Historical Events for Year 1855
Interesting year, lots of rabbit holes to investigate:
http://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1855
Jan 9th - Clipper Guiding Star disappears in Atlantic, 480 dead
Jan 23rd - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
Jan 28th - The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway.
Jan 31st - Western railroads blocked by snow
Feb 3rd - Wisconsin Supreme Coutt declares US Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional
Feb 4th - Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela
Feb 5th - British government of Palmerston forms
Feb 8th - The Devil’s Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon.
Feb 10th - US citizenship laws amended; all children of US parents born abroad granted US citizenship
Feb 11th - Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III in a ceremony at the church of Derasge Maryam.
Feb 12th - Michigan State University was established.
Feb 14th - Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
Feb 24th - US Court of Claims forms for cases against government
Mar 2nd - Aleksandr Romanov becomes tsar of Russia
Mar 3rd - US Congress approves $30,000 to test camels for military use
Mar 3rd - US Congress authorizes registered mail
Mar 6th - Gustave Flaubert writes goodbye to Louise Colet
Mar 7th - 17th Grand National: John Hanlon aboard Wanderer IRE wins
Mar 8th - 1st train crosses 1st US railway suspension bridge, Niagara Falls
Mar 15th - Louisiana establishes 1st health board to regulate quarantine
Mar 24th - Manhattan Kansas founded as New Boston Kansas
Physician and Geologist Abraham GesnerPhysician and Geologist Abraham Gesner
Mar 27th - Abraham Gesner patents kerosene
Apr 21st - 1st train crosses Miss River’s 1st bridge, Rock Is Ill-Davenport Ia
Apr 26th - Composer Gioacchino Rossini leaves Italy
Apr 28th - 1st veterinary college in US incorporated in Boston
May 3rd - Antwerp-Rotterdam railway opens
May 5th - NYC regains Castle Clinton, to be used for immigration
Jun 1st - US adventurer William Walker conquers Nicaragua, reestablishes slavery
Jun 2nd - The Portland Rum Riot occurs in Portland, Maine.
Jun 5th - Anti-foreign anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party’s 1st convention
Jun 13th - Opera “Les Vêpres Sicilenne” is produced (Paris)
Jun 17th - Heavy French/British bombing of Sebastopol, Crimea: 2,000+ killed
Jun 20th - Commissioners appointed to lay out SF streets west of Larkin
Jun 28th - The Sigma Chi Fraternity was founded at Miami University
Jul 4th - In Brooklyn, New York, the first edition of Walt Whitman’s book of poems, titled Leaves of Grass, is published.
Jul 20th - 1st train from Rotterdam to Utrecht in Netherlands
Jul 31st - Hottest July in Stockholm since at least 1756 (21.4°C avg)
Aug 1st - Castle Clinton in NYC opens as 1st US receiving station for immigrants
Aug 3rd - Rotterdam-Gouda railway opens
Aug 4th - John Bartlett publishes “Familiar Quotations”
Aug 9th - Battle of Acapulco during Mexican Liberal uprising
Sep 3rd - Indian Wars: In Nebraska, 700 soldiers under American General William S. Harney avenge the Grattan Massacre by attacking a Sioux village, killing 100 men, women, and children.
Sep 8th - Crimean war - assault of Malakof Tower under Patrice de Mac-Mahon, Duke of Magenta
Sep 8th - British and French troops capture Sevastopol from the Russians, effectively ending the Crimean War.
Sep 27th - George F Bristow’s “Rip Van Winkle”, 2nd American opera, opens in NYC
Oct 9th - Isaac Singer patents sewing machine motor
Oct 9th - Joshua Stoddard of Worcester, Massachusetts, patents first calliope
Oct 17th - Bessemer steelmaking process patented
Composer/Pianist Franz LisztComposer/Pianist Franz Liszt
Oct 18th - Franz Liszt’s “Prometheus,” premieres
Nov 17th - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now Zambia and Zimbabwe.
I'm surprised a clipper ship accommodated that many passengers. I would have wild guessed around 100.
Feb 3rd - Wisconsin Supreme Coutt declares US Fugitive Slave Law unconstitutional
We will have the Dred Scott decision to chew on after a while.
Feb 4th - Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela
Sigh.
Feb 10th - US citizenship laws amended; all children of US parents born abroad granted US citizenship
Anchor parents.
Jun 5th - Anti-foreign anti-Roman Catholic Know-Nothing Party’s 1st convention
How does a secret party have a convention?
Jun 17th - Heavy French/British bombing of Sebastopol, Crimea: 2,000+ killed
My advice to anyone living in Crimea: Get out while you can.
"Miami was a university before Florida was a state."
P.J. O'Rourke is their most famous extant alumnus. (Please leave me on the list, Homer.)
1855 - Bessemer steelmaking process patented
War is coming, this is important. Steel for bridges, railroad, skyscrapers, military
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessemer_process
Sir Henry Bessemer described the origin of his invention in his autobiography written in 1890. During the outbreak of the Crimean War, many English industrialists and inventors became interested in military technology. According to Bessemer, his invention was inspired by a conversation with Napoleon III in 1854 pertaining to the steel required for better artillery. Bessemer claimed that it “was the spark which kindled one of the greatest revolutions that the present century had to record, for during my solitary ride in a cab that night from Vincennes to Paris, I made up my mind to try what I could to improve the quality of iron in the manufacture of guns.”[5] At the time steel was used to make only small items like cutlery and tools, but was too expensive for cannons. Starting in January 1855 he began working on a way to produce steel in the massive quantities required for artillery and by October he filed his first patent related to the Bessemer process. He patented the method a year later in 1856.[5]