CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

1858

year

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ7684 ↗
Source-derived summary

1858 (MDCCCLVIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1858th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 858th year of the 2nd millennium, the 58th year of the 19th century, and the 9th year of the 1850s decade. As of the start of 1858, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

Events

January–March

January 9

Revolt of Rajab Ali: British forces finally defeat Rajab Ali Khan of Chittagong.

Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide.

January 14 – Orsini affair: Piedmontese revolutionary Felice Orsini and his accomplices fail to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris, but their bombs kill eight and wound 142 people. Because of the involvement of French émigrés living in Britain, there is a brief anti-British feeling in France, but the emperor refuses to support it.

January 25 – The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional, after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, to Prince Friedrich of Prussia in St James's Palace, London.

January

Benito Juárez becomes the Liberal President of Mexico and its first indigenous president. At the same time, the conservatives installed Félix María Zuloaga as a rival president.

Prince Wilhelm of Prussia becomes regent for his brother, King Frederick William IV, who has suffered a stroke.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1858” is year. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through year, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1858, 1923—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, year is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “year” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7684. The first chronological checks are 1858 and 1923.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1858”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1858 primary sources, 1858 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1858”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1858” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.