istoryworld
Events relating to europe
Lagos, on the coast of Nigeria, is annexed as a British colony when the royal family prove unable or unwilling to end the slave trade
Victor Emmanuel II is proclaimed king of a united Italy, with only Rome and Venetia remaining outside his realm
After four years of consultation, Alexander II issues a decree freeing Russia's millions of serfs
George Eliot publishes Silas Marner, the story of a miser who loses his gold but finds happiness in adopting a child
English chemist and physicist William Crookes isolates a new element, thallium
Queen Victoria likes Adam Bede so much that she commissions Edward Henry Corbould to paint for her two scenes from the novel
George Eliot is offered £10,000 to write a novel about Savonarola as a 12-part serial in the new Cornhill Magazine
Prince Albert dies of typhoid, plunging Victoria into forty years of widowhood and deep mourning
Hungarian physician Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis publishes his discovery that deaths from puerperal fever can be dramatically reduced by a strict hand-washing routine
Mrs Henry Wood publishes her first novel, East Lynne, which becomes the basis of the most popular of all Victorian melodramas
Under the title Romola, George Eliot's story of Savonarola in Florence begins publication (completed in August 1863)
A joint French, Spanish and British force lands in Mexico and captures Veracruz, ostensibly to collect the interest on European debts
Louis Pasteur uses heat to destroy the micro-organisms in liquid food, in the process that becomes known as pasteurization
Victor Hugo publishes his novel Les Misérables, an immensely complex story about the adventures of ex-convict Jean Valjean
Oxford mathematician Lewis Carroll tells 10-year-old Alice Liddell, on a boat trip, a story about her own adventures in Wonderland
John McDouall Stuart reaches the north coast of Australia at Van Diemen's Gulf seven months after setting off from Adelaide
Dostoevsky publishes Notes from the House of the Dead, a semi-autobiographical novel about life in a Siberian labour camp
George Eliot, now prosperous, moves with G.H. Lewes into the Priory, a splendid house near Regent's Park
British architect George Gilbert Scott designs a memorial for Prince Albert in Kensington Gardens
France establishes a protectorate over Cambodia
English author Charles Kingsley publishes an improving fantasy for young children, The Water-Babies
The Metropolitan Railway, the world's first to go underground, opens in London using steam trains between Paddington and Farringdon Street
48-year-old Julia Margaret Cameron is given a camera by her daughter, in the Isle of Wight, and decides to concentrate on portraits
The Marylebone Cricket Club, arbiter of cricket, finally rules that overarm bowling is legitimate
The island of Corfu is ceded by Britain to the kingdom of Greece
