Year 1853 (MDCCCLIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Thursday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1853

January - June

• January 8 - Taiping Rebellion: Zeng Guofan is ordered to assist the governor of Hunan in organising a militia force to search for local bandits.
• January 12 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping army occupies Wuchang.
• January 19 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera Il Trovatore premieres in performance at Teatro Apollo in Rome.
• February 10 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces at Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang for march of Nanjing.
• February 12 - Puerto Montt is founded in the Reloncaví Sound, Chile.
• February 22 - Washington University is founded as Eliot Seminary
• May - Beginning of an outbreak of yellow fever that kills 7,790 in New Orleans.
• March 4 - Inauguration of US president Franklin Pierce
• March 20 - Taiping Rebellion: Rebel army of around 750,000 seizes Nanjing, killing 30,000 Imperial troops.
• May 23 - The first plat for Seattle, Washington is laid out.
• June 27 - Taiping Rebellion: Northern Expeditionary Force crosses the Yellow River.

July - December

• July 8 - U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Edo Bay with a request for a trade treaty
• July 25 Outlaw and bandit Joaquin Murietta is killed.
• August 12 – New Zealand acquires self-government
• August 23 - 1st true International Meteorological Organization Brussels, Belgium
• August 24 - Potato chips first prepared.
• September 19 - Hudson Taylor first left for China.

The Battle of Sinop was the last major naval battle involving sailing warships.

• October 4/October 5 - Crimean War: The Ottoman Empire declares war on Russia.
• October 28 - Crimean War: Ottoman army crosses the Danube into Vidin / Kalafat in Wallachia.
• October 30 - Taiping Rebellion: Taiping Northern Expeditionary Force comes within three miles of Tianjin.
• November 3 - Troops of William Walker capture La Paz in Baja California and declare (short-lived) Republic of Lower California
• November 15 - Maria II of Portugal is succeeded by her son Pedro
• November 30 - Crimean War: Battle of Sinop - The Russian fleet destroys the Turkish fleet.
• December 6 - Taiping Rebellion: French minister de Bourboulon arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the Cassini.
• December 30 - Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest

Undated

• Royal Norwegian Navy Museum founded.
• Alexander Wood invents the hypodermic syringe
• Donald McKay builds the Great Republic, the world's biggest sailing ship, which at 4,500 tons was too large to be successful
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel began work on the Great Eastern passenger steamer
• Independent Santa Cruz Maya of Eastern Yucatan recognized as an independent nation by British Empire
• Iesada succeeds Ieoshi as Japanese Shogun
• Beginning of the Late Tokugawa shogunate, the last part of the Edo period in Japan.
• Stephen Foster writes "My Old Kentucky Home."
• The University of Florida is established
• Swiss watch company Tissot is founded.
• Wheaton Academy founded in West Chicago, Illinois

Ongoing events

• Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

• January 28 - José Martí, Cuban revolutionary (d. 1895)
• February 6 - Ignacij Klemenčič, Slovenian physicist (d. 1901)
• March 14 - Ferdinand Hodler, Swiss painter (d. 1918)
• March 30 - Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (d. 1890)
• May 28 - Carl Larsson, Swedish painter (d. 1919)
• June 3 - William Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist (d. 1942)
• June 12 - Chester Adgate Congdon, Minnesota mining magnate (d. 1916)
• July 5 - Cecil Rhodes, English businessman (d. 1902)
• July 18 - Hendrik Lorentz, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)
• September 2 - Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1932)
• September 16 - Albrecht Kossel, German physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1927)
• September 20 - Chulalongkorn, Rama V, king of Thailand (d. 1910)
• September 21 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1926)
• December 6 - Haraprasad Shastri, Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature (d. 1931)

Deaths

• January 16 - Matteo Carcassi, Italian composer (b. 1792)
• February 6 - Anastasio Bustamante, Mexican President
• March 17 - Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician (b. 1803)
• April 18 - William R. King, 13th Vice President of the United States (b.1786)
• April 28 - Ludwig Tieck, German writer (b. 1773)
• June 8 - Richard William Howard Vyse (b. 1784)
• July 27 - Tokugawa Ieyoshi, Japanese shogun (b.1793)
• August 19 - George Cockburn, British Naval commander (b.1772)
• August 23 - Alexander Calder, first mayor of Beaumont, Texas (b. 1806)
• September 3 - Augustin Saint-Hilaire, French botanist and traveller (b.1799)
• November 15 - Maria II of Portugal (b. 1819)

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