page_title: 1860s
hierarchical_section_title: 1860s
caption_attribution_description: English: A montage of notable events in the 1860s
context_page_description: The 1860s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1860, and ended on December 31, 1869.
  The Americas in particular saw major societal developments. The abolition of Slavery in the United States led to the breakdown of the Atlantic slave trade, which was already suffering from the abolition of slavery in most of Europe in the late 1820s and 1830s. In the United States, civil war between the Confederate States of America and the Union states led to massive deaths and the destruction of cities such as Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; and Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman's March to the Sea was one of the first times America experienced total war, and advancements in military technology, such as iron and steel warships, and the development and initial deployment of early machine guns added to the destruction. After the American Civil War, turmoil continued in the Reconstruction era, with the rise of white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the issue of granting Civil Rights to Freedmen.
context_section_description: The 1860s (pronounced "eighteen-sixties") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1860, and ended on December 31, 1869.
  The Americas in particular saw major societal developments. The abolition of Slavery in the United States led to the breakdown of the Atlantic slave trade, which was already suffering from the abolition of slavery in most of Europe in the late 1820s and 1830s. In the United States, civil war between the Confederate States of America and the Union states led to massive deaths and the destruction of cities such as Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; and Atlanta, Georgia. Sherman's March to the Sea was one of the first times America experienced total war, and advancements in military technology, such as iron and steel warships, and the development and initial deployment of early machine guns added to the destruction. After the American Civil War, turmoil continued in the Reconstruction era, with the rise of white supremacist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the issue of granting Civil Rights to Freedmen.
caption: From top left, clockwise: Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell formulates the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, bringing together for the first time electricity, magnetism, and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon; the Meiji Restoration leads to enormous changes in Japan's political and social structure; the International Workingmen's Association is formed in 1864, aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing  socialist, communist and anarchist groups; the Battle of Avay, fought in 1868 during the Paraguayan War, the bloodiest inter-state war in Latin America's history; execution in 1867 of Maximilian I of Mexico, ruler of the Second Mexican Empire, established during the Second French intervention in Mexico; the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point of the American Civil War, fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North (the Union) and the South (the Confederacy) as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people; the Suez Canal is inaugurated in 1869; Victor Emmanuel meets Garibaldi near Teano in 1860, at the end of the Expedition of the Thousand.
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