1859

English Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia

1859

Events

January–March

January 24 (O. S.) – Wallachia and Moldavia are united under Alexandru Ioan Cuza (Romania since 1866, final unification takes place on December 1, 1918; Transylvania and other regions are still missing at that time).
January 28 – The city of Olympia is incorporated in the Washington Territory in the United States of America.
February 4 – German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf rediscovers the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, in Saint Catherine's Monastery on the foot of Mount Sinai in the Khedivate of Egypt.
February 14 – Oregon is admitted as the 33rd U.S. state.
February 18 – French forces under Charles Rigault de Genouilly capture Sài Gòn in Vietnam.
February 27 – United States Congressman Daniel Sickles shoots Philip Barton Key (U.S. District Attorney) for having an affair with his wife.
March 9 – The army of the Kingdom of Sardinia mobilizes against Austria, beginning the crisis which will lead to the Austro-Sardinian War.
March 21 – The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania issues the charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, the first organization of its kind in the United States and founder of the nation's first zoo.
March 26 – A French amateur astronomer, Edmond Modeste Lescarbault, claims to have noticed a planet closer to the Sun than Mercury – later named Vulcan.