Title: 1852 Content: Year 1852 (MDCCCLII) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. It was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar. == Events == right|thumb|The world in 1852 === January-March === * January 14 - President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte makes a new constitution for the French Second Republic. * January 15 - Nine men from various Hebrew charitable organizations come together to form what will become the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. * January 17 - The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Transvaal. * February 3 - Battle of Caseros or Battle of Monte Caseros, Argentina * February 11 - The first British public toilet for women opens in Bedford Street, London. * February 15 - The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient. * February 16 - The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company is started. * February 19 - The Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. * February 25 - The HMS Birkenhead sinks near Cape Town, South Africa. Only 193 of the 643 on board survive. * March 1 - Archibald William Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton is made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. * March 2 - The first American steam fire engine was tested. * March 4 - Phi Mu Sorority is founded in Macon Georgia * March 20 - Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published. === April-June === * April 1 - The Second Burmese War begins. * April 18 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces begin the siege of Guilin. * May 19 - Taiping Rebellion: The siege of Guilin is lifted. * June 12 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces enter Hunan. === July-September === * July 1 - United States statesman Henry Clay is the first to have the honor of lying in state in the United States Capitol rotunda. * July 4 - Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" in Rochester, New York. * July 28 - Henry Clay steamboat disaster in Riverdale, Bronx, with several deaths including Stephen Allen. * August 3 - The first Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, the first American intercollegiate athletic event, is held. * September 24 - French engineer Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip from Paris to Trappes. === October-December === * November 2 - U.S. presidential election, 1852: Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeats Whig Winfield Scott of Virginia. * November 4 - Count Cavour becomes the Piedmontese prime minister. * November 11 - The new Palace of Westminster opens in Britain. * November 21-November 22 - The New French Empire is confirmed * December 2 - Napoleon III becomes Emperor of the French. * December 23 - Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hanyang and begins the siege of Wuchang. * December 29 - Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hankou. === Date unknown === * Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary, makes the first translation of the Bible in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. * The Devil's Island penal colony opens. * In Hawaii sugar planters bring over the first Chinese laborers on 3 or 5 year contracts. * Loyola College is chartered in Baltimore, Maryland. * Germans are encouraged to move to Chile * Gef's supposed birth * Antioch College is started. Its first president is Horace Mann. * Mills College is started. * Leo Tolstoy's first novel, Childhood, is published in book form. == Births == === January-June === * January 8 - James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, leader, historian, and writer (d. 1931) * January 11 - Konstantin Fehrenbach, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1926) * February 16 - Charles Taze Russell (Pastor Russell), prominent Protestant reformer and evangelist (d. 1916) * March 1 - Théophile Delcassé, French statesman (d. 1923) * April 1 - Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter (d. 1911) * April 13 - F.W. Woolworth, American merchant and businessman (d. 1919) * April 22 - Guillaume IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1912) * May 1 - Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1934) * May 4 - Alice Pleasance Liddell, inspiration for the children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (d. 1934) * May 31 - Julius Richard Petri, German scientist (d. 1921) * June 25 - Antoni Gaudi, Spanish modernist architect (d. 1926) === July-December === * July 12 - Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina (d. 1933) * August 23 - Clímaco Calderón, President of Colombia (d. 1913) * August 30 - Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1911) * September 10 - Hans Niels Andersen, Danish businessman, founder of the East Asiatic Company (d. 1937) * September 12 - Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1928) * September 15 - Edward Bouchet, American physicist (d. 1918) * September 28 ** John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, British general, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I (d. 1925) ** Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1907) * September 30 - Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer, resident in England (d. 1924) * October 2 - William Ramsay, Scottish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1916) * October 9 - Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919) * November 1 - Eugene W. Chafin, American politician (d. 1920) * November 3 - Prince Mutsuhito of Japan, the future Emperor Meiji (d. 1912) * November 11 - Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austro-Hungarian field marshal (d. 1925) * November 22 - Paul-Henri-Benjamin d'Estournelles de Constant, French diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924) * November 26 - Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, the 16th and 22nd Prime Minister of Japan, an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy * December 15 - Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908) * December 19 - Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931) * December 21 - George Callaghan, British admiral (d. 1920) == Deaths == === January-June === * January 1 - John George Children, British chemist, mineralogist and zoologist (b. 1777) * January 6 - Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind and inventor of braille (b. 1809) * May 3 - Sara Coleridge, English writer and translator (b. 1802) * March 4 - Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (b. 1809) * April 17 - Étienne Maurice Gérard, Marshal of France and Prime Minister of France (b. 1773) * June 7 - José Joaquín Estudillo, second alcalde of Yerba Buena (b. 1800) * June 29 - Henry Clay, American statesman (b. 1777) === July-December === * July 20 - José Antonio Estudillo, early California settler (b. 1805) * July 22 - Auguste Marmont, French marshal (b. 1774) * September 4 - William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist (b. 1796) * September 14 ** Augustus Pugin, English architect (b. 1812) ** Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, British general and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1769) * September 20 - Philander Chase, American founder of Kenyon College (b. 1775) * October 13 - John Lloyd Stephens, American traveler, diplomat and Mayanist archaeologist (b. 1805) * October 24 - Daniel Webster, American statesman (b. 1782) * October 25 - John C. Clark, American politician (b. 1793) * October 26 - Vincenzo Gioberti, Italian philosopher (b. 1801) * November 2 - Pyotr Kotlyarevsky, Russian military hero (b. 1782) * November 27 - Augusta Ada King (née Byron), Countess of Lovelace, early English computer pioneer (b. 1815) * November 29 - Nicolae Bălcescu, Wallachian revolutionary (b. 1819) * November 30 - Junius Brutus Booth, English-born actor (b. 1796) * December 16 - Andries Hendrik Potgieter, Voortrekker leader (b. 1792)