1867

Events in 1867 42

• 1780 – 1867 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) Died 14 January 1867, aged 86 Ingres was a leading French Neoclassical painter known for precise draftsmanship and portraits, including La Grande Odalisque and Napoleon on his Imperial Throne. He championed classical line and form against the emerging Romantic movement. His influence extended to later artists including Degas and Picasso.
• 1791 – 1867 Michael Faraday (1791-1867) Died 25 August 1867, aged 75 Faraday was a British scientist whose experiments on electromagnetism and electrochemistry laid the groundwork for the electric motor and generator. He discovered electromagnetic induction and formulated the laws of electrolysis. His lectures and papers made him one of the most influential experimental scientists of the 19th century.
• 1819 – 1867 Elias Howe (1819-1867) Died 3 October 1867, aged 48 Howe was an American inventor who patented one of the first practical sewing machines in 1846. His lockstitch design became the basis for machines manufactured by Singer and other companies, and he profited from years of patent litigation over the invention. Mechanized sewing transformed the clothing industry worldwide.
• 1821 – 1867 Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) Died 31 August 1867, aged 46 Baudelaire was a French poet whose 1857 collection Les Fleurs du mal scandalized readers and reshaped modern poetry. His writing on urban life, sensation, and the darker aspects of experience influenced Symbolist and later modernist writers. He also worked as an influential art and literary critic.
• 1832 – 1867 Maximilian I of Mexico (1832-1867) Executed 19 June 1867, aged 34 An Austrian archduke installed as Emperor of Mexico with French backing, Maximilian was captured after Napoleon III withdrew his troops and Mexican republican forces under Benito Juarez retook the country. He was tried by court-martial and executed by firing squad at Queretaro. His death ended the French intervention in Mexico and became the subject of Edouard Manet's famous painting.
• 1867 – 1931 Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) Died 27 March 1931, aged 63 English novelist, best known for The Old Wives' Tale and the Clayhanger novels, set in the Staffordshire Potteries. He was also an influential critic and journalist. He died of typhoid in London.
• 1867 – 1939 Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) Died 6 September 1939, aged 71 Rackham was an English book illustrator of the golden age of illustration. He illustrated Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Grimm's Fairy Tales. His last work was The Wind in the Willows.
• 1867 – 1957 Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) Died 16 January 1957, aged 89 Italian conductor widely regarded as one of the greatest of the 20th century, known for his intensity and photographic memory of scores. He led the La Scala, New York Philharmonic, and NBC Symphony Orchestras.
• 1867 – 1939 Carl Laemmle (1867-1939) Died 24 September 1939, aged 72 Laemmle was a German-born film pioneer who founded Universal Pictures. The studio produced Dracula, Frankenstein and All Quiet on the Western Front. He sponsored affidavits that helped hundreds of German Jews emigrate to the United States.
• 1867 – 1955 Cy Young (1867-1955) Died 4 November 1955, aged 88 Cy Young was an American baseball pitcher who won a record 511 games over a 22-year major league career. Major League Baseball's annual award for the best pitcher in each league was named in his honor the year after his death. He died at his farm in Newcomerstown, Ohio.
• 1867 Diamond confirmed at the Cape, sparking South Africa's diamond rush Discovery near the Orange River draws prospectors A diamond found by children near Hopetown on the Orange River was authenticated in 1867, confirming that the region held valuable diamond deposits. News of the find triggered a rush of prospectors to the Cape Colony's interior. The resulting diamond fields around Kimberley would reshape South Africa's economy and colonial politics.
• 1867 – 1940 E. F. Benson (1867-1940) Died 29 February 1940, aged 72 English novelist best known for the comic Mapp and Lucia series and for his ghost stories.
• 1867 – 1956 Emil Nolde (1867-1956) Died 13 April 1956, aged 88 German-Danish painter and printmaker associated with Expressionism and a founding member of the Die Brucke artist group. His work was condemned as degenerate art by the Nazi regime and he was banned from painting. He died in Seebull, Germany.
• 1867 – 1912 Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito) Reign 1867–1912 — Japan becomes a modern power Emperor Meiji reigned as Japan transformed from a feudal state under the shogunate into a major imperial power. The Meiji era saw the 1889 constitution, rapid industrialisation, and military victories over China (1895) and Russia (1905) that announced Japan's arrival on the world stage.
• 1867 – 1916 Enrique Granados (1867-1916) Died 24 March 1916, aged 48 Enrique Granados was a Spanish composer and pianist best known for his suite "Goyescas." He drowned in the English Channel when the ferry SS Sussex was torpedoed by a German submarine while he was returning from the United States.
• 1867 – 1932 Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. (1867-1932) Died 22 July 1932, aged 65 The Broadway impresario created the Ziegfeld Follies revues and produced the musical Show Boat.
• 1867 – 1959 Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) Died 9 April 1959, aged 91 Wright was one of the most influential architects in American history, known for organic designs such as Fallingwater and the spiraling Guggenheim Museum in New York, which opened months after his death. He pioneered concepts of open-plan living and buildings integrated with their natural surroundings. His career spanned more than seven decades.
• 1867 – 1941 Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941) Died 6 March 1941, aged 73 Gutzon Borglum was the American sculptor who designed and directed the carving of Mount Rushmore. He died months before the work was declared finished, and his son Lincoln completed it.
• 1867 – 1947 Irving Fisher (1867-1947) Died 29 April 1947, aged 80 Irving Fisher was an American economist who made foundational contributions to monetary theory, including the quantity theory of money and the Fisher equation. He was also a pioneer of index numbers. His reputation was damaged by his optimistic forecasts just before the 1929 crash.
• 1867 – 1933 John Galsworthy (1867-1933) Died 31 January 1933, aged 65 English novelist and playwright best known for The Forsyte Saga. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.
• 1867 – 1935 Józef Piłsudski (1867-1935) Died 12 May 1935, aged 67 Piłsudski was the founding statesman of the Second Polish Republic and its dominant figure after his 1926 coup. He died of liver cancer in Warsaw and was buried in Wawel Cathedral.
• 1867 – 1919 Kurt Eisner (1867-1919) Died 21 February 1919, aged 51 Eisner led the revolution that toppled the Bavarian monarchy in 1918 and became the first minister-president of the People's State of Bavaria. He was assassinated by a nationalist gunman in Munich while on his way to resign from office.
• 1867 – 1957 Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) Died 10 February 1957, aged 90 American author best known for the Little House series of children's novels, based on her childhood on the American frontier. The books later inspired the long-running television series Little House on the Prairie.
• 1867 – 1936 Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) Died 10 December 1936, aged 69 Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist and novelist who won the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature. His play Six Characters in Search of an Author changed modern theatre. His novels include The Late Mattia Pascal.
• 1867 – 1934 Marie Curie (1867-1934) Died 4 July 1934, aged 66 Polish-French physicist and chemist who pioneered research on radioactivity and discovered polonium and radium. She was the first person to win Nobel Prizes in two sciences. She died of aplastic anaemia caused by radiation exposure.
• 1867 – 1947 Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) Died 23 January 1947, aged 79 Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and founding member of the Nabis group. He was known for his intimate domestic interiors and his rich use of colour. His later work influenced Post-Impressionist and modern painting.
• 1867 – 1953 Queen Mary (1867-1953) Died 24 March 1953, aged 85 Mary of Teck was Queen consort of the United Kingdom as wife of King George V and grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II. She was widely respected for her steadying presence through two world wars and the abdication crisis of 1936. She died at Marlborough House just months before her granddaughter's coronation.
• 1867 – 1947 Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947) Died 14 December 1947, aged 80 Stanley Baldwin was a Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times between 1923 and 1937. He led the government through the General Strike of 1926 and the abdication crisis of 1936. He was later criticised for Britain's slow rearmament.
• 1867 – 1928 Vicente Blasco Ibanez (1867-1928) Died 28 January 1928, aged 60 Spanish novelist and republican politician. His novel The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse became an international bestseller and a hit 1921 film. He died in exile in Menton, France.
• 1867 – 1912 Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) Died 30 May 1912, aged 45 Wilbur Wright, with his brother Orville, designed and flew the first successful powered airplane in 1903. He died of typhoid fever in Dayton, Ohio, having lived to see aviation transform from an experiment into an industry.
• 1867 Nebraska admitted as the 37th US state Statehood follows homesteading-driven population growth Nebraska joined the United States as its 37th state on March 1, 1867. Rapid settlement under the Homestead Act had swelled its population enough to qualify for statehood. Lincoln was later chosen as the new state's capital.
• 1867 United States purchases Alaska from Russia Treaty signed for $7.2 million Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire for $7.2 million, about two cents per acre. The US Senate ratified the treaty on April 9, and formal transfer of the territory took place at Sitka on October 18. Critics mocked the deal as 'Seward's Folly' until gold and oil discoveries later proved its value.
• 1867 Paris hosts the 1867 World's Fair Exposition Universelle showcases industry and culture The Exposition Universelle opened in Paris, drawing millions of visitors to displays of industrial machinery, art, and products from around the world. It featured early demonstrations of technologies including reinforced concrete and aluminum. The fair reinforced Paris's status as a center of international culture during the Second Empire.
• 1867 Alfred Nobel patents dynamite Stabilized nitroglycerin explosive introduced Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel patented dynamite, a mixture of nitroglycerin with an absorbent stabilizer that made the explosive far safer to handle and transport than pure nitroglycerin. The invention transformed mining, quarrying, and construction, and made Nobel's fortune. Nobel later used part of that wealth to endow the Nobel Prizes.
• 1867 – 1951 Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Marshal of Finland The military leader and statesman who led Finland through the Civil War and World War II. Widely considered the greatest Finn.
• 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise creates dual monarchy Austria and Hungary unite under Franz Joseph The Ausgleich transformed the Austrian Empire into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, granting Hungary its own parliament and administration while sharing a monarch, foreign policy, and military with Austria. Franz Joseph I was crowned King of Hungary in Budapest on June 8. The arrangement lasted until the empire's collapse in 1918.
• 1867 Dominion of Canada established British North America Act unites the provinces The British North America Act came into force, joining the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick into a single federal dominion within the British Empire. John A. Macdonald became the country's first prime minister. July 1 is celebrated annually as Canada Day.
• 1867 Second Reform Act expands the British electorate Franchise extended to urban working-class men The Reform Act of 1867, passed under Benjamin Disraeli's Conservative government, roughly doubled the electorate by extending voting rights to many male urban householders and lodgers in England and Wales. It marked a significant step toward wider democratic representation in Britain, though women and most rural workers remained excluded.
• 1867 United States claims Midway Atoll Captain William Reynolds annexes the islands Captain William Reynolds of the USS Lackawanna formally took possession of Midway Atoll for the United States, marking one of the country's first overseas territorial acquisitions beyond North America. The atoll later became a key Pacific naval and refueling station. It gained lasting fame as the site of the pivotal 1942 naval battle.
• 1867 Karl Marx publishes Das Kapital First volume of Marx's critique of capitalism Karl Marx published the first volume of Das Kapital in Hamburg, laying out his labor theory of value and critique of capitalist production. The remaining volumes were compiled and published after his death by Friedrich Engels. The work became a foundational text of socialist and communist political movements.
• 1867 Battle of Mentana French and Papal forces halt Garibaldi's march on Rome Giuseppe Garibaldi led irregular volunteers in an attempt to seize Rome from the Papal States and complete Italian unification. A combined force of Papal troops and French reinforcements armed with new Chassepot rifles defeated Garibaldi's men at Mentana. Rome remained under papal control until 1870.
• 1867 Tokugawa shogun surrenders political power Taisei Hokan returns authority to the emperor Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu offered to resign his political authority and return it to Emperor Meiji, an act known as Taisei Hokan. The move ended over two and a half centuries of shogunate rule and set the stage for the Meiji Restoration proclaimed in January 1868. It opened the way for Japan's rapid modernization.