This Year in History:
1859
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Naturalist Charles Darwin sends his publishers the first three chapters of On the Origin of Species, which will become one of the most influential books ever published. Knowing the fates of…
On April 9, 1859, a 23‑year‑old Missouri youth named Samuel Langhorne Clemens receives his steamboat pilot’s license. Clemens had signed on as a pilot’s apprentice in 1857 while on his…
At Port Said, Egypt, ground is broken for the Suez Canal, an artificial waterway intended to stretch 101 miles across the isthmus of Suez and connect the Mediterranean and the…
On April 30, 1859, the first chapter of Charles Dickens’ serialized novel, A Tale of Two Cities, is published in Dickens’ circular, All the Year Round. It rolls out over…
It’s the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of master sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Doyle was born in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he…
In this This Day in History video, take a look at May 31, the day in 1859 when the Big Ben clock tower was set up in St. Stephen’s tower…
The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320‑foot‑high Elizabeth Tower, begins ticking over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first…
Jean Francois Gravelet, a Frenchman known professionally as Charles Blondin, becomes the first daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. The feat, which was performed 160 feet above…
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed revolt of…
The infamous Western outlaw known as “Billy the Kid” is mostly likely born in a poor Irish neighborhood on New York City’s East Side on November 23, 1859. (Much about…
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a groundbreaking scientific work by British naturalist Charles Darwin, is published in England on November 24, 1859. Darwin’s theory argued…
Militant abolitionist John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder and insurrection on December 2, 1859. Brown, born in Connecticut in 1800, first became militant during the mid‑1850s, when…
