1860

January–March

 * January 10 – The Pemberton Mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA, collapses, killing 146 workers.
 * January 13 – Spanish victory (under General Leopoldo O'Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetuanat) at the Battle of Tétouan, Morocco.
 * January 20 – Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour is recalled as Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia.
 * February 22 – Shoe-making workers of Lynn, Massachusetts, strike successfully for higher wages. The strike spreads throughout New England and eventually involves 20,000 workers.
 * February 26 – White settlers massacre a band of Wiyot Indians on Indian Island near Eureka, California. At least 60 women, children and elders are killed. Bret Harte, newspaper reporter in Arcata, reports the news to newspapers in San Francisco.
 * February 28 – The Artists Rifles is established, as the 38th Middlesex (Artists) Rifle Volunteer Corps, with headquarters at Burlington House in London.
 * March 6 – While campaigning for the presidency, Abraham Lincoln makes a speech defending the right to strike.
 * March 9 – The first Japanese embassy to the United States arrive in San Francisco.
 * March 17 – The First Taranaki War begins at Waitara, New Zealand when Māori refuse to sell land to British settlers.
 * March 22 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany is annexed to the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.
 * March 24 – Sakuradamon Incident: Rōnin samurai of the Mito Domain in Japan assassinate tairō (Chief Minister) Ii Naosuke outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle, dissafected with his role in the opening of Japan to foreign powers.
 * March–August – The second rout of the Jiangnan Daying destroys the Qing dynasty's army of 180,000.

April–June

 * April 2 – The first Italian Parliament meet at Turin.
 * April 3 – The Pony Express begins its first run from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California with riders carrying a small bible.
 * April 4 – A new uprising erupts in Palermo.
 * April 9 – French typesetter Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville sings the French folk song "Au clair de la lune" to his phonautograph; producing the world's earliest known sound recording (however, it is not rediscovered until 2008).
 * May 1 – A Chondrite-type meteorite falls to earth in Muskingum County, Ohio near the town of New Concord.
 * May 6 – Giuseppe Garibaldi and his troops depart from Quarto on the Expedition of the Thousand.
 * May 8 – In New Granada (modern-day Colombia) the southern state of Cauca secedes from the central government in protest at the suggestion of increase of presidential powers; Magdalena and Bolívar join it, civil war erupts.
 * May 9 – The U.S. Constitutional Union Party holds its convention and nominates John Bell for President of the United States.
 * May 15 – Battle of Calatafimi: Troops under Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat the army of Naples in Sicily, during the Expedition of the Thousand.
 * May 17 – The German association football club TSV 1860 München is founded.
 * May 18 – Abraham Lincoln is selected as the U.S. presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
 * May 27 – Garibaldi's forces take Palermo, the capital of Sicily.
 * May 28 – One of the worst storms ever experienced in the region hits the east coast of England, sinking more than 100 ships and killing at least 40 people.
 * 12 June 1860 – The State Bank of the Russian Empire is established.
 * June 30 – The historic debate about evolution is held at the Oxford University Museum.

July–September

 * July 2 – Vladivostok is founded in Russia.
 * July 9 – The Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses, the first nursing school based on the ideas of Florence Nightingale, is opened at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
 * July 11 – Mutsuhito (the future Emperor Meiji) becomes Crown Prince of Japan.
 * July 20 – Battle of Milazzo: The forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi defeat royal Neapolitan forces near Messina, bringing nearly all of Sicily under Garibaldi's control.
 * August 22 – Assisted by the British navy, the troops of Giuseppe Garibaldi cross from Sicily to the Italian mainland.
 * September 3–September 5 – The First International Chemistry Congress is held in Karlsruhe, Baden.
 * September 7
 * The PS Lady Elgin is accidentally rammed and sunk in Lake Michigan; hundreds drown.
 * Giuseppe Garibaldi's forces capture Naples.
 * September 10 – Piedmontese forces invade the Papal States, hoping to link up with Garibaldi in Naples.
 * September 18 – Battle of Castelfidardo: The Piedmontese decisively defeat the Papal forces, allowing them to continue their march into Neapolitan territory, and effectively reducing the Papal States to the territory around Rome.
 * September 24 – Battle of Guayaquil: Ecuadorian forces led by Juan José Flores and Gabriel García Moreno take the port of Guayaquil from Supreme Chief Guillermo Franco, who is backed by Peruvian forces.

October–December

 * October – John Hanning Speke and James Augustus Grant leave Zanzibar to search for the source of the Nile River.
 * October 1 – Battle of Volturnus: Garibaldi defeats the last organized army of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
 * October 5 – Austria, Britain, France, Prussia and the Ottoman Empire form a commission to investigate the causes of the massacres of Maronite Christians, committed by Druzes in Lebanon earlier in the year.
 * October 17 – The Open Championship, also known as the British Open, is played for the first time at Prestwick Golf Club in Ayrshire, Scotland. The event is won by Willie Park Sr
 * October 18 – The first Convention of Peking formally ends the Second Opium War.
 * October 18–21 – Beijing's Old Summer Palace is burned to the ground by orders of British general Lord Elgin in retaliation for mistreatment of several prisoners of war during the Second Opium War.
 * October 19 – A new Māori revolt begins in New Zealand.
 * October 26
 * Garibaldi again defeats the Neapolitan forces, advancing on Gaeta, the last remaining Neapolitan strong-point.
 * Meeting at Teano: Giuseppe Garibaldi gives Naples to the king Victor Emmanuel II, recognizing him as King of Italy.
 * November 3 – The combined forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi and King Victor Emmanuel II besiege King Francis II of the Two Sicilies in Gaeta, his last remaining stronghold.
 * November 6 – U.S. presidential election: Abraham Lincoln beats John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell and is elected as the 16th President of the United States, the first Republican to hold that office.
 * December 1 – Charles Dickens publishes the first installment of Great Expectations in his magazine All the Year Round.
 * December 7 – After a fiercely contested campaign, Monier Monier-Williams is elected as the new Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University.
 * December 20 – South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the United States Union.
 * December 26 – first Rules derby between Sheffield F.C. and Hallam F.C., the oldest football fixture in the world.
 * December 29 – The world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled and armoured battleship, the (British) HMS Warrior, is launched.

Date unknown

 * Christians and Druzes clash in Damascus, Syria.
 * In Buenos Aires, leader Bartolomé Mitre subverts the Argentine Confederation and begins to establish a new centralist government with the help of Uruguayan Colorado party leader Venancio Flores.
 * China agrees in an unequal treaty imposed on it to allow missionaries to proselytize throughout the country.
 * Discovery of the chemical elements: Robert Bunsen discovers caesium and rubidium.
 * German chemist Albert Niemann makes a detailed analysis of the coca leaf, isolating and purifying the alkaloid which he calls cocaine.
 * Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, and Empress Eugénie visit Algiers and stay at the Casbah of Algiers.
 * Augustana College is founded in Chicago, United States by Scandinavian immigrants.
 * Britain produces 20% of the entire world's output of industrial goods.
 * The Russian Empire has c. 1250 mi of railroads.
 * The American South has c. 4 million slaves.
 * 1860–1900 – 14 million immigrants come to the USA.

January–June

 * January 3 – Kato Takaaki, 24th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1926)
 * January 8 – Emma Booth, the fourth child of William and Catherine Booth (d. 1903)
 * January 25 – Charles Curtis, 31st Vice President of the United States (d. 1936)
 * January 29
 * William Jacob Baer, American painter (d. 1941)
 * Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (d. 1904)
 * February 11 – Rachilde, French author (d. 1953)
 * February 14 – Eugen Schiffer, German politician (d. 1954)
 * February 18 – Anders Zorn, Swiss artist (d. 1920)
 * February 25 – Sir William Ashley, economic historian (d. 1927)
 * February 28 – Carl Georg Barth, American mathematician and mechanical engineer (d. 1939)
 * February 29 – Herman Hollerith, American businessman and inventor (d. 1929)
 * March 2 – Susanna M. Salter, first woman mayor in the United States (d. 1961)
 * March 5 – Sam Thompson, baseball player (d. 1922)
 * March 13 – Hugo Wolf, Austrian composer (d. 1903)
 * March 19 – William Jennings Bryan, American politician (d. 1925)
 * March 22 – Alfred Ploetz, German physician, biologist, and eugenicist (d. 1940)
 * March 27 – Frank Frost Abbott, American classical scholar (d. 1924)
 * April 7 – Will Keith Kellogg, American industrialist, founder of the Kellogg Company (d. 1951)
 * May 2 – Theodor Herzl, founder of modern political Zionism (d. 1904)
 * May 7 – Tom Norman, English freak showman (d. 1930)
 * May 9 – J. M. Barrie, Scottish author (d. 1937)
 * May 15 – Ellen Axson Wilson, First Lady of the United States (d. 1914)
 * May 16 – Herman Webster Mudgett, American serial killer (d. 1896)
 * May 20 – Eduard Buchner, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1917)
 * May 21 – Willem Einthoven, Dutch inventor, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
 * May 25 – James McKeen Cattell, American psychologist (d. 1944)
 * May 29 – Isaac Albéniz, Spanish composer (d. 1909)
 * June 20 – Jack Worrall, Australian cricketer, footballer, and coach (d. 1937)
 * June 22 – Tom O'Brien, American 19th century baseball player (d. 1921)
 * June 23 – Albert Giraud, Belgian poet (d. 1929)

July–December

 * July 3 – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, American feminist (d. 1935)
 * July 7 – Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer (d. 1911)
 * July 16 – Otto Jespersen, Danish linguist, creator of Ido and Novial languages (d.1943)
 * July 19 – Lizzie Borden, American murder suspect (d. 1927)
 * July 31 – Sir George Warrender, 7th Baronet, British admiral (d. 1917)
 * August 3 – W. K. Dickson, Scottish inventor (d. 1935)
 * August 7 – Alan Leo, British astrologer (d. 1917)
 * August 10 – Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, Indian musician (d. 1936)
 * August 16 – Jules Laforgue, French poet (d. 1887)
 * August 13 – Annie Oakley, American west show performer (d. 1926)
 * August 15
 * Henrietta Vinton Davis, American elocutionist, dramatist, and impersonator (d. 1941)
 * Florence Harding, First Lady of the United States (d. 1924)
 * August 20 – Raymond Poincaré, French president (d. 1934)
 * September 5 – Andrew Volstead, American politician (d. 1947)
 * September 6 – Jane Addams, American social worker, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1935)
 * September 7 – Anna Mary Robertson Moses aka Grandma Moses, painter & centoginerean (d. 1961)
 * September 13 – John J. Pershing, American general (d. 1948)
 * September 15 – Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya, Indian engineer and statesman (d. 1962)
 * October 31 – Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts (d. 1927)
 * November 1 – Boies Penrose, United States Senator from Pennsylvania (d. 1921)
 * November 6 – Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Polish pianist and composer (d. 1941)
 * November 16 – John Henry Kirby, Texas legislator and American businessman (d. 1940)
 * November 23 – Hjalmar Branting, Prime Minister of Sweden, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1925)
 * December 4 – Charles de Broqueville, Belgian Prime Minister (d. 1940)
 * December 7 – Joseph Cook, sixth Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1947)
 * December 15
 * Niels Ryberg Finsen, Danish physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1904)
 * Abner Powell, Major league baseball player (d. 1953)
 * December 25 – Manuel Dimech, Maltese philosopher and social reformer (d. 1921)
 * December 31
 * Joseph S. Cullinan, American oil industrialist, founder of Texaco (d. 1937)
 * John T. Thompson, United States Army officer and inventor of the Thompson gun (d. 1940)

Date unknown

 * Lancelot Speed, British illustrator and silent film director (d. 1931)

January–June

 * January 1 – Thomas Hobbes Scott, English clergyman (b. 1783)
 * January 5 – John Neumann, Saint and Roman Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia (b. 1811)
 * January 10 – Ezequiel Zamora, leader of the Federalist Army in Venezuela (b. 1817)
 * January 13 – William Mason, American politician (b. 1786)
 * January 27
 * János Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician (b. 1802)
 * Thomas Brisbane, Scottish astronomer (b. 1773)
 * January 29 –
 * Ernst Moritz Arndt, German writer and poet (b. 1769)
 * Stéphanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden (b. 1789)
 * February 29 – George Bridgetower, Afro-Polish violinist (b. 1778)
 * March 6 – Justus Johann Friedrich Dotzauer, German cellist and composer (b. 1783)
 * March 14 – Carl Ritter von Ghega, Venetian road engineer of Albanian origine (b. 1802)
 * March 17 – Anna Jameson, British author
 * March 25 – James Braid, Scottish surgeon (b. 1795)
 * May 10 – Theodore Parker, American preacher, Transcendentalist, and abolitionist (b. 1810)
 * May 12 – Sir Charles Barry, English architect (b. 1795)
 * May 16 – Anne Isabella Milbanke, wife of Lord Byron (b. 1792)
 * May 21 – Phineas Gage, improbable head injury survivor (b. 1823)
 * June 30 – Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert, German naturalist (b. 1780)

July–December

 * July 1 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor (b. 1800)
 * September 12 – William Walker, American filibuster who was briefly President of Nicaragua (executed)
 * September 21 – Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (b. 1788)
 * October 12 – Sir Harry Smith, English soldier and military commander (b. 1787)
 * October 22 – Wanda Malecka, Polish publisher (b. 1800)
 * October 31 – Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, British admiral (b. 1775)
 * November 1 – Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia), the Empress Consort of Russian Emperor Nicholas I (b. 1798)
 * December 14 – George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)

Date unknown

 * Dai Xi, Chinese painter (b. 1801)

Music
Singles


 * 1) Au clair de la lune Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
 * 2) Au clair de la lune Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
 * 3) Gamme de la voix Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
 * 4) Aminta Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville
 * 5) Othello Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville