1858

Centuries:	[[18Template:Ordinal/th century]] - [[19Template:Ordinal/th century]] - [[20Template:Ordinal/th century]]
Decades:	1820s 1830s 1840s - 1850s - 1860s 1870s 1880s
Years:	1855 1856 1857 - 1858 - 1859 1860 1861

Events of 1858

January 14 - Felice Orsini and his accomplices fail to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris but their bombs kill 156 bystanders. Because of the involvement of French émigrés living in Britain, there is a brief anti-British feeling in France, but the emperor refuses to support it. Executed on March 13 of the same year by the guillotine.
January 25 - The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter Victoria, "Vicky," the Princess Royal to Prince Friedrich of Prussia in St. James's Palace, London.
February 11 - The Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to St Bernadette of Lourdes.
March 30 - Hyman Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser.

April 16 - The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, was wound up.
May 11 - Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
May 19 - Marais des Cygnes massacre perpetrated by pro slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas.
June 20 - The last rebels of the Indian Mutiny surrender in Gwalior.
June 23 - Police of the Papal States seize Jewish boy Edgardo Mortara and take him away to be raised as a Catholic.
May-July - Mahtra War in the Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire - peasants revolt against serfdom, that was officially abolished in 1816.

July - Fifty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.
July 1 - Papers by Darwin and Wallace announcing a theory of Evolution by natural selection read at London's Linnean Society.
July 12 - First publication of The Advertiser, the daily news paper still in circulation in Adelaide, Australia
July 17 - Salvage of the Lutine bell, which is subsequently hung in Lloyd's of London.
July 28 - In Bengal/India, British officer William James Herschel used hand impression of Rajyadhar Konai as a contract fingerprint signature.
July 29 - United States and Japan sign the Harris Treaty.
August 5 - Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. The service ends on September 1 due to weak current.

August 7 - First Australian rules football match between Melbourne Grammar School and Scotch College and founding of the Melbourne Football Club.
August 11 - First ascent of the Eiger.
August 16 - US President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal will force a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.

British Empire takes over powers & properties of the British East India Company (see also history of Bangladesh).
William Marcy Tweed begins his thirteen-year term as "Boss" of Tammany Hall.
British stop using prison hulks.
Last Cape Lion seen.
Haute couture firm of Worth and Bobergh established.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
The Miners Association established in Cornwall, UK.
Feudalism and serfdom in Bulgaria abolished in the Ottoman Empire; practically in 1880.

January 7 - Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Russian-born advocate of the Hebrew language (d. 1922)
January 10 - Heinrich Zille, German illustrator and photographer (d. 1929)
January 11 - Harry Gordon Selfridge, American department store magnate (d. 1947)

January 27 - Cornelia Hubertina Doff French author of Dutch origin known as Neel Doff, nominee of the 1911 Prix Goncourt (d. 1942)