Modern Era
Lister's Antiseptic Surgery (1865): Carbolic Acid Saves Lives
Lister's carbolic acid method sharply reduced deaths from wound infection and established the principle that germs must be kept out of surgical wounds.
Era · c. 1800 – 1945
Modern Era
Industry, science and global conflict: the century and a half that built the modern world.
Modern Era
Mendel's Pea Experiments (1865): Founding the Science of Genetics
Mendel described regular patterns of inheritance carried by discrete factors; his work was largely ignored until its rediscovery in 1900 founded modern genetics.
Modern Era
Sultana Disaster (1865): Deadliest Shipwreck in US History
Boiler explosion and fire destroyed the steamboat, killing an estimated 1,100–1,200 or more of roughly 2,100–2,500 people aboard.
Modern Era
Battle of Königgrätz (1866): How Prussia Defeated Austria
Decisive Prussian victory that ended the Austro-Prussian War in Prussia's favour and excluded Austria from German affairs.
Modern Era
Fenian Rising (1867): The Irish Republican Brotherhood Revolts
The rising was quickly suppressed, but the Manchester executions and the Clerkenwell explosion kept the Irish question at the centre of British politics.
Modern Era
Execution of Emperor Maximilian (1867): End of Mexico's Empire
Maximilian and generals Miguel Miramón and Tomás Mejía were shot by a Republican firing squad, ending the Second Mexican Empire and restoring Benito Juárez's republic.
Modern Era
Alaska Purchase (1867): Seward's Folly and the Russian Sale
The United States bought Alaska, about 586,000 square miles, from the Russian Empire for 7.2 million dollars, and took formal possession at Sitka on 18 October 1867.
Modern Era
Canadian Confederation (1867): Birth of the Dominion of Canada
The Province of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick united as the Dominion of Canada, with four provinces and a federal parliament in Ottawa, on 1 July 1867.
Modern Era
Invention of Dynamite (1867): Alfred Nobel's Explosive Fortune
Dynamite made high explosives far safer to handle, transformed mining, quarrying and construction, and built the fortune that funds the Nobel Prizes.
Modern Era
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson (1868): First Presidential Trial
The House impeached Johnson, but the Senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict, and he served out his term.
Modern Era
Sholes and Glidden Typewriter (1868): The Birth of QWERTY
The Sholes and Glidden machine became the first commercially successful typewriter and gave the world the QWERTY keyboard layout.
Modern Era
King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910): Modernising Siam Under Pressure
Siam became a centralised modern kingdom, abolished slavery and remained independent, though it ceded large border territories to France and Britain.