1855
Livingstone Sees Mosi-oa-Tunya
David Livingstone, paddling down the Zambezi in a dugout canoe, became the first European to see the falls the Kololo called Mosi-oa-Tunya - 'the smoke that thunders.' He named them for his queen. The spray rose four hundred meters into the air. Livingstone wept. Africa's interior was being drawn onto European maps, one waterfall at a time.
Fall of Sevastopol
After a year-long siege, French and British troops stormed the Malakoff redoubt and the Russian garrison evacuated Sevastopol in the night. It ended serious fighting in the Crimean War and exposed Russia's rotten logistics to Tsar Alexander II, just come to the throne. He began, that winter, to consider the emancipation of the serfs.
Leaves of Grass Published
A Brooklyn journalist named Walt Whitman self-published a thin, large-format volume of poems in a voice nobody had used before - prophetic, sensual, democratic, endless. It was mostly ignored. Emerson wrote a letter of praise, which Whitman promptly printed on the spine of the second edition. American poetry had its first native bard.
Nicholas I Dies
Tsar Nicholas I, the autocrat who had put down the Decembrists and kept Europe frozen for thirty years, died in St. Petersburg of pneumonia, possibly self-neglected in despair at Russia's failures in the Crimea. His son Alexander II, unlike his father, understood that something had to change, and inherited both the war and the reform.
Want 1855 in context? Print the whole 19th century as a one-sheet timeline chart.
Frequently asked
What happened in the year 1855?
Saeculum lists 4 curated events from 1855. The most significant is Livingstone Sees Mosi-oa-Tunya: David Livingstone, paddling down the Zambezi in a dugout canoe, became the first European to see the falls the Kololo called Mosi-oa-Tunya - 'the smoke…
What era was 1855 part of?
1855 falls within the Industrial Age (1801-1900). Steam, empire, and the unmaking of the old order.
Which regions saw notable events in 1855?
The curated events from 1855 span Africa, Europe and North America.