* 1859 – Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.

The first ironclad battleship, with iron armour over a wooden hull, La Gloire, was launched by the French Navy in 1859 ; she prompted the British Royal Navy to build a counter.

He first joined the Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1840 then had in the interim joined a Masonic Lodge and become extremely active in the affairs of the organization, being elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite's Southern Jurisdiction in 1859.

Caving was pioneered by Édouard-Alfred Martel ( 1859 – 1938 ) who first achieved the descent and exploration of the Gouffre de Padirac, France as early as 1889 and the first complete descent of a 110 metre wet vertical shaft at Gaping Gill, in Yorkshire, England in 1895.

The first census in Romania was carried out in 1859.

The independent Princedom of Serbia, had conducted the first population census in 1834 ; the subsequent censuses were conducted in 1841, 1843, 1846, 1850, 1854, 1859, 1863 and 1866 and 1874.

Biogeographer Alexander von Humbolt ( 1769 – 1859 ) was an early pioneer in ecological thinking and was among the first to recognize ecological gradients, where species are replaced or altered in form along environmental gradients, such as a cline forming along a rise in elevation.

For example, at the time that Darwin first published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection ( 1859 ), no remains of human ancestors had yet been found.

The practice of first aid fell largely in to disuse during the High Middle Ages, and organized societies were not seen again until in 1859 Jean-Henri Dunant organized local villagers to help victims of the Battle of Solferino, including the provision of first aid.

Her first complete novel, published in 1859, was Adam Bede and was an instant success, but it prompted an intense interest in who this new author might be.

In January 1606, during the first sitting of Parliament since the plot, the Observance of 5th November Act 1605 was passed, making services and sermons commemorating the event an annual feature of English life ; the act remained in force until 1859.

On August 28, 1859, George Bissell and Edwin L. Drake made the first successful use of a drilling rig on a well drilled especially to produce oil, at a site on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania.

* Carl Ritter ( 1779 – 1859 ), considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern geography and first chair in geography at the Humboldt University of Berlin, also noted for his use of organic analogy in his works.

Smith found that the 1826 letter by James Curtis cited by Dunn and others as the first known use of the term was actually written in 1846, and a 1827 diary entry by Sandford and Son ( published in a newspaper in 1859 ) was likely an editorial comment and not from the original diary.

This defense was first used by U. S. Congressman Daniel Sickles of New York in 1859 after he had killed his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key, but was most used during the 1940s and 1950s.

After finishing the 1859 – 1860 theatre season in Richmond, Virginia, Booth embarked on his first national tour as a leading actor.

In 1859 Marx published Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, his first serious economic work.

First published in 1859, it sold 10, 000 copies within the first week.

The first documented case is that of Marie-Angélique Duchemin ( 1772 – 1859 ), who fought in the Revolutionary Wars, received a military disability pension in 1798, the rank of 2nd lieutenant in 1822, and the Legion of Honor in 1852.

After he became regent in 1859, Prussia bought its first 312 steel cannon from Krupp, which became the main arms manufacturer for the Prussian military.

Harvard appointed him professor of zoology and geology, and he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology there in 1859 serving as the museum's first director until his death in 1873.

The northern provinces had remained loyal to the Emperor, and hoping to avoid a civil war, Sun Yat-Sen – already proclaimed " provisional president " by his supporters – had come to a compromise with the Emperor's key ally Yuan Shikai ( 1859 – 1916 ); the monarchy would be abolished, and Late Imperial China would be converted into a new Republic of China, but it would be the royalist Yuan and not the revolutionary Sun who would become its first President.

Upon his return to France in 1859, Degas moved into a Paris studio large enough to permit him to begin painting The Bellelli Family — an imposing canvas he intended for exhibition in the Salon, although it remained unfinished until 1867.

He followed it by painting At the Piano in 1859 in London, which he adopted as his home, while also regularly visiting friends in France.

* The Kiss ( Hayez painting ), an 1859 painting by Francesco Hayez

They went on to Düsseldorf, Germany, where they lived until 1859, taking part in the Düsseldorf school of painting.

Church unveiled the painting to an astonished public in New York City in 1859.

Image :' The Toll Gate ', oil on canvas painting by Cornelius Krieghoff, 1859, 17 x 24 in. jpg | The Toll Gate, oil on canvas painting by Cornelius Krieghoff, 1859

The French ship Bretagne ( 1855 ) | Bretagne, painting by Jules Achille Noël, 1859, at the National Maritime Museum

Shamil with his sons in Saint Petersburg, painting by Vasily Timm, 1859

The Death of King Arthur by James Archer ( artist ) | James Archer ( 1823 – 1904 ), who began painting Arthurian subjects in about 1859.

Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, N. Y. C., ( Circa | c. 1859 ) A romanticized Victorian era painting with historical inaccuracies: the sculpture is depicted in 1850's garb, and Native Americans, women and children are at the scene.

Six pieces of the lead statue are preserved in the New-York Historical Society ; one in the Museum of the City of New York as well as two in Connecticut ( estimated total of 260 / 270 pounds ); The event has been depicted over the years in several works of art, including an 1854 painting by William Walcutt, and a 1859 painting by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel.

In Caesar ( 1859 ) Gérôme tried to return to a more severe class of work, the painting of Classical subjects, but the picture failed to interest the public.

Octave Penguilly L ' Haridon's 1859 painting Les Petites mouettes (" Little Gulls ") ( 1858, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes ) depicts the island.

Baselitz attended the local school, in the assembly hall of which hangs a reproduction of the 1859 painting Wermsdorfer Wald by Louis-Ferdinand von Rayski, an artist who's grasp of realism was a formative influence.

A painting depicting Yusef Khan on his way to an encampment for the durbar ( court ) | durbar held at Fatehgarh, in 1859.

A second painting, Home Again, ( 1859 ) shows the troops returning to England.

Heade's interest in the tropics was piqued at least partly by the impact of Church's monumental painting Heart of the Andes ( 1859 ), now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

* A painting by Walter Osborne ( 1859 – 1903 ) of a cherry seller in Ulster also used the title.

As an historical and battle painter he rapidly became popular, and in 1859 was made professor of painting at the Düsseldorf Academy, together with other later distinctions.