Year (''' MDCCCLIX ''') was a Common Year Starting On Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Year Starting On Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian Calendar ).
- October 6 - Thomas Austin takes 24 Rabbit s and 5 Hare s to Australia in order to release them there as a game. They will multiply exponentially.
- October 12 - Self-described "Emperor of the United States" Joshua A. Norton 'orders' the U.S. Congress to dissolve.
- October 15 - Joel Estes and his son Milton discover the area now known as Estes Park while on a hunting trip from Lyons. They later established a homestead and lived there until 1866.
- October 16 - John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry , Virginia , in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.
- October 18 - Troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee overpower Brown at the Federal Arsenal .
- October 26 - The steamship ''Royal Charter'' is wrecked on the coast of Anglesey , Wales with 454 dead.
- November 1 - The current Cape Lookout , North Carolina , Lighthouse was lighted for the first time. Its first-order Fresnel Lens can be seen for nineteen miles.
- November 10 - The Treaty Of Zürich , reaffirming the terms of Villafranca , brings the Austro-Sardinian War to an official close.
- November 19 - Opera " Genevieve De Brabant ", composed by Jacques Offenbach , debuts at the Theatre de Bouffes Parisians in Paris.
- 24 November - The French Navy's '' La Gloire '' ("Glory"), the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.
- November 24 - British naturalist Charles Darwin publishes '' The Origin Of Species '', a book which argues that Species gradually Evolve through Natural Selection . (It immediately sold out its initial print run.)
- December 2 - Militant Abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October 16 th raid on Harper's Ferry .
- December 4 - Mekteb-i Mülkiye founded.
- January 11 - Lord George Nathaniel Curzon , British statesman and Viceroy Of India (d. 1925 )
- January 27 - Wilhelm II Of Germany , last Emperor of Germany and King Of Prussia (d. 1941 )
- February 1
- --- Victor Herbert , Irish-born composer (d. 1924 )
- --- Jeff "the Bulldog" Roth , famous bank robber (d. 1883 )
- February 3 - Hugo Junkers , German industrialist and aircraft designer (d. 1935 )
- February 6 - Elias Disney , American farmer and father of Walt Disney (d. 1941 )
- February 14 - Henry Valentine Knaggs , English physician and author (d. 1954 )
- February 16 - George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. , inventor of the Ferris Wheel (d. 1896 )
- February 19 - Svante Arrhenius , Swedish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1927 )
- February 28 - Florian Cajori , Swiss historian of mathematics (d. 1930 )
- March 2 - Sholom Aleichem , Ukrainian Yiddish novelist (d. 1916 )
- March 4 - Alexander Stepanovich Popov , Russian physicist (d. 1905 )
- March 8 - Kenneth Grahame , English author (d. 1932 )
- March 12 - Abraham H. Cannon , American Morman apostle (d. 1896 )
- March 26 - Alfred Edward Housman , English poet (d. 1936 )
- April 8 - Edmund Husserl , Austrian philosopher (d. 1938 )
- May 15 - Pierre Curie , French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1906 )
- May 22 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle , Scottish writer (d. 1930 )
- July 6 - Verner Von Heidenstam , Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1940 )
- August 4 - Knut Hamsun , Norwegian author, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1952 )
- October 9 - Alfred Dreyfus , French military officer (d. 1935 )
- October 18 - Henri Bergson , French philosopher, recipient of the Nobel Prize In Literature (d. 1941 )
- October 21 - Francesc Macià , President of the Catalan Generalitat (d. 1933 )
- November 14 - Alexandru Averescu , Romanian soldier and politician (d. 1938 )
- November 19 - Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov , Russian composer (d. 1935 )
- November 23 - Henry McCarty , Outlaw (d. July 14, 1881 )
- December 2 - Georges Seurat , French painter (d. 1891 )
- December 15 - L. L. Zamenhof , Russo-Polish initiator of Esperanto (d. 1917 )
- December 17 - Paul César Helleu , French artist (d. 1927 )
- ''date unknown''
- --- William Bliss Baker , American painter (d. 1886 )
- --- Gaston Moch , Secretary of the Esperantist ''Centra Oficejo'' and a member of the ''Lingva Komitato''
- July 8 - Oscar I , King of Sweden and Norway (b. 1799 )
- August 2 - Horace Mann , American educator and abolitionist (b. 1796 )
- September 15 - Isambard Kingdom Brunel , British engineer (b. 1806 )
- October 4 - Karl Baedeker , German author and publisher (b. 1801 )
- October 22 - Louis Spohr , German violinist and composer (b. 1784 )
- November 28 - Washington Irving , American author (b. 1783 )
- December 2 - John Brown , American abolitionist (hanged) (b. 1800 )
- December 8 - Thomas De Quincey , English writer (b. 1785 )
- December 16 - Wilhelm Grimm , German writer (b. 1786 )
- ''date unknown'' - Abderrahmane , Sultan Of Morocco (b. 1778 )
: ''See also .''
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