1855

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century – 19th century – 20th century
Decades:	1820s  1830s  1840s  – 1850s –   1860s   1870s   1880s
Years:	1852 1853 1854 – 1855 – 1856 1857 1858

Year 1855 (MDCCCLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1855

January - June

• January 1 - Ottawa, Ontario is incorporated as a city.
• January 23 - The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota, a crossing made today by the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.
• January 23 - The region of Wairarapa, New Zealand was hit by the strongest earthquake ever recorded in New Zealand, which reached Magnitude 8.1 on the Richter Scale. There were five deaths.
• January 26 - Point No Point Treaty signed in Washington Territory.
• January 27 - The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.
• January 29 - Lord Aberdeen resigns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom over the management of the Crimean War.
• February 5 - Lord Palmerston becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• February 11 - Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia.
• February 12 - Michigan State University (the "pioneer" land-grant college) was established.
• February 22 - Pennsylvania State University is founded as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania.
• March 3 - US Congress appropriates $30,000 to create US Camel Corps
• March 16 - Bates College was founded by abolitionists in Lewiston, Maine.
• March 17 - Taiping Rebellion: A Taiping army of 350,000 invades Anhui.
• March 30 - Elections held for first Kansas Territory legislature. Missourians cross border in large numbers to elect proslavery body.
• May 15 - The Great Gold Robbery of 1855 in England.
• June 28 - The Sigma Chi Fraternity was founded at Miami University in Oxford Ohio.
• June 29 - The Daily Telegraph begins publication.

July - December

• July 2 - Kansas Territorial legislature convenes in Pawnee and begins passing proslavery laws.
• September 3 - Last Bartholomew Fair in London, England.
• September 11 - Sevastapol falls to the British troops.
• November 17 - David Livingstone becomes the first European to see Victoria Falls in what is now present-day Zambia-Zimbabwe.
• November 21 - Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to " Wakarusa War" between antislavery and proslavery forces.
• December 22 - Metropolitan Board of Works established.

Undated

• Stamp duty was removed from newspapers in Britain creating mass market media in the UK.

• Leaves of Grass was published by Walt Whitman.

Ongoing events

• Crimean War (1854-1856)
• Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

1855 in other calendars

Gregorian calendar	1855 MDCCCLV
Ab urbe condita	2608
Armenian calendar	1304 ԹՎ ՌՅԴ
Assyrian calendar	6605
Bahá'í calendar	11–12
Bengali calendar	1262
Berber calendar	2805
British Regnal year	18 Vict. 1 – 19 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2399
Burmese calendar	1217
Byzantine calendar	7363–7364
Chinese calendar	甲寅年十一月十三日 (4491/4551-11-13) — to — 乙卯年十一月廿三日 (4492/4552-11-23)
Coptic calendar	1571–1572
Ethiopian calendar	1847–1848
Hebrew calendar	5615–5616
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1911–1912
- Shaka Samvat	1777–1778
- Kali Yuga	4956–4957
Holocene calendar	11855
Igbo calendar
- Ǹrí Ìgbò	855–856
Iranian calendar	1233–1234
Islamic calendar	1271–1272
Japanese calendar	Ansei 2 (安政2年)
Juche calendar	N/A (before 1912)
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4188
Minguo calendar	57 before ROC 民前57年
Thai solar calendar	2398

• January 5 - King Camp Gillette, American inventor (d. 1932)
• January 20 - Ernest Chausson, French composer (d. 1899)
• January 21 - John Moses Browning, American firearms inventor (d. 1926)
• January 28 - William Seward Burroughs, American bank clerk and inventor (d. 1898)
• March 13 - Percival Lowell, American astronomer (d. 1916)
• March 24 - Andrew Mellon, American banker and philanthropist (d. 1937)
• April 9 - John Marden, Australian Headmaster and pioneer of women's education (d. 1924)
• April 21 - Hardy Richardson, 19th century baseball player (d. 1931)
• April 27 - Caroline Rémy, French feminist (d. 1929)
• May 1 - Marie Corelli, English novelist (d. 1924)
• May 9 - Julius Röntgen, German-Dutch classical composer (d. 1932)
• May 10 - Sri Yukteswar Giri, Author of The Holy Science
• July 26 - Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist (d. 1936)
• October 12 - Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian conductor (d. 1922)
• October 21 - Howard Hyde Russell, American activist (d. 1946)
• November 5 - Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (d. 1913)
• November 6 - Ezra Seymour Gosney, American philanthropist and eugenicist (d. 1942)
• December 28 - John William Wood Sr., North Carolinan politician, founder of Benson, North Carolina (d. 1928)

Deaths

• January 6 - Giacomo Beltrami, Italian explorer (b. 1779)
• January 10 - Mary Russell Mitford, English novelist and dramatist (b. 1787)
• January 26 - Gérard de Nerval, French writer (b. 1808)
• February 6 - Josef Munzinger, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1791)
• February 23 - Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (b. 1777)
• March 2 - Nicholas I of Russia, 11th Tsar of Russia (b. 1796)
• March 8 - William Poole, Infamous member of New York City's Bowery Boys gang (b. 1821)
• March 29 - Henri Druey, Member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1799)
• March 31 - Charlotte Brontë, English author (b. 1816)
• May 5 - Robert Inglis, English politician (b. 1786)
• May 23 - Charles Robert Malden English explorer (b. 1797)
• June 28 - Fitzroy Somerset, 1st Lord Raglan, Commander of British forces in the Crimean War (b. 1788)
• June 28 - Pavel Nakhimov, Russian admiral (b. 1802)
• August 7 - Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)
• November 11 - Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)
• November 26 - Adam Mickiewicz, Lithuanian - Polish poet and writer (b. 1798)
• December 6 - William John Swainson an English naturalist and artist died (b. 1789).