The Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the brutal Crimean War between Russia and the allied powers of Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire.

Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, was born in Freiberg, Moravia, a thinker who would reshape how humanity understood the mind.

Abolitionist John Brown and his followers dragged five pro-slavery settlers from their homes in Kansas and killed them with broadswords in retaliation for attacks on free-state settlers.