Custoza. To the south, in front of Villafranca, the divisions of Bixio and Prince Umberto are attacked by Austrian cavalry. In the center, at Custoza itself, the bulk of the Austrian attack takes place, and General Brignone’s grenadiers are forced to retreat. General Govone’s division, one of the best in the field, arrives at full speed, and the Austrians are forced to retreat to the Belvedere hill. Due to a series of misunderstandings and hesitations, however, no reinforcements arrive to Govone, who is forced to begin an orderly retreat. At this moment in Custoza, Govone writes, “through incompetence we lost the opportunity to have the Tyrol and perhaps Trieste! May God forgive us and may posterity forgive us.” History is not made with “ifs,” but it is worth asking what history would have been like if the Venetian territories had been acquired in 1866, without the need to conquer them in the First World War…

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed by the House. The amendment aims to guarantee the rights of slaves. Today, it is the foundation of due process and the equal protection clause in the laws of each state. The amendment was proposed to the states on June 13, 1866, by a House vote, with all Republicans voting in favor and all Democrats against. It was ratified on July 9, 1868.

Napoleon III announces the recall of his armed forces from Mexico. A series of Republican victories immediately follows (Chihuahua on March 25, Guadalajara on July 8, and Matamoros, Tampico, and Acapulco in the same month). Napoleon III strongly urges Maximilian to abandon Mexico. The French evacuate Monterrey on July 26, Saltillo on August 5, and the entire state of Sonora in September. The Republicans defeat the Imperials at Miahuatlán (Oaxaca) in October, occupying the entire state of Oaxaca the following month, along with parts of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosí, and Guanajuato. On December 6, the Austrian and Belgian volunteers disband, apparently joining the Mexican army; however, 3,500 of the 4,648 volunteers do not enlist with the victorious forces and attempt to leave Mexico. On November 13, Ramón Corona negotiated terms with the French for the liberation of Mazatlán. At noon, the invaders embarked on three warships (Rhin, Marie, and Talisman) and set sail for good.

Maxwell’s laws (the best-understood interactions in physics and the only ones expressed in a closed, self-compatible mathematical form) and the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the only law of physics that is valid always, in any case, everywhere in the Universe) lay the foundations of modern science. After the Civil War, the United States rears its head: Colt, Winchester, Levi, Bell, Edison, Rockefeller, oil.

Manfredo Fanti dies. A Modenese, he was a leading figure in the Italian insurrections of the 1830s and commander of the Piedmontese expedition through the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1860.

Another attempt to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable between Ireland and Newfoundland: 3,000 km and 6,000 tons. The ship departed England with 550 men, 12 draft oxen, 1 cow, and pigs. Just as they were almost finished laying the cable, it snapped. Perseverance paid off with complete and lasting success the following year, with yet another attempt.

An 18-year-old Confederate soldier reveals the assassin Booth’s hideout in a Virginia farmhouse.

7:22 a.m. President Abraham Lincoln dies in the house across the street from Ford’s Theatre, a brick house belonging to a man named Petersen. When Sherman delivers the news to Confederate General Johnston, large beads of sweat begin to roll down his forehead. The defeat for the South must have been even more painful, given the fear of Northern revenge.

10:13 PM. John Wilker Booth, an actor at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., shoots President Lincoln in the head. Booth, a vocal pro-Southerner, is with a small band of Confederate stragglers who also unsuccessfully attempt to assassinate Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State Seward. Booth escapes, breaks a femur, but manages to mount his horse and cross the Potomac. He is besieged in a farmhouse, which is then set on fire. As he flees, he is lynched by the mob. He is shot, and Booth dies. The rest of the gang is captured, tried, and sentenced to hanging or long prison terms.

The end of the American Civil War: approximately 620,000 dead, 364,511 Union soldiers, approximately 133,821 Confederate soldiers. 2.2 million men fought in the armies and navies of the Union and Confederacy.

The Confederate Congress passed a resolution “conducting slaves voluntarily into the graycoats,” but made no mention of emancipation upon completion of their service. But it was still too late for any action.

The only month (so far) in which February does not see a full moon

General Sherman’s armies capture Charleston, South Carolina, and Fort Sumter, which had resisted the Marines since the beginning of the war four years earlier.

Industrial Revolution: Singer factory releases fourth automatic sewing machine model: the New Family

Claude Monet exhibits in public for the first time

England. Economist William Jevons publishes The Coal Question, in which he argues that the country will run out of coal within a century. It is a Matlhusian book, meaning it extrapolates current data without considering the price elasticity of energy demand and technological evolution.

Italy. The English explorers Gilbert and Churchill explore the Dolomites, a still largely unknown part of the Alps, brought to light by these two English travellers. This was a time when the source of the Nile was still unclear, Antarctica had only been known for forty years, and Mount Everest still lacked a name.

Italy. Riots in Turin against the move of the capital to Florence cost over 150 lives.

Sand Creek Massacre. The Colorado Territorial militia, numbering approximately 700, raided a Cheyenne and Araphao village, killing 70 to 160 people, many of them women and children.

Founding of the Red Cross. In 1864, 12 nations gathered in Geneva adopted the “Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded Soldiers in War.” The agreement, championed by Swiss benefactor Jean-Henri Dunant, called for the care, without discrimination, of the sick and wounded in wartime and required the neutrality of medical personnel. The agreement proposed the adoption of an international emblem to identify medical personnel and supplies. In honor of Dunant and his country, a red cross on a white background was chosen—the Swiss flag with the colors reversed. In 1901, Dunant received the first Nobel Peace Prize.

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. In the battles of Winchester and Fisher Hill, the Union forces routed the Confederates and took control of the entire valley, burning the earth behind them to prevent it from being used as a logistical support for the Southerners.

Mobile, Alabama. At first light, the Union fleet, led by the battleship Tecumseh, opens fire on Fort Morgan and attempts to force the blockade of the strategic, mined bay. A few minutes later, it hits a mine and sinks. At this point, Admiral Farragut orders the Brooklyn to attack, but she does not move. So, with cries of “To hell with the mines! We’ll go ahead!” Ferragut orders his crew to move ahead with the Hartford. Some mines thud against the hull without exploding. To the sailors, it feels as if death itself is knocking on the ship’s sides with its bony knuckles. But the ship passes. This is only the beginning of the battle, which will also involve the Tennessee (conf.), the Monongahela (un.), the Lakawanna (un.), and the Chickasaw (un.). In the end, the Unionists manage to take control of the bay. A blessing for Lincoln as the presidential elections approach. Although the city of Mobile would hold out until April 1865.

The Confederates reached Pennsylvania but were defeated there by General Shermann.

Siege of Atlanta, Georgia. Union General McPherson, a close associate of Sherman and Grant, is fatally wounded, and they will be deeply shaken by the news. On the other side of the front, Confederate General Hood also mourns his former West Point classmate, who, as a top-ranked student, had helped him with his studies.

Jefferson Davis and Varina’s infant son, Little Joe, dies in a home accident. Jefferson Davis is the President of the Confederate States of America (CSA).

Fort Pillow, Tennessee. Confederate troops under Nathan Bedford Forrest commit atrocities against captured Black Union prisoners, killing dozens. Lincoln refuses immediate revenge on the Confederate prisoners. But in a battle on the Mississippi shortly thereafter, a Union lieutenant writes, “We didn’t take many prisoners. The Negroes remembered Fort Pillow.” The Confederates will continue to refuse equal treatment for white and Black prisoners throughout the conflict. Grant, however, refuses a prisoner exchange, because the Confederates would swell the depleted Confederate ranks. By the end of the war, 194,000 Union and 215,000 Confederate prisoners will be held captive, of whom 30,000 and 26,000 respectively will lose their lives while in captivity.

Grant has finished preparing the army of 182,276 soldiers and 450 guns that must break through the steel door of the Confederacy which opposes 110,000 men with 300 guns.