December 9 - Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (b. 1799)
Events
January 4 - The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.
January 5 - The San Francisco steamer sinks, killing 300 people.
February 17 - The British recognizes the independence of the Orange Free State.
February 23 - The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.
February 28 - The Republican Party of the United States is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.
March 1 - German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears; two years later his remains are found in a canal near Charlottenburg.
March 8 - U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry makes his second landing in Japan, where he would conclude a treaty with the Japanese within a month.
March 27 - Crimean War: The United Kingdom declares war on Russia.
March 28 - Crimean War: France and Britain declare war on Russia.
March 31 - Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Treaty of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
April 1 - Hard Times begins serialisation in Charles Dickens magazine, Household Words.
May 30 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law establishing the US territories of Nebraska and Kansas.
June 10 - The first class of the United States Naval Academy students graduate.
June 21 - First Victoria Cross won during bombardment of Bomarsund in the Aland Islands.
July 6 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the United States 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.
August 4 - The Hinomaru is established as the official flag to be flown from Japanese ships.
September 20 - Battle of Alma: British and French troops defeat Russians in the Crimea.
September 27 - The steamship SS Arctic sinks with 300 people on board. This marks the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean.
October 1 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
October 6 - The Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead starts shortly after midnight, leading to 53 deaths and hundreds injured.
October 9 - Crimean War: The siege of Sebastopol begins.
October 21 - Florence Nightingale and a staff of 38 nurses were sent to the Crimean War.
October 25 - The Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).
November 5 - The Battle of Inkerman is fought during the Crimean War.
November 15 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is given the necessary royal concession.
December 3 - Eureka Stockade: In what is claimed by many to be the birth of Australian democracy, more than 20 goldminers at Ballarat, Victoria, Australia are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
