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 story of one of his fellow countrymen. Giovanni Orlandi of Parma, on the other hand, is captured and sold into slavery to the emir. He manages to gain his favor by making him a large clock and a telescope. One day, the telescope falls and breaks. The emir summons the Italian to have it repaired, but Orlandi is drunk. He is then threatened with death for the second time unless he converts to Islam. Orlandi refuses, and his throat is slit—but only just beneath the skin, from ear to ear—with the warning that he has one more day to live. That day, he doesn’t change his mind and is beheaded in Registan Square. It is 1851.

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 4,146 prisoners. With heavy hearts, the Confederates abandoned the entire state of Tennessee to the Confederates.

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 improve the technology are made in Mobile, with mixed success and several casualties and prototypes lost to the seabed.

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, 18,735 wounded, and 5,425 taken prisoner).

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 men facing each other were free citizens, familiar with the courage, resolve, and valor of the enemy they had faced in countless battles, convinced of the correctness of their choice. A moment later, the Federal guns are positioned forward and open fire simultaneously at zero elevation, but the gray tide continues its advance. It is time for grapeshot shells to be fired from the cannons. The Southern troops suffer heavy losses and close ranks. Then the command comes to the Northern lines: fire! Six thousand rifles fire at point-blank range, several Confederate flags fall but are raised again, and the Confederates now open fire as well. Fearful gaps open up in the lines on both sides. At one point, the Northern front gave way, and General Armistead and a handful of men advanced, only to be pulverized by grapeshot shells. The inevitable Southern retreat began.

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, retreating northward (to El Paso del Norte), taking the state treasury with them.

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 pages, and the volumes were almost cubic in shape. Starting in 1972, access to this information was computerized and made available at the Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh. Six months later, access increased to 14, including NBC, the CIA, the Associated Press, the State Department, the Library of Congress, ExxonMobil, and Chase Manhattan Bank.

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 defeat is grave.

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 the magnificent Federal artillery, which swept the entire front with a ferocious fire. The Southerners did not break through, but they did not lose any ground either. At Antietam, the Northerners lost 12,410 soldiers and the Southerners approximately 13,000. Overall, however, Lee’s offensive across the Potomac had so far failed.

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 than a copy of Order No. 191, secretly issued by General Lee on September 9th, detailing troop movements. McClellan is quickly informed, but when he exclaims, “Now I know what to do!” a sympathetic Confederate civilian runs to inform the Confederate rearguard.

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 stop him. The Bersaglieri, under the command of Pallavicini, advance, firing, and Garibaldi is grazed in the thigh and then in the ankle as he waves his arms to stop those of his men who, disobeying orders, return fire. The fighting lasts only a few minutes but results in 12 deaths and 30 injuries. Politically, the event is monumental: the army has fired on the hero envied by the entire world. The event is also commemorated in the Bersaglieri’s official march: “Garibaldi was wounded, he was wounded in the leg.” Six soldiers who had joined Garibaldi’s side were also executed. The captured volunteers, approximately 2,000 in number, ended up locked up in Alpine fortresses, often sharing cells with Bourbon soldiers deported the previous year. An amnesty would be needed to heal the wound. Garibaldi ended up on Caprera. During a trip to London, he found half a million people waiting to cheer him on.

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.

The glorious battleship CSS Virginia sails up the James River toward the Confederate capital, Richmond. However, as it does so, it is moving in shallow water and must be lightened. Some of its armor is therefore removed and abandoned. Gradually, the battleship risks running aground, and with this lightened ship, it becomes impossible to engage the Union fleet. It is therefore decided to set it ablaze. The Santa Barbara explodes shortly thereafter, and CSS Virginia sinks, still unconquered.

The Mexican Republican Army defeats the French Army (regarded as one of the most efficient in the world) in the Battle of Puebla (May 5, 1862, a date still celebrated as a Mexican national holiday: Cinco de Mayo)

Even New Orleans, the largest Confederate city, surrenders to the Yankees. The Southerners thus lose the Leeds Foundry and two battleships under construction, including the CSS Mississippi, the largest in the world at the time.

2:00 a.m. Ferragut’s sailors silently prepare to break the Mississippi blockade, but the Confederates soon realize what’s happening, and a terrible battle breaks out, with 400 cannons thundering simultaneously over a 2-mile radius for about an hour. After numerous losses, the Union fleet manages to pass and joins forces with the Union troops: New Orleans is surrounded. Fort Jackson and Fort Philip surrender within a few days.