- California Representative James A. McDougall introduces a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to authorize the use of U.S. military to suppress the violent resistance to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
- The Hudson's Bay Company receives a royal charter.
January 2:
- The first international telegraph cable, established between Britain and France, goes online.
January 3:
- The first issue of the _Philadelphia Weekly Press_, later to be known as _The Saturday Evening Post_, is published.
January 16:
- The Know Nothing Party is organized into a national political party in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
January 23:
- The Iowa Constitutional Convention opens in Iowa City.
January 24:
- The Republican Party is founded at a convention in Ripon, Wisconsin.
January 30:
- The first United States postage stamps go on sale.
- The first official baseball game is played at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey, between the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club and the New York Base Ball Club.
- The British House of Commons passes the Religious Disabilities Bill, allowing Jews to sit in Parliament.
February 1:
- The first female dentist in the United States, Lucy Hobbs Taylor, receives her Doctor of Dental Surgery degree from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery.
February 28:
- The Nicaragua Transit Company is organized to develop a transit route from San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua, to Brito on the Pacific Coast.
March 4:
- James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge are inaugurated as the 15th President and Vice President of the United States, respectively.
March 8:
- The National Academy of Sciences is established by an Act of Congress.
March 9:
- The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the case of _Dred Scott v. Sandford_ that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court.
April 10:
- The Royal Charter, carrying 459 people and gold from Australia to England, sinks off the coast of Anglesey in Wales.
April 12:
- The Hudson Bay Territory of the Hudson's Bay Company is transferred to Canada.
May 14:
- The First Church of Christ, Scientist is organized by Mary Baker Eddy in Boston.
May 22:
- The first International Exposition is held in Paris.
June 1:
- The first railroad bridge over the Mississippi River is completed at Rock Island, Illinois.
June 16:
- Robert E. Lee is appointed superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
July 7:
- The British steamship Arabia sinks off the coast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, with the loss of 222 lives.
July 15:
- The first issue of _The New York Times_, then called the _New-York Daily Times_, is published.
July 20:
- Robert Raikes, an English Anglican clergyman and philanthropist, is considered to be the "Father of Sunday Schools" for his work in creating schools for poor children based on Christian teachings.
August 10:
- The world's first public aquarium opens at the Zoological Society of London.
August 16:
- David Livingstone becomes the first European to see the Victoria Falls in Zambia.
September 1:
- The first issue of the _Atlantic Monthly_ magazine is published in Boston, Massachusetts.
September 11:
- Giuseppe Garibaldi leads an expedition of one thousand Redshirts to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
October 1:
- The first Japanese embassy arrives in the United States.
October 11:
- The first public performance of the comic opera _Orphée aux Enfers_ (Orpheus in the Underworld) by Jacques Offenbach takes place in Paris.
October 21:
- Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the novel _Dred, a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp_.
October 25:
- Crimean War: The Battle of Balaklava is fought near Sevastopol.
October 26:
- Crimean War: The Charge of the Light Brigade takes place during the Battle of Balaklava.
October 27:
- The Great Stink, a particularly hot, dry weather in London, caused the River Thames to emit an unbearable smell, leading to the creation of the modern sewer system.
October 31:
- Alfred Russel Wallace publishes an article titled _On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type_, which contains his theory of evolution.
November 17:
- David Livingstone sets out on an expedition to explore the Zambezi River and central Africa.
December 1:
- The London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway opens to traffic between London and Brighton, England.
December 31:
- _The Song of Hiawatha_, a long epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, is first published in Boston, Massachusetts.