1868

1868 in various calendars
Gregorian calendar	1868; MDCCCLXVIII
Ab urbe condita	2621
Armenian calendar	1317; ԹՎ ՌՅԺԷ
Assyrian calendar	6618
Bahá'í calendar	24–25
Balinese saka calendar	1789–1790
Bengali calendar	1275
Berber calendar	2818
British Regnal year	31 Vict. 1 – 32 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2412
Burmese calendar	1230
Byzantine calendar	7376–7377
Chinese calendar	丁卯年 (Fire Rabbit); 4564 or 4504; — to —; 戊辰年 (Earth Dragon); 4565 or 4505
Coptic calendar	1584–1585
Discordian calendar	3034
Ethiopian calendar	1860–1861
Hebrew calendar	5628–5629
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1924–1925
- Shaka Samvat	1789–1790
- Kali Yuga	4968–4969
Holocene calendar	11868
Igbo calendar	868–869
Iranian calendar	1246–1247
Islamic calendar	1284–1285
Japanese calendar	Keiō 4 / Meiji 1; (明治元年)
Javanese calendar	1796–1797
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4201
Minguo calendar	44 before ROC ; 民前44年
Nanakshahi calendar	400
Thai solar calendar	2410–2411
Tibetan calendar	阴火兔年; (female Fire-Rabbit); 1994 or 1613 or 841; — to —; 阳土龙年; (male Earth-Dragon); 1995 or 1614 or 842

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century ; 19th century ; 20th century ;
Decades:	1840s ; 1850s ; 1860s ; 1870s ; 1880s ;
Years:	1865 ; 1866 ; 1867 ; 1868 ; 1869 ; 1870 ; 1871 ;

Last updated August 14, 2019

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.

Roman numerals Numbers in the Roman numeral system

Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers in this system are represented by combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet. Modern usage employs seven symbols, each with a fixed integer value:

A leap year is a calendar year containing one additional day added to keep the calendar year synchronized with the astronomical or seasonal year. Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars that have the same number of days in each year drift over time with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track. By inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. A year that is not a leap year is called a common year.

A leap year starting on Wednesday is any year with 366 days that begins on Wednesday, 1 January, and ends on Thursday, 31 December. Its dominical letters hence are ED, such as the years 1908, 1936, 1964, 1992, 2020, 2048, 2076, and 2116 in the Gregorian calendar or, likewise, 2004 and 2032 in the obsolete Julian calendar. Any leap year that starts on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday has two Friday the 13ths. This leap year contains two Friday the 13ths in March and November. Common years starting on Thursday share this characteristic, but also have another in February.

Events

January–March

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]^[3]
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 – Foreign ministers meeting in Hyōgo are persuaded to recognise the restored Emperor Meiji of Japan, with promises that harbours will be open in accordance with international treaties.^[4]
February 13 – The British War Office sanctions the formation of what becomes the Army Post Office Corps.
February 16 – In New York City the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).
February 19 – In the Passage of Humaitá, a Brazilian naval force succeeds in dashing past a Paraguayan fortress on the River Paraguay, considered by some the turning point in the Paraguayan War.
February 24
- Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Three days after his action to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the United States House of Representatives votes 126-47 in favor of a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, the first of two Presidents to be impeached by the full House. Johnson is later acquitted by the United States Senate.
- The first parade to have floats takes place at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The impeachment of Andrew Johnson was initiated on February 24, 1868, when the United States House of Representatives resolved to impeach Andrew Johnson, 17th president of the United States, for "high crimes and misdemeanors", which were detailed in 11 articles of impeachment. The primary charge against Johnson was violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress in March 1867, over his veto. Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War—whom the Act was largely designed to protect—and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas.
The Secretary of War was a member of the United States President's Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's administration. A similar position, called either "Secretary at War" or "Secretary of War", had been appointed to serve the Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation between 1781 and 1789. Benjamin Lincoln and later Henry Knox held the position. When Washington was inaugurated as the first president under the Constitution, he appointed Knox to continue serving as Secretary of War.
The United States House of Representatives is the lower house of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper house. Together they compose the national legislature of the United States.
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.
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.
Alfred reigned as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1893 to 1900. He was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was known as the Duke of Edinburgh from 1866 until he succeeded his paternal uncle Ernest II as the reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in the German Empire.
Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, is a substantive title that has been created three times for members of the British royal family since 1726. The current holder is Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
April 21 is the 111th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 254 days remain until the end of the year.
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 – The first transnational women's organization, Association internationale des femmes , is founded.

January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 363 days remain until the end of the year.

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. Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, then often referred to by the anglicized name Theodore, imprisoned several missionaries and two representatives of the British government in an attempt to get the attention of the British government, which had decided against his requests for military assistance. The punitive expedition launched by the British in response required the transportation of a sizable military force hundreds of miles across mountainous terrain lacking any road system. The formidable obstacles to the action were overcome by the commander of the expedition, General Sir Robert Napier, who was victorious in every battle with the troops of Tewodros, captured the Ethiopian capital and rescued all the hostages. The expedition was widely hailed on its return for achieving all its objectives.

Field Marshal Robert Cornelius Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala was an Indian Army officer. He fought in the First Anglo-Sikh War and the Second Anglo-Sikh War before seeing action as chief engineer during the second relief of Lucknow in March 1858 during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. He also served in the Second Opium War as commander of the 2nd division of the expeditionary force which took part in the Battle of Taku Forts, the surrender of Peking's Anting Gate and the entry to Peking in 1860. He subsequently led the punitive expedition to Abyssinia July 1867, defeating the Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia with minimal loss of life among his own forces and rescuing the hostages of Tewodros.

April–June

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 die subsequently. 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 10 – 14 – Boshin War – Battle of Utsunomiya Castle, Japan: Forces of the Emperor Meiji resist the retreating troops of the Tokugawa shogunate.
May 16, May 26 – President Andrew Johnson is twice acquitted during his impeachment trial, by one vote in the United States Senate.
May 26 – Fenian bomber Michael Barrett becomes the last person publicly hanged in the United Kingdom.
May 29 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, thus ending public hanging.
May 30 – Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time (it was proclaimed on May 5 by General John A. Logan).
May 31
- Thomas Spence declares himself president of the Republic of Manitobah in Canada; he soon alienates the locals.
- The first popular bicycle race is held at Parc de Saint-Cloud, Paris.
Thomas Spence was an English Radical and advocate of the common ownership of land. Spence was one of the leading revolutionaries of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He was born in poverty and died the same way, after long periods of imprisonment, in 1814.
The Republic of Manitobah was a short-lived, unrecognized state founded in June 1867 by Thomas Spence at the town of Portage la Prairie in what is now the Canadian province of Manitoba.
The Parc de Saint-Cloud, officially the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud, is a domaine national, located mostly within Saint-Cloud, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, near Paris, France.
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.
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.

April 1 is the 91st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 274 days remain until the end of the year.

Hampton University United States national historic site

Hampton University is a private historically black university in Hampton, Virginia. It was founded in 1868 by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen. It is home to the Hampton University Museum, which is the oldest museum of the African diaspora in the United States, and the oldest museum in the state of Virginia. In 1878, it established a program for teaching Native Americans that lasted until 1923.

Hampton is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 137,438.

July–September

July 1 – The cable-operated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in Manhattan becomes the first elevated railway in the United States.
July 4 – Battle of Ueno: Imperial Japanese troops defeat the Shōgitai (elite forces remaining loyal to the shōgun ).
July 5 – Preacher William Booth establishes the Christian Mission, predecessor of The Salvation Army, in the East End of London.
July 9 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
July 18 – The Navajo people begin their long march home.
July 25 – Wyoming becomes a United States territory.
July 25 – Paraguayan War: The Allies, in an amphibious operation, capture the fortress of Humaitá.
July 27 – The United States Expatriation Act ("An Act concerning the Rights of American Citizens in foreign States") is adopted.^[6]
July 28 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted, including the Citizenship Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, legally, if not actually, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and equal protection, and all persons in the United States due process of law.
August 13 – The 8.5–9.0 M_w 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.^[7]
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 – Glorious Revolution: Queen Isabella II of Spain is effectively deposed and sent into exile; she formally abdicates on June 25, 1870.
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 Titokowaru 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.^[8]

October–December

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, 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.^[9]
- 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 265-year-long Edo period ends.
October 28 – Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.
November 2 – Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time, to be observed nationally.
November 3 – U.S. presidential election, 1868: Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeats Democrat Horatio Seymour.

November 7 – The Battle of Moturoa, New Zealand ends in a British defeat, due to an underestimate of Tītokowaru and his fortifications. 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 4 – Battle of Hakodate begins in Japan.
December 6 – Paraguayan War – Battle of Ytororó or Ytororó: Field-Marshal Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias leads 13,000 Brazilian troops against a Paraguayan fortified position of 5,000 troops.
December 9 – The world's first traffic signal lights are installed at the junction of Great George Street and Bridge Street in the London Borough of Westminster.^[10]
December 24 – The Greek Presidential Guard is established as the royal escort by King George I.
December 25 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War rebels.

Date unknown

Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.^[11]
Thomas Henry Huxley discovers what he thinks is primordial matter and names it bathybius haecklii (he admits his mistake in 1871).^[12]
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.