istoryworld
Events relating to europe
The First International is established in London, with Karl Marx soon emerging as the association's leader
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell presents to the Royal Society his discoveries in the field of electromagnetics, now known collectively as Maxwell's Equations
Pope Pius IX includes socialism, civil marriage and secular education among eighty modern errors listed in his Syllabus
Dostoevsky publishes Notes from Underground, the bitter memories of a retired civil servant that is often described as the first existentialist novel
English surgeon Joseph Lister introduces the era of antiseptic surgery, with the use of carbolic acid in the operating theatre
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a development of the story he had told Alice Liddell three years earlier
A committee to campaign for women's suffrage is formed in Manchester, the first of many in Britain
Leo Tolstoy publishes the first volume of his epic novel War and Peace, following the lives of several aristocratic families during the Napoleonic wars
George Eliot publishes Felix Holt the Radical, based on her childhood memories of the period of the great Reform Bill in 1832
Austrian rule ends in the Venetian territories, which now join the new kingdom of Italy
Algernon Swinburne scandalizes Victorian Britain with his first collection, Poems and Ballads
Dostoevsky publishes Crime and Punishment, a novel narrated by Raskolnikov, a St Petersburg student and murderer
Britain's new Reform Act extends the franchise to working men in British towns
French author Paul Verlaine wins a reputation with his first published collection, Poémes saturniens ('Saturnine Poems')
The first volume of Das Kapital is completed by Marx in London and is published in Hamburg
The world's first croquet tournament takes place in Evesham and is won by Walter Jones-Whitmore
The Canadian nation is called the Dominion of Canada – the first example of 'dominion status'
The Queensberry rules, named after the Marquess of Queensberry, introduce padded gloves in boxing, and rounds of three minutes
Modest Mussorgsky composes his orchestral work St John's Night on the Bare Mountain, based on a story by Gogol
Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patents dynamite, making the volatile explosive nitroglycerine safer by combining it with kieselguhr
Benjamin Disraeli becomes British prime minister for the first time, at the head of a Conservative government, but only for a few months
Britain annexes Basutoland (now Lesotho), the kingdom of the Sotho leader Moshoeshoe
An uprising against Spanish rule in Cuba sparks off a Ten Years' War
Dostoevsky publishes The Idiot, a novel about the simple-minded and truthful Prince Myshkin
Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone becomes British prime minister, for the first of four times, and remains in office for six years
