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Victoria is named Queen of Great Britain and Ireland.
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Oliver Twist is published
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Margaret Fuller helps found The Dial, an American Transcendentalist journal that publishes Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Queen Victoria marries her German cousin, Prince Albert.
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Britain signs treaty to make Hong Kong a British colony, Chinese call it the first of a series of “Unfair Treaties”
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William Wordsworth becomes poet laureate, which is a poet appointed for life by a British monarch as a member of the royal household.
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Charles Dickens publishes A Christmas Carol, which restored traditional holiday spirit.
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Massive immigration begins due to a Potato Famine in Ireland. Nearly one million die from disease and famine.
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Elizabeth Barrett writes poems during her courtship with Robert Browning. These poems include sonnets that were written during the couple’s elopement.
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Ten Hour Act is put into effect. This act limits the number of hours women and children can work.
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Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.They argue that increasing mistreatment of industrial workers will eventually lead to a rebellion in which Capitalism is overthrown.
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War breaks out with the Ottoman Empire, France, and Britain against Russia in the Crimean Peninsula, south of Ukraine. One cause being the French and Russian dispute over the Priveledges of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in the Middle East. Ottomans declare war on Russia on this date
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Russian fleet of warships destroy an Ottoman patrol in the Black Sea. This battle was considered to be a positve factor to Britain and France joining the Turks in the war.
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Allied troops (Turks, French, British) begin their yearlong siege of Russia's stronghold and fortress at Sevastopol
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During the Battle of Balaclava, British forces called the light calvary led a suicidal charge, killing and wounding 247 of the 637 men. Charge was memorialized in a poem entitled "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
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Sardinia-Piedmont joins France and Britain in the war against Russia and contributes 10,000 Troops
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The French lead a successful assault on the Russian stronghold. Russia is then forced to destroy forts, sink ships, and forced to evacuate.
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Russia came to preliminary peace terms after Austria threatens to join France and Britain against Russia.
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The two sides sign the Treaty of Paris to bring and end to the Crimean War. The Black Sea becomes neutralized. Awoke Russian Emperor Alexander II to the fact that Russia was technologically backwards and needed to modernize in order to keep up with the other World Powers.
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Lionel de Rothschild becomes the first Jewish man allowed to serve in Parliament.
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Sullivan wrote "Where the Bee Sucks" for Shakespeare's The Tempest .The music for this play was his graduation piece at the Leipzig Conservatorium.
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The US Civil War begins. Also in this year, the Russian serfs were emancipated and Prince Albert died of typhoid.
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The slaves are freed by Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.