1866

1866 (MDCCCLXVI) was a common year beginning on a Monday according to the Gregorian calendar.

Events

January

• January 1st: In Chile, the decimal metric system is established as an official measurement system in the country.
• January 2: Spain: The government orders to close the chairs of the Ateneo.
• January 11: In the Gulf of Vizcaya 220 people die drowned when the British passenger ship London is shipped.
• January 31: In the battle of Pehuajó (province of Corrientes) – at the beginning of the War of the Triple Alliance – the Paraguayans defeat the Argentine forces, and General Bartolomé Mitre, for reasons unknown, omits to support them with their army. 900 Argentine soldiers die.

February

• February: it had no full moon, as in January of this year there were two, on 1 and 30, and the following was on March 1. (A false belief states that this occurred the previous year).
• February 2nd: In Madrid, an attempt to overthrow the unionist government fails.
• 22 February: In Romania, a group of military conspirators of the Bucharest garrison forces to abdicate Prince Cuza in favor of a regiment, composed by Colonel Haralambie, General Golescu and conservative politician Lascar Catargiu.

March

• March 30: In Chile, the Spanish Navy bombs the Chilean port of Valparaíso and keeps it blocked for several days.

May

• 2 May: The Battle of the Callao or Combat of 2 May (2 May 1866), was a clash in the waters of this Peruvian port between a squadron of the Spanish Navy, commanded by Admiral Casto Méndez Núñez,
• May 24: The battle of Tuyuti (War of the Triple Alliance) takes place. Argentines, Brazilians and Uruguayans beat Paraguayans. It is to date the largest and most bloody in South America.

June

• 22 June: in Madrid an armed insurrection of the sergeants of the artillery barracks of San Gil is carried out. Failed and harsh repression took place.

July

• July 3: the Prussian army defeats the Austrians in the battle of Sadowa, in the framework of the Seven Weeks War.

August

• August 16: In Ostende, the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party signed an agreement, on the initiative of progressive general Juan Prim, to overthrow the monarchy of Isabel II of Spain.

Unknown dates

• Signature of boundary treaty between Bolivia and Chile. The 24th parallel is set as a boundary between the two nations. It is stipulated that the export rights of guano and minerals, between 23 and 25 parallels, would be distributed by halves between both countries, Bolivia and Chile
• In Peru, the Spanish Navy bombs El Callao (the port of Lima).

Art and literature

• Sully Prudhomme: The evidence.
• Julio Verne: From Earth to Moon.
• Fiódor Dostoievski: Crime and punishment.
• Gustave Courbet: "L'origine du monde (The Origin of the World)".
• For the first time, the history of the looting of Cadiz by the English, written by Pedro de Abreu in 1596, but vetoed in his time.

Science and technology

• The Laws of the inheritance of Gregor Mendel are published in Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn
• Etienne Lancereaux: Historical and practical treatise of syphilis.
• Thanks to Lord Kelvin's calculations, the first transatlantic cable connecting Wall Street (New York) with London is installed.
• December 6. Cae un meteorito en Margolles (Asturias).
• Peters describes for the first time the ocean bear of Juan Fernández (Arctocephalus philippii).
• Gill describes for the first time the North Sea Elephant (Mirounga angustirostris).
• Owen first describes the dwarf cachalote (Kogia sima).
• Owen and Gray first described the beluga dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris).

Births

January

• 4 January: Ramón Casas, a Spanish painter (f. 1932).
• January 15: Nathan Söderblom, Swedish ecclesiastical, Nobel Peace Prize in 1930 (f. 1931).
• January 22: Leocadia Alba, actress and tiple de zarzuela española (f. 1952).
• January 29: Romain Rolland, a French writer, a Nobel Literature Prize in 1915 (f. 1944).

February

• February 2: Enrique Simonet, a Spanish painter (f. 1927).
• February 25: Benedetto Croce, Italian philosopher, writer and politician.

March

• March 6: Mariana Álvarez Bollo Carretero, pedagogue and Spanish writer.
• 7 March: Gabriela Laperrière de Coni, Writer, Journalist, Socialist and Feminist Francargentina (f. 1907).
• March 14: Alexei Alexeievich Troitzky, chess scholar (f. 1942).
• March 17: Julian Marchlewski, Polish Communist politician.
• 22 March: Aquileo Echeverría, writer, journalist and Costa Rican politician (f. 1909).

April

• April 5: Francisco Acebal, Spanish writer and journalist (f. 1933).
• April 18: Gonzalo Dávila, aristocrat (f. 1935).

May

• May 17: Erik Satie, French musician.
• 25 May: Digno Núñez, Ecuadorian businessman and politician (f. 1949).

June

• June 8: Marceliano Santa Maria, Spanish painter.
• June 13: Aurélia de Sousa, a Chilean-Portuguese painter (f. 1922).
• June 13: Aby Warburg, historian of German art (f. 1929).
• 16 June; Juan F. Muñoz and Pabon, writer and religious (f. 1920).
• June 26: Lord Carnarvon, a British aristocrat, financed from the excavation of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankamon (f. 1923).

July

• 3 July: Albert Gottschalk, Danish painter (f. 1906).
• 6 July: Charles Marie Emmanuel Mangin, French military (f. 1925).

August

• August 12: Jacinto Benavente, Spanish playwright, Nobel Literature Prize in 1922 (f. 1954).
• August 14: Charles-Jean de la Vallée Poussin, Belgian mathematician (f. 1962).
• August 30: George Minne, Belgian sculptor (f. 1941).

September

• 21 September: Charles Nicolle, French doctor, nobel medical prize in 1928 (f. 1936).
• September 25: Thomas Hunt Morgan, U.S. physiologist, Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1933 (f. 1945).
• September 26: Archibald Vivian Hill, British physiologist, Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1922 (f. 1977).

October

• October 11: Carlos Arniches, Spanish playwright (f. 1943).
• October 28: Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, a Spanish writer (f. 1936).

November

• 12 November: Sun Yat-sen, first Chinese president (f. 1925).
• 18 November: Elena Fortún, a Spanish writer dedicated to the literature of children and youth (f. 1952).

December

• 4 December: Vasily Kandinsky Russian painter (f. 1944).
• December 12: Alfred Werner, Swiss chemist, nobel chemistry award in 1913 (f. 1919).
• December 15: Ramón Cáceres, politician and Dominican president (f. 1911).
• December 15: Rene Quinton, pioneer of French self-taught aviation and naturalist (f. 1925).
• December 21: H. G. Wells, an English writer famous for his science fiction novels (f. 1946).

Deaths

January

• January 31: Friedrich Rückert, German writer (n. 1788).

February

• February 18: Ferdinand Wolf, Austrian hypnist

March

• March 24: María Amalia de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, queen consorte de Francia (n. 1782).

April

• April 20: Antonio Remón Zarco del Valle y Huet, Spanish engineer and military (n. 1785).

June

• 7 June: Macacha Guemes, Argentinean patriot (n. 1776).
• June 20: Bernhard Riemann, German mathematician (n. 1826).
• 25 June: Alexander von Nordmann, Finnish zoologist and botanist (n. 1803).

July

• 7 July: Adolph Diesterweg, a Prussian teacher and politician (n. 1790).
• July 19: Elizardo Aquino, Paraguayan general, hero of the War of the Triple Alliance (n. 1825).

September

• September 19: Christian Hermann Weisse, German Protestant theologian (n. 1801).
• September 22: Dominguito Sarmiento, Chilean-Argentine military, adopted son of Argentine President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (n. 1845).

October

• October 18: Philipp Franz von Siebold, German physician and botanist (n. 1796).

November

• 22 November: Adrien François Servais, violonchelist and Belgian composer (n. 1807).