1865
1865 (MDCCCLXV) is a
common year starting on Sunday.
January
*
January 1 -
Hector Berlioz finishes his Memoirs.
*
January 13 -
American Civil War: The
Second Battle of Fort Fisher begins when
United States forces launch a major amphibious assault against the
Confederate stronghold of
Fort Fisher.
*
January 15 - American Civil War: United States forces capture Fort Fisher.
*
January 31 - American Civil War: Confederate General
Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
February
The only month in any year that might not have had a Full moon.*
February 17 - American Civil War:
Columbia, South Carolina burns as Confederate forces flee from advancing
Union forces.
*
February 22 -
Tennessee adopts a new
constitution that abolishes
slavery.
March
*
March 3 - The
U.S. Congress authorizes formation of the
Freedmen's Bureau.
*
March 4 - US President
Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated for second term.
Andrew Johnson becomes Vice President.
*
March 13 - American Civil War: The
Confederate States of America reluctantly agrees to the use of
African American troops.
*
March 18 - American Civil War: The Congress of the Confederate States of America adjourns for the last time.
*
March 19 - American Civil War: The
Battle of Bentonville begins. By the end of the battle on the 21st the Confederate forces had retreated from
Greenville, North Carolina.
*
March 25 - The "Claywater
Meteorite" explodes just before reaching ground level in
Vernon County, Wisconsin. Fragments having a combined mass of 1.5
kg were recovered.
*
March 25 - American Civil War: In
Virginia, Confederate forces capture
Fort Steadman from the Union.
April
*
April 1 - American Civil War:
Battle of Five Forks - In
Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
*
April 2 - American Civil War: Confederate President
Jefferson Davis and most of his Cabinet flee the Confederate capital of
Richmond, Virginia which is taken the next day.
*
April 6 -
German Chemicals producer, Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik(
BASF) founded in
Mannheim.
*
April 9 - American Civil War: General
Robert E. Lee surrenders to
Ulysses S. Grant at
Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.
*
April 14 - US President
Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by
John Wilkes Booth.
*
April 15 - Vice President
Andrew Johnson becomes the 17th President of the United States, upon the death of US President Abraham Lincoln.
*
April 21 -
German Chemicals producer
BASF moves its headquarters and factories from
Mannheim to the
Hemshof District of
Ludwigshafen.
*
April 26** Union cavalry corner
John Wilkes Booth and cavalryman
Boston Corbett shoots the assassin dead.
**
American Civil War:
Confederate General
Joseph Johnston surrenders his army to General
William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station,
North Carolina.
*
April 27** The
steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the
Mississippi River, killing 1,700, most of whom were
Union survivors of the
Andersonville Prison.
**
Governor of New York,
Reuben Fenton, signed a bill formally creating
Cornell University.
May
*
May 1 - Triple Alliance of
Argentina,
Brazil and
Uruguay against
Paraguay is formally signed -
War of the Triple Alliance has already begun.
*
May 4 - American Civil War: Confederate General
Richard Taylor, commanding all Confederate forces in
Alabama,
Mississippi, and eastern
Louisiana, surrenders his forces to Union General
E.R.S. Canby at
Citronelle, Alabama.
*
May 5 - In
North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of
Cincinnati), the first
train robbery in the United States takes place.
*
May 10 -
American Civil War:
Jefferson Davis is captured by
Union troops near
Irwinville, Georgia.
*
May 13 - American Civil War:
Battle of Palmito Ranch - In far south
Texas, more than a month after
Confederate General
Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the
civil war ends with a Confederate victory.
*
May 23 - Parade down Pennsylvania Ave in
Washington, DC to celebrate the ending of the
American Civil War.
*
May 25 -
Mobile magazine explosion: 300 are killed in
Mobile, Alabama when an ordnance depot explodes.
June
*
June 2 - American Civil War ends - Confederate forces west of the
Mississippi under General
Edmund Kirby Smith surrender at
Galveston, Texas, becoming the last to do so.
*
June 11 - Brazilian navy squadron defeats Paraguayan navy at
Riachuelo.
*
June 19 - American Civil War: Union Major General
Gordon Granger lands at
Galveston, Texas and informs the people of
Texas of the
Emancipation Proclamation. This event is celebrated each year as
Juneteenth.
*
June 23 - American Civil War: At
Fort Towson in
Oklahoma Territory Confederate General
Stand Watie, a Cherokee Indian, surrenders the last significant rebel
army.
July
*
July 2 -
Salvation Army founded in
Whitechapel,
London*
July 4 -
Lewis Carroll publishes
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*
July 5**
William Booth founds the Christian Mission (later renamed to the
Salvation Army).
**
US Secret Service founded.
** First
speed limit introduced in
Britain - 2 mph in town and 4 mph in the country
*
July 14 - The summit of the
Matterhorn in the
Alps is reached for the first time; four of the party of seven die in a fall during the descent.
*
July 21 - In the market square of
Springfield, Missouri,
Wild Bill Hickok shoots Dave Tutt dead in what is regarded as the first true western showdown.
*
July 27 -
Welsh settlers arrive in
Argentina at
Chubut Valley.
October
*
October 11 -
Paul Bogle led hundreds of black men and women in a march in
Jamaica, starting the
Morant Bay rebellion.
November
*
November 10 - Major
Henry Wirz, the superintendent of
a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia, is
hanged, becoming the only
American Civil War soldier to be
executed for
war crimes.
December
*
November 26 -
Battle of Papudo; Spanish ship
Covadonga captured by Chileans and Peruvians.
*
December 10 -
Léopold II becomes King of Belgium.
*
December 11 - U.S. Congress created the
Appropriations Committee and the
Committee on Banking and Commerce. Reducing the tasks of the
Committee on Ways and Means.
*
December 18 - Thirteenth Constitutional amendment declared ratified by three-fourths of the States of the United States. It forever abolished slavery.
*
December 24 - Several US Civil War Confederate veterans form the
Ku Klux Klan.
Undated
*
Gregor Mendel formulates his theories of
Mendelian inheritance- they are mainly ignored for years.
* A
forest fire near
Silverton, Oregon destroys about one million acres (4,000 km²) of timber.
* Last volume of
Annals of Joseon Dynasty published.
*
National Temperance Society and Publishing House founded by
James Black*
Francis Galton introduces
Eugenics.
January
*
January 5 -
Julio Garavito Armero, Colombian astronomer (d.
1920)
*
January 28 -
Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg,
President of Finland (d.
1952)
February
*
February 12 -
Kazimierz Tetmajer, Polish writer (d.
1940)
*
February 19 -
Sven Hedin, Swedish scientist and explorer (d.
1952)
*
February 21 -
John Haden Badley, author and educator (d.
1967)
*
February 28 -
Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to
Newfoundland and Labrador (d.
1940).
March
*
March 10 -
Tan Sitong, Chinese reformist leader (d.
1898)
*
March 15 -
Edith Maude Eaton, English-born writer (d.
1914)
*
March 19 -
William Morton Wheeler, American entomologist (d.
1937)
April
*
April 1 -
Richard Adolf Zsigmondy, Austrian-born chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1929)
*
April 9 -
Laurence Hope, English poetess (d.
1904)
*
April 9 -
Erich Ludendorff, German general (d.
1937)
May
*
May 2 -
Clyde Fitch, American dramatist (d.
1909)
*
May 25 -
John Mott, American YMCA leader, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (d.
1955)
* May 25 -
Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1943)
*
May 26 -
Robert W. Chambers, American artist (d.
1933)
June
*
June 2 -
George Lohmann, English cricketer (d.
1901)
*
June 3 - King
George V of the United Kingdom (d.
1936)
*
June 9 -
Albéric Magnard, French composer (d.
1914)
*
June 13 -
William Butler Yeats, Irish writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1939)
*
June 26 -
Bernard Berenson, American art historian (d.
1959)
*
June 29 -
Shigechiyo Izumi, Oldest supercentenarian male (disputed) (d.
1986)
July
*
July 23 -
Max Heindel, Danish-born Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic (d.
1919)
*
July 26 -
Philipp Scheidemann,
Chancellor of Germany (d.
1939)
*
July 29 -
Alexander Glazunov, Russian composer (d.
1936)
August
*
August 2 -
Irving Babbitt, American literary critic (d.
1933)
*
August 24 - King
Ferdinand of Romania (d.
1927)
*
August 27 -
James Henry Breasted, American Egyptologist (d.
1935)
* August 27 -
Charles G. Dawes,
Vice President of the United States, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (d.
1951)
September
*
September 11 -
Rainis, Latvian poet and playwright (d.
1929)
October
*
October 1 -
Paul Dukas, French composer (d.
1935)
*
October 12 -
Arthur Harden, English chemist,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1940)
*
October 17 -
James Rudolph Garfield, U.S. politician (d.
1950)
*
October 26 -
Benjamin Guggenheim, American businessman (d.
1912)
*
October 27 -
Tinsley Lindley, English footballer (d.
1940)
November
*
November 2 -
Warren G. Harding, 29th
President of the United States (d.
1923)
December
*
December 8 -
Jean Sibelius, Finnish composer (d.
1957)
*
December 20 -
Elsie De Wolfe, American socialite and interior decorator (d.
1950)
*
December 25 -
Evangeline Booth, the 4th General of
The Salvation Army (d.
1950)
*
December 30 -
Rudyard Kipling, British writer,
Nobel Prize laureate (d.
1936)
**
April 1 -
John Milton, Governor of Florida (b.
1807)
**
April 1 -
Giuditta Pasta, Italian soprano (b.
1798)
*
April 2 -
A.P. Hill, American Confederate general (b.
1825)
*
April 13 -
Achille Valenciennes, French zoologist (b.
1794)
*
April 15 -
Abraham Lincoln, 16th
President of the United States (b.
1809)
*
April 18 -
Léon Jean Marie Dufour, French medical doctor and naturalist (b.
1780)
*
April 26 -
John Wilkes Booth, American actor and assassin of
Abraham Lincoln (b.
1838)
*
July 25 -
James Barry, British military surgeon (b. 1795)
*
August 12 -
William Jackson Hooker, English botanist (b.
1785)
*
September 2 -
William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician (b.
1805)
*
October 16 -
Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, teacher, philosopher and sociologist (b.
1781)
*
October 18 -
Lord Palmerston,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b.
1784)
*
November 12 -
Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist and biographer (b.
1810)
*
November 28 -
William Machin Stairs, Canadian businessman and statesman (b.
1789)
*
December 6 -
Sebastián Iradier, Spanish composer (b.
1809)
*
December 10 -
Léopold I of Belgium (b.
1790)
*
December 17 -
Luigi Ciacchi, Italian cardinal (b.
1788)
