A revolution in Paris in February removes Louis-Philippe and introduces France's second republic

An uprising in Vienna leads to the resignation, on the following day, of the long-serving chancellor Klemens von Metternich

Another uprising in Vienna causes the emperor Ferdinand I to flee for safety to Innsbruck

Martial law is imposed in Prague after a demonstration by radical Czech students following a Pan-Slav congress

Suppression of unrest in Hungary provokes a third violent uprising in Vienna and another flight by Ferdinand I, this time to Olomouc

An uprising in Rome causes Pope Pius IX to flee for safety to a coastal fortress at Gaeta

A new Roman republic is proclaimed, with veteran agitator Giuseppe Mazzini in the leading role

Nationalist leader Lajos Kossuth announces the independence of Hungary and the deposition of the Habsburg dynasty

Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky undergoes a mock execution, after being sentenced to death for revolutionary activities against tsar Nicholas I

Fyodor Dostoevsky begins four years of hard labour in Siberia for revolutionary activities

A rebellion against the Qing dynasty, led by Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, breaks out in southern China

The Taiping rebels capture the Chinese city of Nanjing and make it their capital

Australian gold diggers, angered by the requirement to purchase a licence, make a defiant stand at the Eureka stockade

Abolitionist John Brown presides over the lynching of five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie in Kansas

Animal fat on a new issue of cartridges sparks off the Indian Mutiny, also know as the First War of Indian Independence

After being besieged for five months in Lucknow, the remnants of the British garrison finally escape

John O'Mahony, an Irish emigrant to the USA, founds the Fenian Brotherhood as a secret organization supporting the Irish republican cause

Lucknow is retaken by the British, nearly a year after it fell to the rebels

The end of the Indian Mutiny is followed by brutal British retaliation

An Irish branch of the US Fenians is established as the Irish Republican Brotherhood

John Brown is captured leading a group of abolitionists to seize arms from the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry

Abolitionst John Brown is convicted of treason at Harper's Ferry and is hanged

Garibaldi lands at Marsala in Sicily in May with his thousand Redshirts, and wins control of the island for the king in waiting, Victor Emmanuel II

Garibaldi crosses from Sicily to the mainland and by September is in Naples

South Carolina becomes the first southern state to secede from the Union in response to Lincoln's election