1857

Events edit

March 3 - Britain and France declare war on China, beginning the Second Opium War.
March 4 - James Buchanan officially takes office as the 15th President of the United States, succeeding Franklin Pierce.
March 6 - In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the United States Supreme Court rules that African-Americans are not American citizens and do not have the same rights as white Americans.
May 1 - William Walker, the unrecognized President of Nicaragua, is forced out of the presidency by a coalition of Central American armies.
May 10 - The Indian Mutiny begins when Indian soldiers in the British Army revolt and massacre 50 Europeans in Meerut, sparking similar uprisings all over India.
June 27 - Satichaura Ghat Massacre: Indian rebels open fire upon British soldiers and civilians departing from the captured city of Cawnpore, having previously agreed to allow them safe passage through the Satichaura Ghat. Around 300 men, women and children are killed in the massacre.
July 15 - Bibighar Massacre: 200 British women and children, most of them survivors of the earlier Satichaura Ghat massacre, are massacred by Indian rebels in retaliation for the murders of Indian civilians by British troops.
September 7 to 11 - The Mountain Meadows Massacre: members of the Nauvoo Legion attack the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train in Mountain Meadows, Utah, killing at least 120 people total.