Russia insists that her exclusive rights over the Holy Places are enshrined in the treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji

Louis Napoleon, asking the French people to approve his elevation to emperor as Napoleon III, receives a resounding yes in the plebiscite

London physician Peter Mark Roget publishes his dictionary of synonyms, the Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore is a success at its premiere in Rome

Just six weeks after the success of Il Trovatore, Giuseppe Verdi's opera La Traviata is a disaster at its premiere in Venice

In a worsening diplomatic crisis, Russia puts her Black Sea fleet in a state of alert at Sebastopol

Russia occupies two Ottoman principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia, on the west coast of the Black Sea

In the expectation of British and French support, the Ottoman sultan declares war on Russia - launching the Crimean War

The hypodermic syringe with a plunger is simultaneously developed in France and in Scotland

Robert Schumann throws himself into the Rhine, in an attempt to commit suicide, and spends the last two years of his life in an asylum

Austrian monk Gregor Mendel begins his study of pea plants in the garden of the Abbey of St Thomas in Brno

English physician John Snow proves that cholera is spread by infected water (from a pump in London's Broad Street)

Britain and France enter the war between Turkey and Russia, on the Turkish side

A London editor decides to send a reporter, William Howard Russell ('Russell of The Times'), to the Crimean front

British and French troops land at Sebastopol, to besiege the port, and win a limited victory over the Russians at the river Alma

Florence Nightingale, responding to reports of horrors in the Crimea, sets sail with a party of twenty-eight nurses

An inconclusive battle at Balaklava includes the Charge of the Light Brigade, with British cavalry recklessly led towards Russian guns

An inconclusive engagement at Inkerman means that the allies in the Crimea have to dig in for the winter besieging Sebastopol

Within six weeks of the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimea, Tennyson publishes a poem finding heroism in the disaster

Pope Pius IX issues a papal bull declaring that the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary is to be an article of faith for Catholics

Jamaican-born nurse Mary Seacole sets up her own 'British Hotel' in the Crimea to provide food and nursing for soldiers in need

Roger Fenton travels out from England to the Crimea – the world's first war photographer

Lord Palmerston heads the coalition government in Britain after Lord Aberdeen loses a vote of confidence on his conduct of the Crimean War

David Livingstone, moving down the Zambezi, comes upon the Victoria Falls

English artist William Simpson sends sketches from the Crimea which achieve rapid circulation in Britain as tinted lithographs