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Year '1853' ('MDCCCLIII') was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Contents

Events of 1853

January - March

April - June

July - September

October - December

Undated

Ongoing events

Births

January - June

July - December

Deaths

January - June

July - December

Events of 1853

January - March

★ January 6 - American President-Elect Franklin Pierce, wife Jane, and son Ben are involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. Franklin and Jane survive but eleven-year-old Ben is killed.

★ January 8 - Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan is ordered to assist the governor of Hunan in organising a militia force to search for local bandits.

★ January 12 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping army occupies Wuchang.

★ January 19 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Il Trovatore'' premieres in performance at Teatro Apollo in Rome.

★ January 21 - Russell L. Hawes patents the envelope folding machine

★ January 29 - Napoleon III marries the Spanish Countess Eugènie at the Tuileries

★ February 10 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces abandon Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang for march of Nanjing.

★ February 12 - Puerto Montt is founded in the Reloncaví Sound, Chile.

★ February 22 - Washington University is founded as Eliot Seminary

★ March 4 - Inauguration of US president Franklin Pierce

★ March 20 - Taiping Rebellion: Rebel army of around 750,000 seizes Nanjing, killing 30,000 Imperial troops.

April - June

★ April 27 - Taiping Rebellion: Sir George Bonham becomes the first representative of a Western government to come in contact with the rebels, aboard the "HMS Hermes".

★ May 13 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force marches out of the Heavenly Capital.

★ May 20 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping Western Expeditionary Force marches out of the Heavenly Capital.

★ May 23 - The first plat for Seattle, Washington is laid out.

★ June 7 - Franklin College of Lancaster, Pennsylvania merges with Marshall College of Mercersburg, Pennsylvania to form Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster

★ June 27 - Taiping Rebellion: Northern Expeditionary Force crosses the Yellow River.

July - September

★ July 8 - U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Edo Bay with a request for a trade treaty

★ July 25 Outlaw and bandit Joaquin Murietta is killed.

★ August 12 – New Zealand acquires self-government

★ August 23 - 1st true International Meteorological Organization Brussels, Belgium

★ August 24 - Potato chips first prepared.

★ September 19 - Hudson Taylor first left for China.

October - December

★ October 4/October 5 - Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.

★ October 28 - Crimean War: Ottoman army crosses the Danube into Vidin / Kalafat in Wallachia.

★ October 30 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force comes within three miles of Tianjin.

★ November 3 - Troops of William Walker capture La Paz in Baja California and declare (short-lived) Republic of Lower California

★ November 15 - Maria II of Portugal is succeeded by her son Pedro

★ November 30 - Crimean War: Battle of Sinop - The Russian fleet destroys the Turkish fleet.

★ December 6 - Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the Cassini.

★ December 30 - Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest

Undated

★ Royal Norwegian Navy Museum founded.

★ Yellow fever kills 7790 in New Orleans

★ Alexander Wood invents the hypodermic syringe

★ Argentina adopts federal constitution - Buenos Aires opposes that

★ Donald McKay builds the ''Great Republic'', the world's biggest sailing ship, which at 4,500 tons was too large to be successful

★ Isambard Kingdom Brunel began work on the ''Great Eastern'' passenger steamer

★ Start of Crimean War

★ Independent Santa Cruz Maya of Eastern Yucatan recognized as an independent nation by British Empire

★ Iesada succeeds Ieoshi as Japanese Shogun

★ Beginning of the Late Tokugawa shogunate, the last part of the Edo period in Japan.

★ Stephen Foster writes "My Old Kentucky Home."

★ The University of Florida establilshed

★ James Beckwourth discovers Beckwourth Pass.

★ Tissot, a Swiss watch company, founded.

Ongoing events

★ Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

January - June

★ January 28 - José Martí, Cuban revolutionary (d. 1895)

★ February 6 - Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (d. 1901)

★ March 14 - Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (d. 1918)

★ March 30 - Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (d. 1890)

★ May 28 - Carl Larsson, Swedish painter (d. 1919)

★ June 3 - William Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (d. 1942)

★ June 12 - Chester Adgate Congdon, Minnesota mining magnate (d. 1916)

July - December

★ July 5 - Cecil Rhodes, English businessman (d. 1902)

★ July 18 - Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)

★ September 2 - Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)

★ September 16 - Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)

★ September 20 - Chulalongkorn, Rama V, king of Thailand (d. 1910)

★ September 21 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)
: ''See also .''

Deaths

January - June

★ January 16 - Matteo Carcassi, Italian composer (b. 1792)

★ March 17 - Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician (b. 1803)

★ April 18 - William R. King, Vice President of the United States (b.1786)

★ April 28 - Ludwig Tieck, German writer (b. 1773)

★ June 8 - Richard William Howard Vyse (b. 1784)

July - December

★ July 27 - Tokugawa Ieyoshi, Japanese shogun (b.1793)

★ August 19 - George Cockburn, British Naval commander (b.1772)

★ August 23 - Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)

★ September 3 - Augustin Saint-Hilaire, French botanist and traveller (b.1799)

★ November 15 - Maria II of Portugal (b. 1819)
: ''See also .''