1860s

Events and trends

Technology

• The First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States is built in the six year period between 1863 and 1869.

Science

• James Clerk Maxwell publishes his equations that quantify the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and shows that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation
• Gregor Mendel formulates Mendel's laws of inheritance, the basis for genetics
• Dmitri Mendeleev discovers the periodic table

War, peace and politics

• Italian unification under King Victor Emmanuel II. Wars for expansion and national unity continue until the incorporation of the Papal States (March 17, 1861 - September 20, 1870).
• American Civil War fought between the remaining United States of America under President Abraham Lincoln and the self-declared Confederate States of America under President Jefferson Davis (April 12, 1861 - April 9, 1865). Beginning of the Reconstruction era under President Andrew Johnson (1865 - 1869).
• French occupation of Mexico (1863 - 1867). Replacement of President of Mexico Benito Juárez (1861 - 1863) at first with Juan Nepomuceno Almonte (1863 - 1864) and then by Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1864 - 1867). Benito Juárez eventually manages to recover his position (1867 - 1872).
• Meiji Restoration in Japan (1866 - 1869). Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 15th and last of the Tokugawa shoguns loses control to the Meiji Emperor. A series of reforms follows. The samurai class fails to survive while the Daimyo turn to politics.
• Canada becomes an independent nation
• U.S. president Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, April 15, 1865.

Culture and religion

• In Catholicism, reaction against higher criticism and the liberal movement in Europe
• The Football Association is formed in the United Kingdom, paving the way for Association football to become the world's predominant spectator sport

Other

World leaders

• Emperor Franz Josef (Austria-Hungary)
• Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald (Canada)
• Emperor Napoleon III (France)
• King Victor Emmanuel II (Italy)
• Pope Pius IX
• Emperor Alexander II (Russia)
• Queen Victoria (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister Lord Palmerston (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister Lord Derby (United Kingdom)
• Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone (United Kingdom)
• President James Buchanan (United States)
• President Abraham Lincoln (United States)
• President Andrew Johnson (United States)