This Year in History:
1853
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Emil Jellinek, an entrepreneur who commissioned engineer Wilhelm Maybach to design the first Mercedes automobile, named after Jellinek’s daughter, is born in Leipzig, Germany, on this day in 1853. Jellinek…
Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry, representing the U.S. government, sails into Tokyo Bay, Japan, with a squadron of four vessels. For a time, Japanese officials refused to speak with Perry, but…
In a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers inspired by a $6,000 award bring in the severed head—preserved in whiskey—of outlaw Joaquín Murrieta. Or at least that’s what…
Frontier bandit Joaquin Murrieta’s head is placed on exhibit in the Northern Californian town of Stockton. Murrieta, who was known as the “Terror of the Stanislaus,” had been disrupting the burgeoning…
Cyrus Skinner, who would later be hanged by the Montana vigilantes, ends his first stay in the California state prison at San Quentin. Skinner was typical of the thieves and…
On October 25, 1853, members of the Paiute Indian Tribe attack U.S. Army Captain John W. Gunnison and his party of 37 soldiers and railroad surveyors near Sevier Lake, Utah. Gunnison and…
James Gadsden, the U.S. minister to Mexico, and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, sign the Gadsden Purchase in Mexico City. The treaty settled the dispute…
