1860s

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 victory of the Union and subsequent abolition of slavery would contribute to the decline of the global slave trade.

In Europe, the formation of the union of Austria-Hungary in 1867 and the ongoing campaign to unify Italy by Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont would affect the European balance of power.

In Asia, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 would begin the process of transforming Japan into a global imperial power.

The Qing Dynasty of China would experience decline following its defeat to the British in 1860 in the Second Opium War.

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 .
Emperor Maximilian being executed (1867), marking the end of the Second Mexican Empire
American Civil War : Battle of Antietam by Thure de Thulstrup
Political map of the world in 1860
Alfred Nobel invents dynamite in Sweden, patenting it in 1867
The signing of the First Geneva Convention by some of the major European powers in 1864
T. H. Huxley 's famous debate in 1860 with Samuel Wilberforce was a key moment in the wider acceptance of Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution