1868

From top left, clockwise: A series of devastating earthquakes strike Ecuador (left) and southern Peru (centre), killing a culminative estimate of 95,000 people; the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnons, the earliest modern humans to occupy Europe, are discovered in Dordogne in France; the Meiji Restoration occurs in Japan after the Tokugawa shogunate is defeated in the Boshin War; Māori general Tītokowaru wages an initially successful war against the British and the New Zealand colonial government in South Taranaki; the Spanish Glorious Revolution leads to the deposition and exile of Isabella II; Helium is named by English astronomer Norman Lockyer two months after contemporary Pierre Jannsen accidentally discovers it; the expensive British expedition to Abyssinia is successful in rescuing hostages of Emperor Tewodros II.
1868 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar1868
MDCCCLXVIII
Ab urbe condita2621
Armenian calendar1317
ԹՎ ՌՅԺԷ
Assyrian calendar6618
Baháʼí calendar24–25
Balinese saka calendar1789–1790
Bengali calendar1274–1275
Berber calendar2818
British Regnal year31 Vict. 1 – 32 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar2412
Burmese calendar1230
Byzantine calendar7376–7377
Chinese calendar丁卯年 (Fire Rabbit)
4565 or 4358
    — to —
戊辰年 (Earth Dragon)
4566 or 4359
Coptic calendar1584–1585
Discordian calendar3034
Ethiopian calendar1860–1861
Hebrew calendar5628–5629
Hindu calendars
 - Vikram Samvat1924–1925
 - Shaka Samvat1789–1790
 - Kali Yuga4968–4969
Holocene calendar11868
Igbo calendar868–869
Iranian calendar1246–1247
Islamic calendar1284–1285
Japanese calendarKeiō 4 / Meiji 1
(明治元年)
Javanese calendar1796–1797
Julian calendarGregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar4201
Minguo calendar44 before ROC
民前44年
Nanakshahi calendar400
Thai solar calendar2410–2411
Tibetan calendarམེ་མོ་ཡོས་ལོ་
(female Fire-Hare)
1994 or 1613 or 841
    — to —
ས་ཕོ་འབྲུག་ལོ་
(male Earth-Dragon)
1995 or 1614 or 842
Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1868.

1868 (MDCCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1868th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 868th year of the 2nd millennium, the 68th year of the 19th century, and the 9th year of the 1860s decade. As of the start of 1868, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Events

January 3: Emperor Meiji.

January

  • January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries.[1]
  • January 3 – The 15-year-old Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, declares the Meiji Restoration, his own restoration to full power, under the influence of supporters from the Chōshū and Satsuma Domains, and against the supporters of the Tokugawa shogunate, triggering the Boshin War.[2]
  • January 5 – Paraguayan War: Brazilian Army commander Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, enters Asunción, Paraguay's capital. Some days later he declares the war is over. Nevertheless, Francisco Solano López, Paraguay's president, prepares guerrillas to fight in the countryside.
  • January 7 – The Arkansas constitutional convention meets in Little Rock.
  • January 9 – Penal transportation from Britain to Australia ends, with arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia, after an 89-day voyage from England. There are 62 Fenians among the transportees.
  • January 10 – Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares the emperor's declaration "illegal", and prepares to attack Kyoto.
  • January 27–31 – Battle of Toba–Fushimi: forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and the allied pro-Imperial forces of the Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa Domains clash near Fushimi, Kyoto, ending in a decisive victory for the Imperial forces (although in the January 28 naval Battle of Awa, the Shogunate is victorious against Satsuma).

February

March

  • March 12
    • Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh, is shot in the back in Sydney, Australia, at a fundraising event for the Sydney Sailors Home, by Irishman Henry James O'Farrell. The prince survives and quickly recovers; O'Farrell is executed on April 21, despite attempts by the prince to gain clemency for him.
    • Basutoland is proclaimed a British Protectorate, becoming independent in 1966 as Lesotho.
  • March 23 – The University of California is founded in Oakland, California, when the Organic Act is signed into California law.
  • March 24 – The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is formed, in New York City.
  • March 27 – The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.
  • March –
    • French geologist Louis Lartet discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnon, the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens), at Abri de Crô-Magnon, a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France.
    • The first transnational women's organization, Association internationale des femmes, is founded.

April

  • April 1 – The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute is established in Hampton, Virginia.
  • April 7 – The Charter Oath, drawn up by his councilors, is promulgated at the enthronement of the Emperor Meiji of Japan, promising deliberative assemblies and an end to feudalism.[5]
  • April 9 – Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia massacres at least 197 of his own people at Magdala. These are prisoners incarcerated, for the most part, for very trivial offenses, and are killed for requesting bread and water.
  • April 9–13 – Battle of Magdala: A British-Indian task force under Robert Napier inflicts 700 deaths and a crushing defeat on the army of Emperor Tewodros II; the British and Indians suffer 30 wounded, two of whom subsequently die. Tewodros commits suicide and Magdala is captured, ending the British Expedition to Abyssinia.
  • April 11–July – Fall of Edo: The Japanese city surrenders to Emperor Meiji. Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu submits to the Emperor.
  • April 29 – General William Tecumseh Sherman brokers the Treaty of Fort Laramie, between the federal government of the United States and the Plains Indians.

May

June

  • June 1 – The Treaty of Bosque Redondo is signed, allowing the Navajo to return to their lands in Arizona and New Mexico.
  • June 2 – The first Trades Union Congress is held in Manchester, England.
  • June 10 – Mihailo Obrenović, Prince of Serbia, is assassinated in Košutnjak, Belgrade.
  • June 20 – Fort Fred Steele is established to protect what is at this time the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, near modern-day Sinclair, Wyoming.
  • June – Tītokowaru's War breaks out in the South Taranaki District of New Zealand's North Island between the Ngāti Ruanui Māori tribe and the New Zealand Government.
July 25: Wyoming Territory.

July

August

  • August 13 – The 8.5–9.0 Mw Arica earthquake strikes southern Peru, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), causing 25,000+ deaths and a destructive basin-wide tsunami, that affects Hawaii and New Zealand.
  • August 18 – The element later named as helium is first detected in the spectrum of the Sun's chromosphere, by French astronomer Jules Janssen, during a total eclipse in Guntur, British India, but is assumed to be sodium.[8]
  • August 20 – Abergele rail disaster in Wales: An Irish Mail passenger train collides with 4 cargo trucks loaded with paraffin oil (more akin to modern kerosine); 33 are killed (the first major train disaster in Britain).
  • August 22 – The Yangzhou riot in China targets a station of the China Inland Mission, and nearly leads to war between Britain and China.

September

  • September 3 – Emperor Meiji of Japan announces that the name of the city of Edo is to be changed to Tokyo.
  • September 7 – Tītokowaru's War: Māori leader Tītokowaru defeats a New Zealand military force at Te Ngutu o Te Manu, North Island.
  • September 18 – The University of the South holds its first convocation in Sewanee, Tennessee.
  • September 23 – Grito de Lares: Rebels (some 400–600 led by Ramón Emeterio Betances) in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent; the local militia easily defeats them a week later.
  • September 24 – Croatian–Hungarian Settlement (Croatian: Hrvatsko-ugarska nagodba, Hungarian: Horvát–magyar kiegyezés, German: Kroatisch-Ungarischer Ausgleich) is concluded, governing Croatia's political status in the Hungarian-ruled part of Austria-Hungary until 1918.[9]
  • September 28 – The Opelousas massacre, one of the bloodiest massacres of the Reconstruction era in the United States.
  • September – Glorious Revolution: Queen Isabella II of Spain is effectively deposed and sent into exile; she formally abdicates on June 25, 1870.

October

  • October 1 – Chulalongkorn starts to rule in Siam.
  • October 6 – The City of New York grants Mount Sinai Hospital a 99-year lease for a property on Lexington Avenue and 66th Street, for the sum of $1.00.
  • October 10 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes declares a revolt against Spanish rule in Cuba, in an event known as El Grito de Yara or the Ten Years' War, initiating a war that lasts ten years (Cuba ultimately loses the war at a cost of 400,000 lives and widespread destruction).
  • October 20
    • English astronomer Norman Lockyer observes and names the D3 Fraunhofer line in the solar spectrum, and concludes that it is caused by a hitherto unidentified element, which he later names helium.[10]
    • Pedro Figueredo creates the Cuban national anthem, El Himno de Bayamo.
  • October 23 – The current Japanese era name is changed to the Meiji period. The Edo period ends.
  • October 25 – The Uspenski Cathedral, designed by Aleksey Gornostayev, is inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland.[11]
  • October 28 – Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.

November

November 27: Battle of Washita River.
  • November 7 – The Battle of Moturoa, New Zealand, ends in a British defeat, due to an underestimate of Tītokowaru and his fortifications. There are heavy casualties for the colonial army and light casualties for the Māori defenders.
  • November 27 – American Indian Wars – Battle of Washita River: In the early morning, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of Cheyenne living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne.

December

Date unknown

  • Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.[13]
  • Thomas Henry Huxley discovers what he thinks is primordial matter and names it bathybius haeckelii (he admits his mistake in 1871).[14]
  • The Académie Julian, a major art school in Paris, France, that admits women, is established.
  • Brisbane Grammar School is founded, providing the opportunity for secondary education for the first time in the colony of Brisbane in Australia.
  • Maryland School for the Deaf is established.
  • The Dortmunder Actien Brauerei is founded in Germany.
  • Herrenhäuser Brewery is established in Hanover, Germany.
  • Tata Group is founded by Jamsetji Tata as a trading company in India.
  • Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover develops Japan's first coal mine on Hashima Island.
  • The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson is established as the Apostolic Vicariate of Arizona in 1868, taking its territory from the former Diocese of Santa Fe. The Diocese of Tucson is canonically erected on May 8, 1897.
  • The population of Japan reaches c. 30 million.

Births

January–March

Felix Hoffmann
Countess Markiewicz

April–June

Nicholas II of Russia
John L. Hines
Robert Falcon Scott
Karl Landsteiner
Miklós Horthy

July–September

  • July 2 – Traian Moșoiu, Romanian general and politician (d. 1932)
  • July 4 – Henrietta Swan Leavitt, American astronomer (d. 1921)[28]
  • July 12 – Stefan George, German poet (d. 1933)
  • July 14 – Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy and administrator (d. 1926)[29]
  • July 15 – Nobuyoshi Mutō, Japanese field marshal and ambassador (d. 1933)
  • July 17 – Mikhail Bakhirev, Russian admiral (d. 1920)
  • July 19 – Florence Foster Jenkins, American socialite and amateur operatic soprano (d. 1944)[30]
  • July 20 – Patriarch Miron of Romania, 38th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1939)
  • July 24 – Princess Srivilailaksana The Princess of Suphanburi daughter of King Chulalongkorn of Siam and Chao Chom Manda Pae Bunnag (d.1904)
  • July 28 – Theodor Wulf, German physicist and Jesuit (d. 1946)
  • August 5 – Oskar Merikanto, Finnish composer (d. 1924)
  • August 6 – Paul Claudel, French poet, dramatist and diplomat (d. 1955)[31]
  • August 7
    • Oo Zun, Burmese social worker and Buddhist nun (d. 1944)
    • Martin Wetzer, Finnish general (d. 1954)
  • August 10 – Hugo Eckener, German dirigible engineer, Commander of Graf Zeppelin I (d. 1954)
  • August 23 – Edgar Lee Masters, American poet, biographer and dramatist (d. 1950)
  • August 26 – Charles Stewart, Premier of Alberta (d. 1946)
  • September 1 – Henri Bourassa, Canadian politician and publisher (d. 1952)
  • September 6 – Heinrich Häberlin, Swiss politician, member of the Federal Council (d. 1947)
  • September 17 – James Alexander Calder, Canadian politician (d. 1956)
  • September 22 – John T. Raulston, American state judge (Scopes Monkey Trial) (d. 1956)

October–December

Mary Brewster Hazelton
Arturo Alessandri
Fritz Haber

Deaths

January–June

John Crawfurd

July–December

Gioachino Rossini
Adah Isaacs Menken
Mongkut

References

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