A united Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed, joining Lombardy, Piedmont, Parma, Modena, Lucca, Romagna, Tuscany, and the two Sicilies. (Rome will not be part of the country until 1870.) The unification of Italy is the culmination of the risorgimento, a cultural and political movement that supported the creation of a single Italian nation.
Czar Alexander II emancipates the serfs. Land is given to mirs (village communes), not to individuals, which will prompt Karl Marx to wonder if Russia could move straight from feudalism to socialism without ever passing through the capitalist stage of development.
Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin goes to Europe after his imprisonment in Siberia and becomes a leading European anarchist.
Congress levies the first income tax in the United States, taxing incomes over $800 at 3 percent. It also passes the first of three Morrill Acts, boosting tariffs to an average 47 percent.
American banks suspend gold payments for the duration of the Civil War. Greenbacks become the national currency.
Central Pacific Railroad is chartered to build the western part of a national railroad. Leland Stanford, president of the company, recruits Chinese laborers displaced by the Tai Ping rebellion to build the road.
Yale University awards the first American doctor of philosophy degree (Ph.D.).
