1862

Events in 1862 55

• 1775 – 1862 Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775-1862) Died 7 November 1862, aged 87 Bahadur Shah Zafar was the last Mughal emperor of India, a poet who wielded little real power under British rule. After being implicated as a nominal leader of the 1857 rebellion, he was exiled by the British to Rangoon, where he died in captivity.
• 1782 – 1862 Martin Van Buren 8th President — first born as US citizen Martin Van Buren (Dec 5, 1782 – Jul 24, 1862) was the 8th President 1837-1841, the first born after American independence. His presidency was dominated by the economic Panic of 1837.
• 1790 – 1862 John Tyler 10th President — His Accidency John Tyler (Mar 29, 1790 – Jan 18, 1862) was the 10th President 1841-1845, first to assume office following a presidential death. He was expelled from his own party and is the only former president to have joined the Confederacy.
• 1800 – 1862 James Clark Ross (1800-1862) Died 3 April 1862, aged 61 Ross was a British naval officer and polar explorer who located the North Magnetic Pole and led expeditions that charted the Antarctic coastline now bearing his name. He died at his home in Aylesbury, England.
• 1803 – 1862 Albert Sidney Johnston (1803-1862) Died 6 April 1862, aged 59 Johnston was a senior Confederate general who commanded Southern forces at the Battle of Shiloh. He bled to death from a leg wound on the first day of the battle, the highest-ranking officer killed on either side during the Civil War.
• 1814 – 1862 Samuel Colt (1814-1862) Died 10 January 1862, aged 47 Colt was an American inventor and industrialist who patented the first mass-produced revolver and built a firearms empire in Hartford, Connecticut. His manufacturing methods helped pioneer interchangeable-parts production.
• 1815 – 1862 Philip Kearny (1815-1862) Died 1 September 1862, aged 47 Kearny was a Union general known for his aggressive tactics and for losing his left arm in the Mexican-American War. He was killed by Confederate fire while personally reconnoitering enemy lines at the Battle of Chantilly.
• 1817 – 1862 Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Died 6 May 1862, aged 44 Thoreau was an American writer, naturalist, and philosopher best known for Walden and the essay "Civil Disobedience." He died of tuberculosis in Concord, Massachusetts.
• 1821 – 1862 Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862) Died 29 May 1862, aged 40 Buckle was an English historian whose unfinished History of Civilization in England argued that human societies could be studied through scientific laws. He died of typhoid fever in Damascus while traveling in the Middle East.
• 1829 – 1862 Elizabeth Siddal (1829-1862) Died 11 February 1862, aged 32 Siddal was an English artist and poet who modeled for Pre-Raphaelite painters, most famously as the drowned Ophelia for John Everett Millais, and later married Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She died of a laudanum overdose in London.
• 1831 – 1862 Frederick Townsend Ward (1831-1862) Died 21 September 1862, aged 30 Ward was an American mercenary who organized and led the Ever Victorious Army, a Western-trained force fighting for the Qing dynasty against the Taiping rebels. He was fatally wounded in battle near Ningbo, China.
• 1832 – 1862 Otto of Greece First King of modern Greece Otto became the first king of independent Greece after liberation from the Ottoman Empire.
• 1862 – 1928 Andrew Fisher (1862-1928) Died 22 October 1928, aged 66 Scottish-born Labor politician who was Prime Minister of Australia three times between 1908 and 1915. His governments founded the Commonwealth Bank and the Royal Australian Navy. He later served as Australian High Commissioner in London.
• 1862 – 1932 Aristide Briand (1862-1932) Died 7 March 1932, aged 69 Briand served eleven times as Prime Minister of France. He shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for the Locarno Treaties and co-authored the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
• 1862 – 1931 Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931) Died 21 October 1931, aged 69 Austrian playwright and novelist, author of Reigen (La Ronde) and Dream Story. His works frankly explored sexuality and the psychology of fin-de-siècle Vienna. He died in Vienna.
• 1862 – 1954 Auguste Lumiere (1862-1954) Died 10 April 1954, aged 91 Auguste Lumiere, with his brother Louis, invented the Cinematographe and screened some of the first motion pictures in 1895, pioneering cinema as a medium. He later turned much of his attention to medical and scientific research. His work laid the technical foundation for the film industry.
• 1862 – 1935 Billy Sunday (1862-1935) Died 6 November 1935, aged 72 Sunday was a professional baseball player who became the most famous American evangelist of the early 20th century and a strong supporter of Prohibition.
• 1862 – 1948 Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948) Died 27 August 1948, aged 86 Charles Evans Hughes, who served as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and previously as a presidential candidate and Secretary of State, died on August 27, 1948. He led the Court through much of the New Deal era, including its early clashes with Franklin Roosevelt over reform legislation. He remains one of the few Americans to have held such a range of senior public offices.
• 1862 – 1956 Connie Mack (1862-1956) Died 8 February 1956, aged 93 American baseball player and manager who led the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 years, longer than anyone has managed a single team in major league history. He won nine American League pennants and five World Series titles as manager. He died in Philadelphia at age 93.
• 1862 – 1943 David Hilbert (1862-1943) Died 14 February 1943, aged 81 David Hilbert was a German mathematician and one of the most influential of his era. His 23 problems, presented in 1900, shaped twentieth-century mathematics, and he laid the foundations of modern axiomatics and functional analysis. He died in Göttingen after the Nazis had gutted its mathematics institute.
• 1862 – 1933 Edward Grey (1862-1933) Died 7 September 1933, aged 71 British foreign secretary from 1905 to 1916 who led Britain into the First World War. He is remembered for the remark that the lamps were going out all over Europe.
• 1862 – 1911 Emilio Salgari (1862-1911) Died 25 April 1911, aged 48 Salgari was a prolific Italian writer of adventure novels, best known for creating the pirate hero Sandokan. His swashbuckling tales were hugely popular in Italy and influenced generations of adventure fiction. Struggling financially despite his popularity, he died by suicide in Turin.
• 1862 – 1934 Frederick Delius (1862-1934) Died 10 June 1934, aged 72 English composer of works including On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring and A Mass of Life. After he lost his sight, he dictated his late works to his amanuensis Eric Fenby.
• 1862 – 1921 Georges Feydeau (1862-1921) Died 5 June 1921, aged 58 Georges Feydeau, the French playwright celebrated for his farces of mistaken identity and marital intrigue, died in Rueil-Malmaison near Paris. Plays such as "A Flea in Her Ear" made him the most successful writer of boulevard comedy in his era. His farces remain frequently revived in French and international theatre.
• 1862 – 1918 Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) Died 6 February 1918, aged 55 Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt, best known for gold-leaf works such as The Kiss, died in Vienna after suffering a stroke and contracting pneumonia during the influenza pandemic. He was a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His death came just months before his protege Egon Schiele also died of influenza.
• 1862 – 1934 Gustav von Kahr (1862-1934) Died 30 June 1934, aged 71 Bavarian politician who suppressed Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. He was murdered at Dachau during the Night of the Long Knives in revenge.
• 1862 – 1932 Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) Died 6 January 1932, aged 69 The president of Sears, Roebuck and Company was a philanthropist who funded thousands of schools for Black children in the American South.
• 1862 – 1934 Louis Barthou (1862-1934) Died 9 October 1934, aged 72 French foreign minister and former prime minister who worked to build an alliance against Nazi Germany. He was fatally wounded during the assassination of King Alexander I in Marseille.
• 1862 – 1949 Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) Died 6 May 1949, aged 86 Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian playwright and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. His symbolist play The Blue Bird remains his best-known work.
• 1862 – 1910 O. Henry (1862-1910) Died 5 June 1910, aged 47 American writer William Sydney Porter, known by his pen name O. Henry, was celebrated for short stories marked by wit, wordplay and twist endings such as "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Ransom of Red Chief." He wrote hundreds of stories during a prolific career centered in New York City. The O. Henry Award for short fiction is named in his honor.
• 1862 – 1911 Pyotr Stolypin (1862-1911) Died 18 September 1911, aged 49 Stolypin served as Prime Minister of the Russian Empire, pursuing land reforms intended to create a class of independent peasant farmers. He was shot by an assassin at the Kiev Opera House on 14 September 1911 and died four days later. His death removed one of the last reform-minded figures from the tsarist government before the revolutions to come.
• 1862 – 1942 William Henry Bragg (1862-1942) Died 12 March 1942, aged 79 William Henry Bragg was a British physicist who, with his son Lawrence, founded the science of X-ray crystallography. The two shared the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics. He served as President of the Royal Society from 1935 to 1940.
• 1862 Moldavia and Wallachia form united Romania Single government and capital for the two principalities The Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, already joined under Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza, adopted a single government and parliament and took the name Romania, with Bucharest as capital. The union laid the foundation for the modern Romanian state.
• 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads First battle between ironclad warships The Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia fought the Union ironclad USS Monitor to a tactical draw in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. The battle marked the end of the wooden warship era and accelerated ironclad construction by navies worldwide.
• 1862 Victor Hugo publishes Les Miserables Sweeping novel of poverty and redemption in France Victor Hugo released Les Miserables, a novel following the ex-convict Jean Valjean through decades of political upheaval in France. It became one of the most widely read novels of the nineteenth century and remains a global cultural touchstone.
• 1862 Battle of Shiloh Bloody two-day battle in Tennessee Confederate forces launched a surprise attack on Union troops near Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, before being repulsed on the second day. The battle produced roughly 23,000 combined casualties, the highest of the war to that point.
• 1862 Fall of New Orleans Union fleet captures the Confederacy's largest city A Union fleet under Flag Officer David Farragut ran past Confederate forts and forced the surrender of New Orleans, the South's largest city and a vital port. The capture gave the Union control of the mouth of the Mississippi River trade.
• 1862 International Exhibition opens in London World's fair showcases industry and art The 1862 International Exhibition opened in South Kensington, London, displaying industrial and artistic works from over thirty countries. It drew more than six million visitors before closing in November.
• 1862 Battle of Puebla Mexican army defeats invading French forces An outnumbered Mexican force under General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated the invading French army at Puebla, delaying the French intervention in Mexico. The victory is commemorated annually as Cinco de Mayo.
• 1862 Homestead Act signed into law US opens western land to settlers President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, granting 160 acres of public land to settlers who worked it for five years. The law spurred mass migration into the American West over the following decades.
• 1862 Treaty of Saigon signed Vietnam cedes territory to France The Nguyen dynasty ceded three southern provinces to France, establishing the colony of French Cochinchina. The treaty marked the beginning of nearly a century of French colonial rule in Vietnam.
• 1862 Seven Days Battles Lee drives McClellan back from Richmond General Robert E. Lee launched a series of attacks that forced the Union Army of the Potomac to retreat from the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. The campaign ended the Union Peninsula Campaign and established Lee as commander of Confederate forces.
• 1862 United States enacts first federal income tax War funding measure taxes personal income Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1862, creating the first federal income tax in United States history to help finance the Civil War. The act also established the Bureau of Internal Revenue, precursor to the IRS.
• 1862 Morrill Land-Grant Act signed US funds public universities through land grants President Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, granting federal land to states to fund colleges teaching agriculture, engineering, and military science. The act led to the creation of dozens of American public universities.
• 1862 Dakota War in Minnesota Sioux uprising against broken treaty promises Dakota Sioux, facing broken treaty payments and starvation, attacked white settlements across the Minnesota River valley. The conflict ended with the mass execution of 38 Dakota men in Mankato, the largest single-day execution in US history.
• 1862 – 1918 Claude Debussy Impressionist composer French composer whose Clair de Lune, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and La Mer created a new musical language based on colour and atmosphere.
• 1862 Second Battle of Bull Run Confederate victory in Virginia General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson defeated Union forces under John Pope near Manassas, Virginia. The victory opened the way for Lee's first invasion of the North.
• 1862 Garibaldi wounded at Aspromonte Italian army halts march on Rome Giuseppe Garibaldi was wounded and captured by the Italian royal army while leading volunteers toward Rome, which remained under papal and French protection. The clash ended his attempt to complete Italian unification by force.
• 1862 Battle of Antietam Bloodiest single day in American military history Union and Confederate armies clashed near Sharpsburg, Maryland, leaving roughly 23,000 men dead, wounded, or missing in a single day. The battle halted Lee's first invasion of the North and gave Lincoln the opening to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
• 1862 Lincoln issues preliminary Emancipation Proclamation Warns of freedom for enslaved people in rebel states President Abraham Lincoln announced that enslaved people in Confederate states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863 would be declared free. The proclamation reframed the Civil War as a struggle over slavery and discouraged European intervention on behalf of the Confederacy.
• 1862 Otto von Bismarck becomes Prussian Minister President Start of Bismarck's rise to power King Wilhelm I appointed Otto von Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia amid a constitutional crisis over military funding. Bismarck would use the position to engineer the unification of Germany over the following decade.
• 1862 Bismarck delivers "Blood and Iron" speech Prussian leader outlines path to German unity Addressing the Prussian parliament's budget committee, Otto von Bismarck declared that Germany's great questions would be decided not by speeches and majority resolutions but by iron and blood. The speech became a defining statement of Realpolitik.
• 1862 Richard Gatling patents rapid-fire gun Hand-cranked weapon foreshadows the machine gun Inventor Richard Gatling received a US patent for his hand-cranked, multi-barrel rapid-fire gun. Though used sparingly in the Civil War, the Gatling gun became the forerunner of the modern machine gun.
• 1862 – 1863 Louisa May Alcott serves as a Civil War nurse Union Hotel Hospital, Georgetown She nurses wounded Union soldiers until she falls ill with typhoid pneumonia. The mercury-based medicine she is given may have damaged her health for life.
• 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg Union assault fails against entrenched Confederates Union forces under General Ambrose Burnside launched repeated, unsuccessful frontal assaults on entrenched Confederate positions at Fredericksburg, Virginia. The battle produced over 12,000 Union casualties and was one of the most lopsided defeats of the war.