1852 followed by 1853
October–December
October 7 – After learning that U.S. President Fillmore has sent Commodore Matthew C. Perry to open trade with Japan, Nicholas I of Russia sends Rear Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin to lead the Pallada on a similar mission (Putyatin arrives on August 21, 1853, one month after Perry).
October 16 – After nearly five years' imprisonment in France, former Algerian Emir Abdelkader El Djezairi is released by orders of then-president Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.
October 23 – The conjecture of the four color theorem is first proposed, as student Francis Guthrie of University College London presents the question of proving, mathematically, that no more than four colors are needed to give separate colors to bordering shapes on a map (the theorem is not proven for almost 123 years, until 1976).
October 31 – General Joaquin Solares of Guatemala leads an invasion of neighboring Honduras, beginning a war that lasts until February 13, 1856.
November – Leo Tolstoy's debut novel Childhood is published under the initials L. N., in this month's issue of the Saint Petersburg literary journal Sovremennik (and later in book form).
November 2 – 1852 United States presidential election: Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeats Whig Winfield Scott of Virginia.
November 4 – Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour becomes the Piedmontese prime minister.
November 11 – The new Palace of Westminster opens in London as the home of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
November 21–22 – The New French Empire is confirmed by plebiscite: 7,824,000 for, 253,000 against.
November 23 – The first roadside pillar boxes in the British Isles are brought into public use in Saint Helier, on Jersey in the Channel Islands, at the suggestion of English novelist Anthony Trollope, at this time an official of the British General Post Office.
November 26 – A magnitude 7.5 to 8.8 earthquake strikes near the Banda Islands, Dutch East Indies, triggering a deadly tsunami.
December – The Western Railroad is chartered to build a railroad from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to the coal fields of Egypt, North Carolina.
December 2 – Napoleon III becomes Emperor of the French.
December 4 – The French capture Laghouat.
December 23 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hanyang and begins the siege of Wuchang.
December 29 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hankou.