1866 is a common year starting on Monday.

Events

• January 6 – Ottoman troops clash with men of a Maronite leader Karam in St. Doumit in Lebanon - Turks are defeated
• January 12 - Royal Aeronautical Society is formed (London)
• January 28 - 800 Maronite troops clash with Ottoman troops in Karem Saddah, modern-day Lebanon - more battles between nationalist Maronites and Ottoman army follow
• February 13 - Jesse James robs his first bank
• May - Student Choen Blind fails to assassinate Otto von Bismarck in Unter den Linden in Berlin
• May 16 - The United States Congress eliminates the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.
• May 16 - Charles Elmer Hires invents root beer.
• May 24 - Battle of Tuyuti - 32.000 soldiers of the Triple Alliance defeat 24.000 Paraguayan soldiers few miles north of the Parana - 18.000 dead
• June 14 - Beginning of the Austro-Prussian War, when the Austrians and most of the medium German states declare war on Prussia.
• June 8 - The Canadian Parliament meets for the first time in Ottawa.
• July 3 - Austro-Prussian War decided at the Battle of Königgratz, resulting in Prussia taking over as the prominent German nation from Austria.
• July 5 - Marriage of Princess Helena of the United Kingdom, third daughter of Queen Victoria to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg
• July 20 - Naval battle at Lissa between Austria Hungary and Italy.
• July 24 - Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.
• July 25 - The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the rank of General of the Army (now called "5-star general") Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to have this rank.
• July 27 - The Atlantic Cable is successfully completed, allowing transatlantic telegraph communication for the first time.
• July 28 - The Metric Act of 1866 becomes law and legalizes the standardization of weights and measures in the United States.
• August 23 - Treaty of Prague ends the Austro-Prussian War
• September 22 - Paraguay sucessfully defends Curupaity against the Triple Alliance, scoring more than 5000 with just about 50 casualties.

• Federalist revolts in Argentina
• In Sweden the Riksdag of the Estates is replaced by an elected two chamber assembly, the Riksdag.
• Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
• First historical mention of gerbils, "yellow rats" sent to Museum of Natural History (Musée d'Histoire Naturelle) in Paris, by father Armand David from northern China

Births

• January 13 - Vasily Kalinnikov, composer
• January 29 - Romain Rolland, dramatist, winner of Nobel Prize in Literature in 1915 (+ 1944)
• April 1 - Ferruccio Busoni, pianist and composer (+ 1924)
• April 6 - Butch Cassidy, outlaw (+ 1909)
• May 17- Erik Satie, French composer
• July 28 - Beatrix Potter, Children's author
• September 1 - James J. Corbett, heavyweight boxing champion (d. 1933)
• September 7 - Tristan Bernard, writer
• September 21 - H. G. Wells, science fiction novelist
• Thomas Hunt Morgan, biologist
• Sun Yat-sen, Chinese Revolutionary
• Robert Broom, paleontologist
• La Goulue, Cancan dancer (d. 1929)

Deaths

• January 31 - Friedrich Rückert, German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages (* 1788)
• November 26 - Jean-Jacques Willmar, luxembourgish politician (* 1792)
• Bernhard Riemann, Mathematician
• Rikard Nordraak, Norwegian composer
• January - Thomas Baldwin Marsh - early leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

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