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First transcontinental railroad in the USA between the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific

American Christopher Latham Sholes patents the typewriter

Linus Yale, his son, and Henry Robinson Towne found the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company in Stamford, Connecticut.

Lazio. 2,000 Mazzinians leave Garibaldi’s expedition, in political disagreement with the general.

Garibaldi marches on Rome

Despite Napoleon III’s abandonment of Mexico, a severe blow to the imperial cause, Maximilian of Habsburg refused to abandon his supporters. He retreated to Querétaro in February 1867, where he sustained a siege that lasted several weeks. On May 11, Emperor Maximilian decided to attempt

Karl Marx publishes the first of three volumes of Capital. At Marx’s death in 1883, the other two volumes remain unpublished and will be published posthumously by Engels.

Luigi Pirandello was born in Agrigento, in a place appropriately named Chaos.

Parisian gardener Joseph Monier incorporated wire into the concrete of his own pots. This allowed him to use (reinforced) concrete in a relaxed state. Previously, concrete could only be used in compression (which was how it was used by the inventors of concrete: the Romans).

Reverend Thomas Baker, a missionary in Fiji, was cooked and eaten by the natives for offending the chief by removing a comb from his hair. In 2003, the descendants of that local chief officially apologized to the Baker family.

France. The damage caused by phylloxera is undermining a sector that employs a third of the country’s workforce.

Wine vines in France mysteriously begin dying en masse. The bunches dry up, the roots rot. The wine sector employs approximately 35% of the country’s workforce. Jules Emile Planchon, of the Department of Botany at the University of Montpellier, discovers that the plant roots are

First reliably functioning transatlantic cable

First servo-mechanism to control a ship’s rudder: J. McFarlaine on the Great Eastern

Nicolo’ Paganini discovered the pair of amicable numbers 1184 and 1210 (that is, numbers for which the sum of the divisors of one equals the other and vice versa). Years earlier, Descartes discovered the pair 9363584 and 9437056, while Euler listed 62 pairs of amicable

Mendel publishes An Essay on Plant Hybrids

Daniel Kirkwood notices a hollowed-out area in the asteroid belt: the one with asteroids with a period of 3.95 years, which corresponds exactly to a third of Jupiter’s year. These asteroids would be in a 3:1 resonance with Jupiter, which would hurl them away.

Battle of Tuiuti between Brazil and Paraguay with the involvement of Argentina and Uruguay; 100,000 soldiers on the field

News of the insolvency of Overend, Gurney, & Company on May 10, 1866, sparked a rush for funds in the City of London and urgent appeals to the Bank of England. The banking panic triggered by the collapse of the major British discount store became

Alfonso La Marmora’s Italy signed a treaty of alliance with Otto von Bismarck’s Prussia, as an anti-Austrian measure and with the tacit consent of France and Russia. In reality, Italy, with an army of 250,000 men, had prepared too hastily for the conflict, unlike Prussia’s

England. Utilitarian John Stuart Mill successfully passes the Second Reform Bill, extending the electorate of Parliament to women, with 77 votes in favor.

7:21 a.m. A 21-year-old legless soldier, a veteran of the Second Battle of Bull Run and a stenographer, collects the first accounts of the assassination attempt on President Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln was visiting General Grant and the Army of the Potomac at the front when the bluecoats broke through the Confederate defenses and stormed Petersburg, forcing General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia to evacuate both Petersburg and Richmond. Lincoln exclaimed, “Thank God

5:15 AM. After nine hours of fierce fighting, Petersburg’s defenses begin to crumble. General Hill (conf.) is killed. The city will fall at 4:28 AM the next day.

The Battle of Five Forks was fought southwest of Petersburg, Virginia, during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. Also known as the “Confederacy’s Waterloo,” it pitted Union General Philip H. Sheridan against Confederate General George E. Pickett of General Robert E. Lee’s army.

9:00 PM. Petersburg, Virginia. General Grant orders an attack along the entire front.

General Grant’s Union offensive in Virginia begins

Sherman and Schofield’s forces join together and move against Raleigh, the capital of North Carolina, where General Johnston’s army has holed up.

Gregor Mendel presents his results on pea breeding and hereditary characteristics to the Natural History Society in Brno and explains the genetic laws of heredity.

John D. Rockefeller’s company is born, which later becomes the Standard Oil Company of Pennsylvania in 1870.

Italy. Peak XV, the highest peak in the Himalayas, is renamed Mount Everest.

Jules Verne releases “From the Earth to the Moon”

London, creation of the first Workers’ International founded on the initiative of the philosopher Karl Marx

James Croll of Anderson University in Glasgow, in the Philosophical Magazine, theorizes that variations in the Earth’s orbit may be the cause of the ice ages.

Georgia. Sherman breaks off all contact with the rest of the Union and launches his bold and grandiose maneuver toward Savannah, pillaging and burning the earth in his wake. The offensive turns into an unstoppable triumphal march.

US Presidential Election: Republican Lincoln wins 25 states to Democrat McClellan’s three. The vote count is 2,206,938 for Lincoln, 1,803,787 for McClellan.

Atlanta was cleared of its bluecoats and set on fire to prevent it from being used as logistical support by the Confederates pursuing Sherman as he fled toward the Atlantic. The Union general cut his supply lines and launched a dash toward Savannah. To do

Cherbourg, France. The Confederate privateer Alabama, fresh from years of plundering and fighting 66 Union ships around the world, is challenged by the Union Kearsarge, which awaits her seven miles off the coast. The Kearsarge’s relentlessly accurate fire, firing 11-inch Dahlgren guns, quickly sinks the

Virginia. After crossing the James River, Grant’s Army of the Potomac attacked the Confederates at Petersburg, south of Richmond.

During the Confederate retreat from Dalton to Atlanta, General (and Bishop) Polk is fatally shot by a Union sniper.

Japan. A year after the Japanese attack on Western shipping and the subsequent closure of the strategic Shimonoseki Strait between the mainland islands of Honshu and Kyushu, the Westerners bombarded the port of Choshu, destroying many of its cannons, and capturing and carrying off the

Siege of Petersburg, Virginia by Union troops. Petersburg is located just south of the Confederate capital, Richmond. The Northerners accumulate a huge number of soldiers in trenches on the outskirts of the city and continue to attack and bombard it until General Lee’s troops retreat.

Maximilian of Habsburg disembarked from the Seiner Majestät Schiff and accepted the crown of Emperor of Mexico on April 10, signing the Treaty of Miramare. This was a typical product of the progressive ideas then in vogue in the West. He promoted the establishment of

Zanichelli publishes in Modena the first Italian translation of Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, thanks above all to the efforts of Count Leonardo Salimbeni.

Filippo De Filippi, professor of zoology at the University of Turin, gives a lecture entitled “Man and the Apes,” publicly supporting Darwin’s ideas for the first time in Italy.

In Vienna, the Este embassy (called Legation) was closed and the army of the Duke of Modena, still loyal to him and stationed in Veneto (the Estense Brigade), was disbanded in Cartigliano (Vicenza) with a moving ceremony on 24 September.

Bukhara, Central Asia. Modesto Gavazzi, an Italian silk merchant, is in Bukhara to buy silkworm eggs. He is captured, imprisoned, and forced to convert to Islam under threat of death. He gets away with 13 months of captivity, during which he learns the less happy

In the midst of the Civil War, Salmon Chase suggested adding “IN GOD WE TRUST” to Union coins and paper money. The motto would be approved by Congress in 1864. (Of course, the Confederate side of the conflict also firmly believed in divine support…)

First Battle of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Grant’s troops attacked the Confederates besieging Chattanooga on Lookout Mountain, which was captured on November 25. The Confederates retreated toward Dalton, Georgia. The Union lost 5,475 killed and wounded, and 349 prisoners; the Confederacy lost 2,521 killed and wounded, and

Japan. A fleet of British ships bombards and destroys much of the Satsuma capital of Kagoshima, killing approximately 1,500 Japanese soldiers.

The Confederate submarine David, a true technological innovation, with a crew of four, manages to seriously damage the battleship New Ironside, but without sinking it. It is clear, however, that a new and terrible threat to Union ships has arisen. Various other Confederate attempts to

Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, in the estate of Yasnaya Polyana where he lives with his wife Sof’ya Andreevna Bers and their children, writes War and Peace in an atmosphere of great serenity.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Union General Meade does not counterattack and perhaps misses the opportunity to finish off the Army of Northern Virginia.

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Lee orders the Army of Northern Virginia to begin retreating from Gettysburg; by July 14, they will all be south of the Potomac. The Union lost 23,049 men (3,155 killed, 14,529 wounded, and 5,365 taken prisoner), while the Confederates lost 29,000 (4,000 killed,

2:40 PM. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. After nearly two hours of intense bombardment, the Confederates charge en masse. The gray tide once again emerges from the woods, immense, terrifying, at a measured pace, no shouts, no shots. The world had never seen anything like it: all the

12:55 PM. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. 150 Confederate guns open fire simultaneously, but the Federals are prepared and sheltered just behind Cemetery Ridge. They do not return fire to conserve ammunition for the planned assault.

General Koocker resigns command of the Army of the Potomac, which is assigned to General George Gordon Meade, a native of Cadiz. As he addresses his men, he explains the seriousness of the situation: “The enemy is on our soil.”

General Lee’s Confederate offensive against Maryland and Pennsylvania begins

General Bazaine’s French army defeated General Comonfort’s Mexican forces (who had attempted to break the siege of Puebla) at San Lorenzo, south of Puebla. Shortly thereafter (on May 17), Puebla surrendered to the French. On May 31, President Juárez and his cabinet fled the city,

Milan. The Polytechnic University of Milan is founded.

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued by Abraham Lincoln, goes into effect, declaring that all slaves belonging to rebels against the United States government are henceforth and forever free. Senator Wade shouts: “Now hurrah for Old Abe and the Proclamation!”

New York. John Rothman began working as an indexer for The New York Times Index, which, starting in 1863 and increasingly regularly and widely starting in 1913, offered indexes of newspaper and magazine articles. It was a vast undertaking: each annual volume contained thousands of

12:30 AM. The USS Monitor sinks with four officers and 12 sailors desperately trying to save her until the last minute.

11:00 PM. The battleship USS Monitor is experiencing difficulties in heavy seas between Virginia Cape and North Carolina. Heavy waves during the night are causing water to enter the conning tower. She will sink shortly thereafter.

Battle of Fredricksburg, Virginia. For hours, the Federals send platoons of soldiers to slaughter against the impregnable Confederate lines. By nightfall, 10,884 dead or wounded and 1,769 prisoners lie on the field, while the Confederates lose 4,656 killed or wounded and 653 prisoners. The Union

Battle of Fredericksburg: The Northerners (50,000 men with 100 cannons) were heavily defeated by General Lee’s troops (75,000 men with 250 cannons): 10,884 Union casualties, 4,656 Confederate casualties; among the Northerners, General Meagher’s Irish Brigade stood out in particular.

The American Richard Gatling patents the machine gun that fires 100 rounds per minute, which will be immediately used in the conflict that is bloodying the United States of America

Lincoln removes General McClellan from command and gives it to Ambrose Burnside

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy married eighteen-year-old Sof’ja Andreevna Bers, with whom he had 14 children.

Battle of Antietam. The Confederates, with the overwhelming support of the Texan Hood, and the Federals clashed violently north of Sharpsburg, just across the Potomac. Despite repeated Southern charges, the vast cornfield facing the Yankees was not captured. Here, too, the difference was made by

Battle of the South Mountains, a few miles from Harper’s Ferry. Union victory with the loss of the valiant General Reno.

Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves free forever.

A Union infantryman, a corporal from Indiana named Barton W. Mitchell, picks up a bundle of three cigars from the ground where the Confederates had previously camped. He puts the cigars in his pocket and glances at the piece of paper: it is none other

Confederates cross the Potomac at White’s Ford, 50 miles north of Washington, DC.

General Lee’s Counteroffensive: Virginia, Battle of Chantilly

Garibaldi, with hundreds of volunteers, is retracing the victorious route he had taken across Italy just two years earlier. This time, however, he is heading, at his own behest, toward Rome. He finds himself in the Aspromonte mountains of Calabria, facing 3,500 soldiers sent to

The oldest letter ever found, from Thomas Alva Edison, when he was 15. It is signed “Alva,” as he actually called himself to his family, while his friends simply called him “Al.”

General Lee’s Counteroffensive: Virginia, Battle of Cedar Mountain

Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia: Union advance guards reach the outskirts of the Confederate capital, Richmond.

Garibaldi spent the year touring Italy, as far as Sicily, where he was greeted with delirious popular support.