| 1810–1859 | USA [agriculture] | US cotton production, the vast majority of which is grown in the southern states, rises from 171,000 bales in 1810 to just under 5.4 million in 1859. |
| 1840–1860 | world [plagues and epidemics] | A cholera pandemic kills millions of people worldwide. |
| 1845–1958 | Germany [earth sciences] | German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion. |
| 1851–1860 | world [photography] | Photographic exposure times become short enough to capture movement. |
| 1851–1860 | USA, UK [statistics and demography] | Emigration to the USA from Britain is 423,964, and from Ireland, 914,119. |
| 3 November 1855 - 20 May 1856 | Africa [exploration] | Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone completes his crossing of the African continent by travelling eastwards from Linyanti on the River Zambezi to Quelimane in Portuguese East Africa, visiting and naming the Victoria Falls (17 November 1855) on the way. |
| 1856 | USA [fiction] | The US writer Herman Melville publishes his story collection Piazza Tales, which includes ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’. |
| 1856 | France [fiction] | The French writer Gustave Flaubert publishes his novel Madame Bovary in serial form. Appearing as a book in 1857, it is one of the major French novels of the 19th century. |
| 1856 | England [fiction] | The English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning publishes her novel in verse Aurora Leigh (the first printing is incorrectly dated 1857). |
| 1856 | USA [historical study] | The US historian John Lothrop Motley publishes Rise of the Dutch Republic. |
| 1856 | Germany [anthropology] | German naturalist Johann Fuhrott discovers the first fossil remains of a Neanderthal in Quaternary bed in Feldhofen Cave near Hochdal cave above the Neander Valley, Germany. They cause immediate debate about whether they are the remains of ancient humans or the deformed bones of a modern human. |
| 1856 | France [biology] | French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur establishes that micro-organisms are responsible for fermentation, thus establishing the discipline of microbiology. |
| 1856 | UK [technology] | English inventor Henry Bessemer obtains a patent for the Bessemer converter, which converts cast iron into steel by blowing air through molten iron. The converter is tilted to take a charge of molten pig iron, then turned to the vertical and air is blown in at the bottom, then tilted again to pour out the molten steel when conversion is complete. It is an efficient way of making steel. |
| 30 March 1856 | Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, Bessarabia [treaties] | The integrity of the Ottoman Empire is recognized by the signatories to the Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War, which guarantees the Danubian principalities. Russia cedes Bessarabia, the Black Sea is to be neutral, and the River Danube is to be free to ships of all nations. |
| 24 April 1856 | France [births and deaths] | Henri-Philippe Pétain, French general during World War I, born in Cauchy-à-la-Tour, France (–1951). |
| 6 May 1856 | Moravia [births and deaths] | Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis, born in Freiberg, Moravia (now Príbor, Czech Republic) (–1939). |
| 12 July 1856 | Natal, UK [colonies and mandate] | Natal, formerly part of the British Cape Colony in southern Africa, is established as a separate British crown colony with an elected assembly. |
| 15 July 1856 | UK [natural disasters] | A gas explosion in a colliery in South Wales kills 114 miners. |
| 26 July 1856 | Ireland [births and deaths] | George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist propagandist, born in Dublin, Ireland (–1950). |
| 8 October 1856 | UK, China [wars] | The Arrow Incident, when a ship flying the British flag is boarded by Chinese who arrest members of its crew, provokes the outbreak of the Second Opium War. |
| 16 October 1856 | Ireland, UK [births and deaths] | Oscar O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Irish poet and dramatist, born in Dublin, Ireland (–1900). |
| 1 November 1856 | UK, Persia, Afghanistan [wars] | War breaks out between Britain and Persia after the latter occupies the city of Herat in Afghanistan (known as ‘the key of India’). |
| 11 November 1856 | USA [elections] | James Buchanan, a Democrat, wins the US presidential election with 174 electoral votes, defeating John C Frémont (Republican, 114 votes) and Millard Fillmore (Whig, 8 votes). |
| 6 December 1856 | Transvaal [political events] | The South African Republic (Transvaal) is organized under the political leadership of Marthinius Wessel Pretorius, from the four republics of Lydenburg, Potchefstroom, Zontpansberg, and Utrecht. |
| 28 December 1856 | USA [births and deaths] | (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth president of the USA 1913–21, a Democrat, born in Staunton, Virginia (–1924). |
