 The Second Opium War or second Anglo-Chinese War: begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River
- Nov 14 American Gail Borden is issued a patent for technology related to his invention of condensed milk
- More 1856 Events
Did You Know?
The Great Bell of Big Ben first chimes at the foot of the still unfinished clock tower outside the Palace of Westminster
Booker T. Washington
Nikola Tesla
George Bernard Shaw
Louis Sullivan
Frank Kellogg
Woodrow WilsonMore People Born in 1856
Amedeo Avogadro
Robert SchumannMore 1856 Deaths
Famous Weddings in 1856
- Jun 5 American industrialist and firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt (41) weds American philanthropist Elizabeth Hart Jarvis (29) at Christ Episcopal Church in Middleton, Connecticut, until his death in 1862
Charles Dickens
Giuseppe Verdi
Franklin Pierce
Henry John Temple