1855

1855 (MDCCCLV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

January 1 - Ottawa, Ontario is incorporated as a city.
January 23 - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
January 23 - The region of Wairarapa, New Zealand was hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in New Zealand, which reached Magnitude 8.1 on the Richter Scale. There were five deaths.
January 27 - The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
January 29 - Taiping Rebellion: Shi Dakai wins a spectacular victory over Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army.
January 29 - Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom over the management of the Crimean War.

February 5 - Lord Palmerston, (Henry Temple), becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
February 11 - Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III in a ceremony at the church of Derasge Maryam.
February 17 - Taiping Rebellion: Triad uprising in Shanghai suppressed.
February 22 - Pennsylvania State University is founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.

March 3 - US Congress appropriates $30,000 to create US Camel Corps
March 16 - Bates College in Lewiston, Maine was founded.
March 17 - Taiping Rebellion: A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui.
March 30 - Elections held for first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourians cross border in large numbers to elect proslavery body.

July 2 - Kansas Territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.

November 21 - Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to "Wakarusa War" between antislavery and proslavery forces.

Stamp duty was removed from newspapers in Britain creating mass market media in the UK.

January 5 - King Camp Gillette, American inventor (d. 1932)
January 20 - Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899)
January 21 - John Moses Browning, American firearms inventor (d. 1926)
January 28 - William Seward Burroughs, American bank clerk and inventor (d. 1898)
March 13 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)
March 24 - Andrew Mellon, American banker and philanthropist (d. 1937)
April 21 - Hardy Richardson, 19th century baseball player (d. 1931)
April 27 - Caroline Rémy, French feminist (d. 1929)
May 1 - Marie Corelli, English novelist (d. 1924)
May 9 - Julius Röntgen, German-Dutch classical composer (d. 1932)
July 26 - Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)
October 12 - Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (d. 1922)
October 21 - Howard Hyde Russell, American activist (d. 1946)
November 5 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (d. 1913)
November 6 - Ezra Seymour Gosney, American philanthropist and eugenicist (d. 1942)

January 6 - Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779)
January 26 - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)
February 6 - Josef Munzinger, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1791)
February 23 - Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777)
March 2 - Nicholas I of Russia, the 11th Russian Tsar (b. 1796)
March 29 - Henri Druey, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1799)
March 31 - Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816)
May 5 - Robert Inglis, English politician (b. 1786)
May 23 - Charles Robert Malden English explorer (b. 1797)
June 28 - Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788)
June 28 - Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (b. 1802)
August 7 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)
November 11 - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)
November 26 - Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian - Polish poet and writer (b. 1798)