June 16 - John Snow, English epidemiologist (b. 1813)
June 17 - Rani Lakshmibai, queen of Jhansi in North India
December 12 - Jacques Viger, antiquarian and archeologist
December 27 - Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, French composer (b. 1785)
Events
January 9 - Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.
January 14 - Napoleon III of France escapes an assassination attempt.
January 25 - The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia.
January 30 - The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of the Hallé Orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.
February 11 - The Blessed Virgin Mary reputedly appears to Saint Bernadette Soubirous of Lourdes.
March 30 - Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser.
April 10 - The original Big Ben, a 14.5 tonne bell for the Tower of London is cast in Stockton-on-Tees by Warner's of Cripplegate. This however cracked during testing and was recasted into the 13.76 tonne bell by Whitechapel Bell Foundry and is still in use to date.
April 16 - The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is wound up.
May 11 - Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
May 15 - Opening of the present Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.
June 16 - Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.
June 16 - Battle of Morar takes place during the Indian Mutiny.
June 18 - Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own. This prompts Darwin to publish his theory.
July 1 - The joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
July 29 - United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
August 5 - Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It operated for less than a month.
August 16 - U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
August 20 - Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.
