- — South America:
End of the long war
The Guerra Grande ends without outright victory, leaving Uruguay exhausted but independent and its two-party rivalry entrenched.
Era: Blancos, Colorados, and the Guerra Grande
Sources: Uruguay: The struggle for national identity · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — South America:
Battle of Caseros
Justo Jose de Urquiza defeats Rosas at Caseros, opening the way to the constitutional organisation of the country.
Era: Civil Wars, Unification and the Liberal Republic
Sources: Justo Jose de Urquiza · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Argentina · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — Africa:
Boer attack on the Bakwena
Transvaal Boers attack Sechele's Bakwena and sack Livingstone's Kolobeng mission, part of mounting pressure from the Transvaal on Tswana land.
Era: Missionaries, Boers and Mounting Pressure
Sources: History of Botswana · Wikipedia
- — Asia:
Second Anglo-Burmese War
British forces annex Lower Burma, including the Irrawaddy delta and the province renamed Pegu, tightening control of the coastline.
Era: The Anglo-Burmese Wars and British Rule
Sources: Anglo-Burmese Wars · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — North America:
William Walker's filibuster
Hired by León's Liberals, the American filibuster William Walker seizes Granada and makes himself president of Nicaragua in 1856 before a coalition of Central American states expels him.
Era: Independence, Rivalry, and the Filibuster
Sources: William Walker · Encyclopædia Britannica, Territorial Expansion, Filibustering, and U.S. Interest in Central America · U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian
- — North America:
National War against William Walker
Costa Rica joins Central America in defeating the American filibuster William Walker; the soldier Juan Santamaria becomes a national hero.
Era: Independence and a Coffee Republic
Sources: William Walker · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Juan Santamaria · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — Europe:
Southern Bessarabia briefly returned
The Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War returned the southern strip of Bessarabia to Moldavia; Russia recovered it in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin, underlining the province's status as a contested borderland.
Era: Russian Bessarabia
Sources: Bessarabia · Encyclopaedia Britannica, Moldova: History · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — Africa:
Senekal's War with the Orange Free State
Conflict erupts with the Boers of the Orange Free State over land in the western lowlands, the first of the Free State–Basotho Wars.
Era: Moshoeshoe and the Birth of the Basotho
Sources: Lesotho: The Sotho kingdom (1824–69) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, History of Lesotho · Wikipedia
- — Asia:
French attack on Da Nang
A French and Spanish naval force assaults Da Nang, beginning the military conquest that would bring Vietnam under colonial rule.
Era: The Nguyen Dynasty and Expansion South
Sources: Vietnam: A Country Study · U.S. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Vietnam · Encyclopaedia Britannica
- — South America:
The Federal War
A devastating civil war between Liberal federalists and Conservative centralists ravages the country and ends with the Treaty of Coche and a federal constitution.
Era: Caudillos, the Federal War and the Rise of Oil
Sources: Federal War (Venezuela, 1859-1863) · Encyclopedia.com (Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture), Venezuela · Encyclopaedia Britannica
War & Rupture in the 1850s
Every event in the Terralore archive tagged war and rupture — wars, invasions, conquests, battles and armed conflict, narrowed to the 1850s — 10 of them, drawn from 10 nations, running from 1851 to 1859. Each entry keeps the sources it was verified against and links back to the chronicle it came from.
- Events
- 10
- Nations
- 10
- Earliest
- 1851
- Latest
- 1859
- South America
- 3
- Africa
- 2
- Asia
- 2
- North America
- 2
- Europe
- 1
Every entry below is the same record, with the same sources, as the one on its nation’s chronicle.