This Year in History:
1856
Discover what happened in this year with HISTORY’s summaries of major events, anniversaries, famous births and notable deaths.
Southern Congressman Preston Brooks savagely beats Northern Senator Charles Sumner in the halls of Congress as tensions rise over the expansion of slavery. When the controversial Kansas‑Nebraska Act of 1854…
On June 6, 1856, the fifth and final day of the Democratic Party’s national convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, President Franklin Pierce becomes the first elected president of the United States…
In an extraordinary demonstration of resolve and fortitude, nearly 500 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‑day Saints (often informally known as Mormons) leave Iowa City and head west for…
In Music Fund Hall in Philadelphia, the first national convention of the Republican Party, founded two years before, comes to its conclusion. John Charles Fremont of California, the famous explorer…
On August 23, 1856, Eunice Foote’s work is presented to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Albany, New York. She is the first to…
Future President Woodrow Wilson is born in Staunton, Virginia on December 28, 1856. He attended private schools and graduated from Princeton University in 1879 before studying law at the University of…
