1852

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
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.