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This page is about the year 1854. For the board game, see 1854.

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January 4 - The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the Samarang.

January 13 - The accordion is patented by Anthony Faas.

January 21 - Loss of the RMS Tayleur - 380 drowned, later dubbed "the first Titanic".

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February 6 - Altoona, Pennsylvania, a major railroading city, is incorporated as a borough.

February 11 - Major streets lit by coal gas for first time.

February 13 - Mexican troops force William Walker and his troops to retreat to Sonora.

February 14 - Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.

February 17 - The British recognize the independence of the Orange Free State.

February 23 - The official independence of the Orange Free State is declared.

February 27 – Britain sends Russia an ultimatum to withdraw from two Ottoman provinces it had conquered, Moldavia and Wallachia.

February 28 - The United States Republican Party is organized in Ripon, Wisconsin.

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March 1 - German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears, two years later his remains are found in the canal near Charlottenburg.

March 11- Royal Navy fleet sails from Britain under Vice Admiral Sir Charles Napier.

March 20 - The Boston Public Library opens to the public.

March 27 – United Kingdom declares war on Russia – Crimean War begins.

March 28 – France declares war on Russia.

March 31 - Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy, signs the Treaty/Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government, to be precise, Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade. (See History of Japan)

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April 1 - Hard Times begins serialisation in Charles Dickens magazine, Household Words.

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May 27 - Taiping Rebellion: United States minister Robert McLane arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the USS Susquehanna.

May 30 - Kansas-Nebraska Act becomes law, rescinding the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and creating Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory. Provision that settlers will vote on slavery in the new territories leads to Bleeding Kansas violence beginning the next year.

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June - The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern U.S. inhabitants from Chicago, Illinois to Rock Island, Illinois by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to St. Paul, Minnesota by steamboat.

June 10 - The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduate at Annapolis, Maryland.

June 21 - In the battle at Bomarsund in Åland, Royal Navy mate Charles D. Lucas throws a live Russian artillery shell overboard by hand before it explodes - the incident is the first that will be retroactively awarded the Victoria Cross in 1857.

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July 6 - In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the U.S. 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.

July 13 - Assassination of Khedive Abbas I of Egypt.

July 22 - Discovery of the asteroid Urania by John Russell Hind.

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August 16 - Russian troops in the island of Bomarsund in Åland surrender to French-British troops.

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September 20 - Crimean War: At the Alma, the French-British alliance wins the first battle of the war.

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October 1 - The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury, Massachusetts by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham to become the Waltham Watch Company, pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.

October 6 - The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead is ignited by a spectacular explosion

October 17 - Newspaper The Age is founded in Melbourne, Australia.

October 21 - Florence Nightingale leaves for Crimea with 38 other nurses.

October 25 - Crimean War: The Battle of Balaclava occurs, overall a victory for the allies, but it included the disastrous cavalry Charge of the Light Brigade, from which only 200 of 700 men survive.

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November 5 - Crimean War: Russians lose again at the Battle of Inkerman.

November 17 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.

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December 8 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin. .

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The Polyglotta Africana, an early classification of African languages based on field work under freed slaves in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is published by Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle.

Frederick Augustus Albert succeeds to the throne of Saxony.

Stockholm, Wisconsin is founded by immigrants from Karlskoga, Sweden (cf 1252).

Chemistry Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Yale University is the first to fractionate petroleum by distillation.

Abraham Pineo Gesner invents a process for extracting kerosene from coal.

Said Pasha succeeds his nephew Abbas as pasha of Egypt.

A Russian fort is established at the present site of Almaty.

Aurora, Ontario is first settled.

Spiegelthal excavates the tomb of Alyattes II.

The Ambrotype is introduced for photography.

Election of New York City mayor Fernando Wood begins the ascendancy of Tammany Hall.

An epidemic of cholera in London kills 10,000. Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak (that killed 500) to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.

The Iceland trade is opened to foreigners.

The future site of Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire is purchased by Captain Asa Brewer.

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January 18 - Thomas Watson, American telephone pioneer (d. 1934)

February 17 - Friedrich Alfred Krupp, German industrialist (d. 1902)

March 10 - Sir Thomas MacKenzie, New Zealand Prime Minister and High Commissioner (d. 1930)

March 14 - Paul Ehrlich, German scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1915)

March 14 - Thomas R. Marshall, Vice President of the United States (d. 1925)

March 15 - Emil Adolf von Behring, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1917)

April 22 - Henri La Fontaine, Belgian lawyer and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1943)

April 29 - Henri Poincaré, French mathematician and physicist (d. 1912)

May 11 - Albion Woodbury Small, American sociologist (d. 1926)

May 24 - John Riley Banister, law officer, cowboy, and Texas Ranger (d. 1918)

June 26 - Robert Laird Borden, eighth Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1937)

July 3 - Leoš Janáček, Czech composer (d. 1928)

July 12 - George Eastman, American inventor (d. 1932)

July 27 - Takahashi Korekiyo, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1936)

August 2 - Milan I, King of Serbia (d. 1901)

August 23 - Moritz Moszkowski, Polish/German composer (d. 1918)

September 1 - Engelbert Humperdinck, German composer (d. 1921)

September 6 - Georges Picquart, French general and Minister of War (d. 1914)

October 16 - Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (d. 1900)

October 20 - Arthur Rimbaud, French poet (d. 1891)

November 5 - Paul Sabatier, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1941)

November 6 - John Philip Sousa, American composer and conductor (d. 1932)

November 17 - Hubert Lyautey, Marshal of France (d. 1934)

November 21 - Pope Benedict XV (d. 1922)

December 23 - Victoriano Huerta, President of Mexico (d. 1916)

December 24 - Thomas Stevens, English cyclist (d. 1935)

Edward Harkness, American philanthropist (d. 1940)

C. W. Post, American cereal manufacturer (d. 1914)

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January 8 - William Carr Beresford, 1st Viscount Beresford, British general and politician (b. 1768)

February 17 - John Martin, English painter (b. 1789)

March 6 - Charles William Vane, 3rd Marquess of Londonderry (b. 1778)

March 11 - Willard Richards, American religious leader (b. 1804)

March 13 - Thomas Noon Talfourd, English jurist (b. 1795)

April 15 - Arthur Aikin, English chemist and mineralogist (b. 1773)

April 29 - Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, British general (b. 1768)

July 6 - Georg Ohm, German physicist

July 31 - Samuel Wilson, thought to be the real-life basis for Uncle Sam (b. 1813)

September 8 - Angelo Mai, Italian cardinal and philologist (b. 1782)

December 9 - Almeida Garrett, Portuguese writer (b. 1799)

December 15 - Kamehameha III, King of Hawaii (b. 1814?)

Abbas I, Pasha of Egypt (b. 1813)