Events from the year 1855 in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Incumbents

Monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

–

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

Events

*1 March – Compagnie Générale des Omnibus established to secure a monopoly over horse-buses in Paris. *15 May–15 November – Exposition Universelle in Paris. This gives rise to the

Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 The Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 resulted from the 1855 Exposition Universelle de Paris, when Emperor Napoleon III requested a classification system for France's best Bordeaux wines that were to be on display for visitors from ...

. *16 August –

Battle of Chernaya River The Battle of the Chernaya (also Tchernaïa; Russian: Сражение у Черной речки, Сражение у реки Черной, literally: Battle of the Black River) was a battle by the Chyornaya River fought during the Crimea ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

n troops defeated by French and Sardinian forces in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

. *7 September –

Battle of Malakoff The Battle of Malakoff (french: Bataille de Malakoff, russian: Бой на Малаховом кургане) was a French attack against Russian forces on the Malakoff redoubt and its subsequent capture on 8 September 1855 as a part of the ...

, French victory over Russian forces, part of the siege of Sevastopol. *11 September – siege of Sevastopol ends in Franco-British victory. *17 October – Battle of Kinburn, combined British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

and

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

force engage

n forts on shore.

Undated

* ROAM (Réunion des Organismes d'Assurance Mutuelle) association is founded.

Births

*20 January –

Ernest Chausson Amédée-Ernest Chausson (; 20 January 1855 – 10 June 1899) was a French Romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish. Life Born in Paris into an affluent bourgeois family, Chausson was the sole surviving child of a ...

, composer (died

1899 Events January 1899 * January 1 ** Spanish rule ends in Cuba, concluding 400 years of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. ** Queens and Staten Island become administratively part of New York City. * January 2 – **Bolivia sets up a c ...

) *15 February –

Jean-Joseph Carriès Jean-Joseph Marie Carriès (15 February 1855 – 1 July 1894) was a French sculptor, ceramist, and miniaturist. His ceramic work is mostly in stoneware, and part of the French art pottery movement, and includes many faces and heads, often with ...

, sculptor,

ceramist Ceramic art is art made from ceramic materials, including clay. It may take forms including artistic pottery, including tableware, tiles, figurines and other sculpture. As one of the plastic arts, ceramic art is one of the visual arts. Whil ...

, and

miniaturist A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache, watercolor, or enamel. Portrait miniatures developed out of the techniques of the miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, and were popular among 16th-century eli ...

(died

1894 Events January–March * January 4 – A military alliance is established between the French Third Republic and the Russian Empire. * January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United S ...

) *18 February –

Jean Jules Jusserand Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand (18 February 1855 – 18 July 1932) was a French author and diplomat. He was the French Ambassador to the United States 1903-1925 and played a major diplomatic role during World War I. Birth and education ...

, author and diplomat (died

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

) *16 March –

Achille Maffre de Baugé Achille Maffre de Baugé (16 March 1855 – 1 July 1928) was an Occitan poet and writer, a native of Marseillan in the French ''département'' of l'Hérault. A friend of Nobel Prize winner Frédéric Mistral, he is best known for ''Dièzes et B ...

, poet (died

1928 Events January * January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly proving the existence of DNA. * January 1 – Eastern Bloc emigration and defection: Boris Bazhanov, J ...

) *27 April –

Caroline Rémy de Guebhard Caroline Rémy de Guebhard (27 April 1855 – 24 April 1929) was a French journalist with anarchist, socialist, communist and feminist views, best known under the pen name Séverine. Around 1880, Caroline Rémy became involved with Jules Vall� ...

, socialist, journalist and feminist (died

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

) *27 September –

Paul Émile Appell :''M. P. Appell is the same person: it stands for Monsieur Paul Appell''. Paul Émile Appell (27 September 1855, in Strasbourg – 24 October 1930, in Paris) was a French mathematician and Rector of the University of Paris. Appell polynomials and ...

, mathematician (died

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be ...

) *5 November –

Léon Teisserenc de Bort Léon Philippe Teisserenc de Bort (5 November 1855 in Paris, France – 2 January 1913 in Cannes, France) was a French meteorologist and a pioneer in the field of aerology. Together with Richard Assmann (1845-1918), he is credited as co-discovere ...

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

(died

1913 Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos (1913), Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not ven ...

) *10 November –

Alexandre Darracq Alexandre Darracq (10 November 1855 – 1931) was a French investor, engineer, cycle manufacturer and automobile manufacturer. By 1904, Darracq was producing more than ten percent of all automobiles in France and he sold a substantial part of h ...

, automobile manufacturer (died

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

)

Deaths

*15 January –

Henri Braconnot Henri Braconnot (29 May 1780 – 13 January 1855) was a French chemist and pharmacist. He was born in Commercy, his father being a counsel at the local parliament. At the death of his father, in 1787, Henri began his instruction in an elementa ...

, chemist and pharmacist (born

1780 Events January–March * January 16 – American Revolutionary War – Battle of Cape St. Vincent: British Admiral Sir George Rodney defeats a Spanish fleet. * February 19 – The legislature of New York votes to allow ...

) *26 January –

Gérard de Nerval Gérard de Nerval (; 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855) was the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, a major figure of French romanticism, best known for his novellas and poems, especially the collection ''Les Fil ...

, poet, essayist and translator (born

1808 Events January–March * January 1 ** The importation of slaves into the United States is banned, as the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves takes effect; African slaves continue to be imported into Cuba, and until the island ab ...

) *3 March **

Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure (; 27 February 17673 March 1855) was a French lawyer and statesman. He is best known as the first head of state of the Second Republic, after the collapse of the July Monarchy as a result of the French Revolut ...

, lawyer and Prime Minister (born

1767 Events January–March * January 1 – The first annual volume of ''The Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris'', produced by British Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, gives navigators the ...

) **

Antoine-Geneviève-Héraclius-Agénor de Gramont Antoine IX Geneviève Héraclius Agénor de Gramont (17 July 1789 – 3 March 1855), 9th Duke of Gramont, Duke of Guiche, Prince of Bidache, ''etc.'' was a 19th-century French aristocratic Army general and courtier. Life De Gramont was born at ...

, aristocrat (born

1789 Events January–March * January – Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès publishes the pamphlet ''What Is the Third Estate?'' ('), influential on the French Revolution. * January 7 – The 1788-89 United States presidential election a ...

) *26 May –

Jean Isidore Harispe Jean Isidore Harispe, 1st Comte Harispe (7 December 1768 – 26 May 1855) was a distinguished French soldier of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as of the following period. Harispe was created a Marshal of France in 1851. Early life ...

Marshal of France Marshal of France (french: Maréchal de France, plural ') is a French military distinction, rather than a military rank, that is awarded to generals for exceptional achievements. The title has been awarded since 1185, though briefly abolished (1 ...

(born

1768 Events January–March * January 9 – Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses, in London. * February 11 – Samuel Adams's circular letter is issued by the Massachusetts House of Rep ...

) *18 April –

Jean-Baptiste Isabey Jean-Baptiste Isabey (11 April 1767 – 18 April 1855) was a French Painting, painter born at Nancy, France, Nancy. He was a successful artist, both under the First French Empire, First Empire and to the diplomats of the Congress of Vienna. L ...

, painter (born

) *10 June –

Jacques-Jean Barre Jacques-Jean Barre (3 August 1793 in Paris-10 June 1855 in Paris) was the general engraver at the Monnaie de Paris between 1842 and 1855. In this position, he engraved and designed French medals, the Great Seal of France, bank notes and postage ...

, engraver (born

1793 The French Republic introduced the French Revolutionary Calendar starting with the year I. Events January–June * January 7 – The Ebel riot occurs in Sweden. * January 9 – Jean-Pierre Blanchard becomes the first to fl ...

) *23 October –

François André Michaux François André Michaux (16 August 1770 – 23 October 1855) was a French botanist, son of André Michaux and the namesake of Michaux State Forest in Pennsylvania. Michaux ''père'' botanized in North America for nearly a dozen years (178 ...

, botanist (born

1770 Events January– March * January 1 – The foundation of Fort George, Bombay is laid by Colonel Keating, principal engineer, on the site of the former Dongri Fort. * February 1 – Thomas Jefferson's home at Shadwell, Virgi ...

) *25 November –

Pierre-Justin-Marie Macquart Pierre-Justin-Marie Macquart (8 April 1778 – 25 November 1855) was a French entomologist specialising in the study of Diptera. He worked on world species as well as European and described many new species. Biography Early years Macquart was ...

, entomologist (born

1778 Events January–March * January 18 – Third voyage of James Cook: Captain James Cook, with ships HMS ''Resolution'' and HMS ''Discovery'', first views Oahu then Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, which he na ...

) *2 December –

Frédéric Berat Frédéric and Frédérick are the French language, French versions of the common male given name Frederick (given name), Frederick. They may refer to: In artistry: * Frédéric Back, Canadian award-winning animator * Frédéric Bartholdi, French ...

, poet and songwriter (born

1801 Events January–March * January 1 ** The legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland is completed under the Act of Union 1800, bringing about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the abolition of the Parliament of I ...

) *Full date unknown –

Raymond Gayrard Paul Joseph Raymond Gayrard (3 September 1807 – 1855) was a French sculptor born in Clermont-Ferrand, France. He studied at an early age under his sculptor/engraver father Raymond Gayrard, and was a student of François Rude as well as David ...

, sculptor (born

1807 Events January–March * January 7 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland issues an Order in Council prohibiting British ships from trading with France or its allies. * January 20 – The Sierra Leone Company, faced with b ...

)

The arts

Jean-François Millet Jean-François Millet (; 4 October 1814 – 20 January 1875) was a French artist and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his paintings of peasant farmers and can be categorized as part of the Realism ...

produces the engraving "Study of a Woman Churning Butter".

References

{{Year in Europe, 1855 1850s in France