1855
| Years: 1852 1853 1854 – 1855 – 1856 1857 1858 | |
| Decades: 1820s 1830s 1840s – 1850s – 1860s 1870s 1880s | |
| Centuries: 18th century – 19th century – 20th century 1855 in topic: Lists of leaders: | |
1855 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).
Events
- 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.
- February 11 – Kassa Hailu is crowned Tewodros II, Emperor of Ethiopia, by Abuna Salama III in a ceremony at the church of Derasge Maryam.
- George Hamilton-Gordon is forced to resign as Prime Minister of Britain because of bad management of the campaigns in the Crimean War and the general unpopularity of that war.
- The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean by rail as the railroad's route across Panama is completed.
- 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.
Births
- 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 27 – Caroline Rémy, French feminist (d. 1929)
- May 1 – Marie Corelli, English novelist (d. 1924)
- November 5 – Léon Teisserenc de Bort, French meteorologist (d. 1913)
Deaths
- 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 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)
- August 7 – Mariano Arista, President of Mexico (b. 1802)
- November 11 – Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (b. 1813)
- November 26 – Adam Mickiewicz, Polish writer (b. 1798)
Categories: 1855