1859 in France
Events from the year 1859 in France.
Incumbents
Events
- 26 March - Attempting to explain Mercury's solar orbit, mathematician Urbain Le Verrier has proposed the existence of a hypothetical planet, Vulcan, inside its orbit and amateur astronomer Edmond Modeste Lescarbault claims to have observed it on this date.
- 23 April - Austria issues an ultimatum seeking the complete de-militarization of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
- 29 April - Second Italian War of Independence begins, when Austrian ultimatum is ignored.
- 14 May - Napoleon III arrives in Alessandria, taking command of the operations.
- 20 May - Battle of Montebello, Piedmontese cavalry and French infantry defeat Austrian troops.
- 30 May - Battle of Palestro, French-Sardinian victory.
- 4 June - Battle of Magenta, French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III against the Austrians.
- 24 June - Battle of Solferino, French-Sardinian victory.
- 30 June - Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope for the first time.
- 12 July - Armistice of Villafranca ends the Second Italian War of Independence.
- 24 November - The French Navy's La Gloire, the first ocean-going ironclad warship in history, is launched.
Arts and literature
- 19 March - Charles Gounod's opera Faust is first performed, at the Théâtre Lyrique on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris.
- 30 April - English writer Charles Dickens' historical novel A Tale of Two Cities begins publication in London.
- 19 December - César Franck inaugurates the new organ at the basilia of Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, an instrument built by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll.
- Georges Bizet composes the opera buffa Don Procopio and symphonic poem Vasco de Gama while in Rome.
- Sculptor Aimé Millet receives the Légion d'honneur.
- Occitan language campaigner Frédéric Mistral publishes his long poem Mirèio in Avignon.
Births
- 15 May - Pierre Curie, physicist, shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics
- 3 July – Abel Julien Pagnard, French engineer and architect
- 7 August – Gustave Belot, professor and philosopher
- 3 September - Jean Jaurès, socialist and pacifist
- 9 October - Alfred Dreyfus, military officer
- 18 October - Henri Bergson, philosopher
- 2 December - Georges-Pierre Seurat, painter
- 17 December - Paul César Helleu, artist
Deaths
- 18 March - Jean Louis Lassaigne, chemist
- 16 April - Alexis de Tocqueville, political thinker and historian
- 5 July - Charles Cagniard de la Tour, engineer and physicist
- 23 July - Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, poet
- 7 November - Auguste Hilarion, comte de Kératry, poet, novelist, historian and politician
- 19 November - Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson, playwright and theatre director
- Full date unknown - Pierre Boitard, botanist and geologist