1854

This page is about the year 1854. For the board game, see 1854.

Centuries:	18th century - 19th century - 20th century
Decades:	1820s 1830s 1840s - 1850s - 1860s 1870s 1880s
Years:	1851 1852 1853 - 1854 - 1855 1856 1857

1854 in topic:
Humanities
Archaeology - Architecture - Art - Literature - Music
By country
Australia - Canada - Mexico - South Africa - U.S. - UK
Other topics
Rail Transport - Science - Sports
Lists of leaders
Colonial Governors - State leaders
Birth and death categories
Births - Deaths
Establishments and disestablishments categories
Establishments - Disestablishments
Works category
Works

**1854 in other calendars**
Gregorian calendar	1854 MDCCCLIV
Ab urbe condita	2607
Armenian calendar	1303 ԹՎ ՌՅԳ
Chinese calendar	4490/4550-12-3 (癸丑年十二月初三日) — to — 4491/4551-11-12 (甲寅年十一月十二日)
Ethiopian calendar	1846 – 1847
Hebrew calendar	5614 – 5615
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1909 – 1910
- Shaka Samvat	1776 – 1777
- Kali Yuga	4955 – 4956
Iranian calendar	1232 – 1233
Islamic calendar	1271 – 1272
Japanese calendar	Kaei 7 (嘉永7年) — changed to — Ansei 1 (安政元年)
- Imperial Year	Kōki 2514 (皇紀2514年)
- Jōmon Era	11854
Thai solar calendar	2397

1854 (MDCCCLIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

[edit] Events

January 4 - The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.
January 13 - The accordion is patented by Anthony Faas.
January 21 - Loss of the RMS Tayleur - 380 drowned, later dubbed "the first Titanic".

February 6 - Altoona, Pennsylvania, a major railroading city, is incorporated as a borough.
February 11 - Major streets lit by coal gas for first time.
February 13 - Mexican troops force William Walker and his troops to retreat to Sonora.
February 14 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.
February 17 - The British recognize the independence of the Orange Free State.
February 23 - The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.
February 27 – Britain sends Russia an ultimatum to withdraw from two Ottoman provinces it had conquered, Moldavia and Wallachia.

May 27 - Taiping Rebellion: United States minister Robert McLane arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the USS Susquehanna.
May 30 - Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law, rescinding the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and creating Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory. Provision that settlers will vote on slavery in the new territories leads to Bleeding Kansas violence beginning the next year.

June - The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern U.S. inhabitants from Chicago, Illinois to Rock Island, Illinois by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to St. Paul, Minnesota by steamboat.
June 10 - The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduate at Annapolis, Maryland.
June 21 - In the battle at Bomarsund in Åland, Royal Navy mate Charles D. Lucas throws a live Russian artillery shell overboard by hand before it explodes - the incident is the first that will be retroactively awarded the Victoria Cross in 1857.

July 6 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the U.S. Republican Party is held.
July 13 - In the battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General Jose Maria Yanez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset Boulbon.
July 13 - Assassination of Khedive Abbas I of Egypt.
July 22 - Discovery of the asteroid Urania by John Russell Hind.

August 16 - Russian troops in the island of Bomarsund in Åland surrender to French-British troops.

September 20 - Crimean War: At the Alma, the French-British alliance wins the first battle of the war.

October 1 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury, Massachusetts by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham to become the Waltham Watch Company, pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
October 6 - The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead is ignited by a spectacular explosion
October 17 - Newspaper The Age is founded in Melbourne, Australia.
October 21 - Florence Nightingale leaves for Crimea with 38 other nurses.
October 25 - Crimean War: The Battle of Balaclava occurs, overall a victory for the allies, but it included the disastrous cavalry Charge of the Light Brigade, from which only 200 of 700 men survive.

November 5 - Crimean War: Russians lose again at the Battle of Inkerman.
November 17 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.

Original map by Dr John Snow showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854

The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.
Frederick Augustus Albert succeeds to the throne of Saxony.
Stockholm, Wisconsin is founded by immigrants from Karlskoga, Sweden (cf 1252).
Chemistry Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Yale University is the first to fractionate petroleum by distillation.
Abraham Pineo Gesner invents a process for extracting kerosene from coal.
Said Pasha succeeds his nephew Abbas as pasha of Egypt.
A Russian fort is established at the present site of Almaty.
Aurora, Ontario is first settled.
Spiegelthal excavates the tomb of Alyattes II.
The Ambrotype is introduced for photography.
Election of New York City mayor Fernando Wood begins the ascendancy of Tammany Hall.
An epidemic of cholera in London kills 10,000. Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak (that killed 500) to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.
The Iceland trade is opened to foreigners.
The future site of Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire is purchased by Captain Asa Brewer.