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The 1860s (pronounced "eighteen-sixties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1860 and ended on December 31, 1869.

The decade was noted for featuring numerous major societal shifts in the Americas. In North America, the election of Free Soiler Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 in the United States led to the secession of eleven southern states as the Confederate States of America (CSA). The resulting American Civil War (1861–1865) would be among the first industrial wars, featuring advanced technology such as steel warships and machine guns. The victory of the Union and subsequent abolition of slavery would contribute to the decline of the global slave trade. Conflict in Mexico ensued after the French Empire installed Maximilian I as Emperor of Mexico; former President Benito Suarez would regain his position in 1867 after a power struggle.

In South America, the Triple Alliance of the Empire of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay in the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) would be among the bloodiest conflicts in the continent's history, leading to the death of almost 60% of the Paraguayan population.

In Europe, the formation of the union of Austria-Hungary in 1867 and the ongoing campaign to unify Italy by Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont would affect the European balance of power. The United Kingdom would continue engaging in a series of conflicts known as the New Zealand Wars with the indigenous Māori, with the New Zealand land confiscations beginning in 1863.

In Asia, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 would begin the process of transforming Japan into a global imperial power. The Qing Dynasty of China would experience decline following its defeat to the British in 1860 in the Second Opium War. In 1864, the Russian Empire would embark upon the Circassian genocide in the Caucasus, leading to the deaths or expulsion of at least 75% of the Circassian people.

The last living person from this decade was Nellie Spencer, who died in 1982.

Politics and wars

Wars

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) with the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire. Juárez eventually manages to recover his position (1867–1872).
On 18 October 1860, the first Convention of Peking formally ended the Second Opium War.
The American Civil War which lasted from 1861 to 1865.^[1]
The Paraguayan War (1864–1870) starts in South America, with the invasion of Paraguay by the Triple Alliance (Empire of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay). It will kill almost 60% of the country's population.
The main phase of the New Zealand Wars between British colonials and the Māori population begins with the First Taranaki War in 1860. The most significant campaign is the Invasion of the Waikato in 1863, which sees some 14,000 British and colonial troops engaged.
The Kingdom of Prussia under Bismarck invaded Denmark in 1864, which ended in the division of Schleswig, the location of a pro-German revolt, between Prussia and the Austrian Empire. Though Prussia and Austria had both fought side by side in this war, Prussia later attacked Austria in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. The technological and logistical superiority of Prussia's armed forces obliterated Austria and its allies, the former also having to deal with Prussia's ally Italy in Venice. By the end of these conflicts, Prussia was seen as the most powerful state in Germany, and had total hegemony over the other German states. The NGF was formed after the Austro-Prussian war, uniting the states of north Germany, and Prussia soon led it into another conflict with France.
The Bhutan War between the British Empire and Bhutan lasted from 1864 to 1865. It ended in a British victory and the loss of some Bhutanese territory to British India.
The British Expedition to Abyssinia was a rescue mission and punitive expedition carried out in 1868 by the armed forces of the British Empire against the Ethiopian Empire.
Conclusion of the Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864) resulting in Russian victory and subsequent Circassian genocide and diaspora.

Internal conflicts

The Federal War was a civil war (1859–1863) in Venezuela between the Conservative party and the Liberal party over the monopoly the Conservatives held over government positions and land ownership, and their intransigence to granting any reforms. It was the biggest and bloodiest civil war that Venezuela had since its independence. Hundreds of thousands died in the violence of the war, or from hunger or disease, in a country with a population of just over a million people
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) and Vice President Alexander Stephens.
- Beginning of the Reconstruction era under President Andrew Johnson (1865–1869).
1863–64 January Uprising in the Russian Empire.
On 19 July 1864 the fall of Nanjing formally ended the 14-year Taiping Rebellion.
1862–1877 Tongzhi Hui Revolt in Qing dynasty of China.
1868–1869 Boshin War in Japan, fought between the Tokugawa shogunate and those seeking to return political power to the Imperial Court.

Prominent political events

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).
Abolition of serfdom in Russia by tsar Alexander II (1861).
Meiji Restoration in Japan (1866–1869). Tokugawa Yoshinobu, 15th and last of the Tokugawa shōguns loses control to the Meiji Emperor. A series of reforms follows. The samurai class fails to survive while the daimyōs turn to politics.
The Dominion of Canada is created by the British North America Act on July 1, 1867.
Compromise between Austria and Hungary, hence creating the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867.
The "La Gloriosa"revolution in Spain (1868). Queen Isabella II is deposed.

Assassinations and attempts

Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

Year	Date	Name	Position	Culprits	Country	Description
1860	March 24	Ii Naosuke	Tairō of the Tokugawa Shogunate	17 young samurai loyalists	Japan	While Naosuke was at staying at the Edo Castle a group of 17 loyalist ambushed and was decapitated.
1861	October 23	Jorge Córdova	president of Bolivia	Colonel Plácido Yáñez	Bolivia	Jorge was captured by Colonel Plácido Yáñez and executed along with 50 other prisoners.
1862	January 11	José Santos Guardiola	President of Honduras	unknown presidential guard	Honduras	Jose was sleeping with his wife Ana Arbizú y Flores when an unknown assassin shot him and fled.
1863	May 12	Radama II	King of Madagascar	Men led by Rainivoninahitriniony	Madagascar	Radama's absolutism in pursuing dramatic reforms in disregard of the advice of his ministers ultimately turned them against him. In a coup led by his prime minister, Rainivoninahitriniony, Radama II was strangled on May 12, 1863.
1863	October 30	Serizawa Kamo	chief of Shinsen-gumi	likely Hijikata, Okita, Yamanami Keisuke, Inoue, Harada or Tōdō and Saitō	Japan	While sleeping with a woman named Oume he was assassinated by an unknown assassin.
1865	March 27	Manuel Isidoro Belzu Humérez	President of Bolivia	A group of men led by Mariano Melgarejo	Bolivia	When Belzu entered the Palacio Quemado for a meeting with Mariano Melgarejo he was ambushed by Melgarejo and a group of men who murdered him.
1865	April 14	Abraham Lincoln	President of America	John Wilkes Booth	United States of America	On the night of April 14th of 1865, John Wilkes Booth sneaked into Ford's Theatre and assassinated the President whilst he watched Our America Cousin.
1868	February 19	Venancio Flores and Bernardo Prudencio Berro	President of Uruguay	Group of unknown assassins	Uruguay	Four days after stepping down as President, Flores and Berro were murdered by a group of unidentified assassins in Montevideo.
1868	April 7	Thomas D'Arcy McGee	Member of theCanadian Parliamentfor Montreal West	Patrick J. Whelan	Canada	McGee was entering a boarding house in Ottawa when he was shot in the head by a Catholic Fenian sympathizer.
1868	October 22	James M. Hinds	Member of the U.S. House of Representativesfrom Arkansas's 2nd district	George Clark	United States	En route to a campaign event for Grant near the village of Indian Bay in Monroe County, Clark shot Hinds and fellow Republican politician Joseph Brooks in the back with a shotgun. Brooks managed to stay on his horse and ride to the event to bring back assistance, before his death Hinds wrote a message to his wife revealing the killers identity as secretary of the Monroe County Democratic Party and local Klansman, George Clark.
1868	December 10	Sakamoto Ryōma and Nakaoka Shintarō	Japanese samurai and influential figure of the Bakumatsu	unknown assassin	Tokugawa Shogunate	Ryōma and Shintarō where eating in the Ōmiya Inn when an unknown broke in and killed the men and the bodyguards.
1869	December 7	Ōmura Masujirō	military leader and theorist	unknown assassin	Japan	Omura was stabbed in a Kyoto inn and died in Osaka.

Disasters and natural events

1860 to 1861 – Upper Doab famine of 1860–1861
1860 to 1861 – the Black Winter of 1860-1861 in Qajar Iran^[2]
1862 – the Great Flood of 1862, the largest flood in the recorded history of California, Oregon, and Nevada, inundated the western United States and portions of British Columbia and Mexico^[3]
1865 flooding of Bucharest, Romania, the result of snowmelt
May 12, 1866 – the 1866 Bingöl earthquake struck the Ottoman Empire, associated with faulting along the East Anatolian Fault
1866 to 1868 – famine in French Algeria, 820,000 died^[4]
December 18, 1867 – the 1867 Keelung earthquake and tsunami, affected the northern coast of Taiwan
1867 to 1869 – the Swedish famine of 1867–1869
October 4–5, 1869 – the 1869 Saxby Gale, a Category 2 hurricane struck Canada's Bay of Fundy region^[5]

Science and technology

The Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground railway, opens in London in 1863.^[6]
The Plongeur, the first mechanically powered submarine in the world, is launched in 1863 after three years of construction.
The United States’ first transcontinental railroad is completed in 1869.
The Suez Canal in Egypt is opened in 1869.
Carl Wilhelm Borchardt discovers and proves Cayley's formula in graph theory in 1860.
The first transatlantic telegraph cable is successfully laid in 1866, enabling almost instant communication between America and Europe.
Alfred Nobel invents dynamite in Sweden, patenting it in 1867.
James Clerk Maxwell publishes his equations that quantify the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and shows that light is a form of electromagnetic radiation
Joseph Lister develops antiseptic methods for use in surgery in 1867, introducing carbolic acid as an antiseptic, turning it into the first widely used surgical antiseptic in surgery, and publishing Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery. As a result, deaths from infections due to surgery greatly decrease.^[7]
Gregor Mendel formulates Mendel's laws of inheritance, the basis for genetics, in a two-part paper written in 1865 and published in 1866, although it is largely ignored until 1900.
Dmitri Mendeleev develops the modern periodic table
Helium was first detected during the total solar eclipse of August 18, 1868, in parts of India. It was the first eclipse expedition in which a spectroscope was used.
J. Norman Lockyer and Pierre Janssen are honored for their discovery of the nature of the Sun's prominences. They were the first to notice bright spectral emission lines when viewing the limb of the Sun without the aid of a total solar eclipse.
1862 International Exhibition in London, England and 1867 International Exposition in Paris.
Louis Pasteur develops a technique of food preservation known as Pasteurization, advancing understanding of the Germ theory of disease.

Establishments

T. H. Huxley's famous debate in 1860 with Samuel Wilberforce was a key moment in the wider acceptance of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution

The London Fire Brigade was established in 1865.
Florence Nightingale founds school for nurses in 1860.
Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA opens its doors on May 6, 1869, for the first time under a land grant from the Morrill Act.

Religion

Within Catholicism, reaction against higher criticism and the liberal movement in Europe
The Seventh-day Adventist Church becomes officially established in 1863 in Battle Creek, Michigan.
The Christian Mission, later renamed the Salvation Army, is co-founded by William and Catherine Booth in London in 1865.
Bahá'u'lláh declares his station as "the One whom God shall make Manifest", in the Garden of Ridván. Baháʼís see this as the beginning date of the Baháʼí Faith.

Culture

Literature and arts

Victor Hugo publishes Les Misérables.
Leo Tolstoy publishes War and Peace.
Fyodor Dostoevsky publishes Crime and Punishment.
Lewis Carroll publishes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Jules Verne publishes Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
Impressionism went public.
Charles Dickens publishes Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend.
George Eliot publishes the Silas Marner.
Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital.
Horatio Alger publishes Ragged Dick.
Winged Victory of Samothrace is discovered, 1863.

Sports

The first college football game is played in 1869, with Rutgers beating Princeton 6–4.
The sport of skiing is invented around 1862.
The Football Association is formed in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, paving the way for association football to become the world's predominant spectator sport.
The Cincinnati Redstockings became the first openly professional baseball team in 1869. They finished the same season with a perfect 58–0 record, thanks in large part to their Hall of Fame leader Harry Wright.

Fashion

The Victorian era and its culture largely thrived from 1860 until 1901.
The culture of the Victorian era comes to America and remains in place until around the turn of the 20th century, where the year it ends is disputed as to whether it ended with the rise of progressivism in 1896 or with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.