What happened in 1865

World1

• Nov 10Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate superintendent of Andersonville Prison (Camp Sumter) is hanged, becoming the second of two combatants, and only serving regular soldier, to be executed for war crimes committed during the American Civil War.

North America18

• Jan 13American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Fisher – Union forces launch a major amphibious assault against the last seaport held by the Confederates, Fort Fisher, North Carolina.
• Mar 19American Civil War: Battle of Bentonville: Union troops compel Confederate forces to retreat from Four Oaks, North Carolina.
• Mar 25American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union, although it is retaken the same day. Lee's army suffers heavy casualties: about 2,900, including 1,000 captured in the Union counterattack. Confederate positions are weakened. After the battle, Lee's defeat is only a matter of time.
• Apr 1American Civil War – Battle of Five Forks: In Petersburg, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee begins his final offensive.
• Apr 14Assassination of Abraham Lincoln: President of the United States Abraham Lincoln is shot while attending an evening performance of the farce Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.
• Apr 26Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.
• Apr 27Governor of New York Reuben Fenton signs a bill formally creating Cornell University.
• May 12American Civil War – Battle of Palmito Ranch: In far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee's surrender, the last land battle of the civil war with casualties, ends with a Confederate victory.
• Jul 5The U.S. Secret Service is founded.
• Jul 7Following Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, the four conspirators condemned to death during the trial are hanged, including David Herold, George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell and Mary Surratt. Her son, John Surratt, escapes execution by fleeing to Canada, and ultimately to Egypt.
• Jul 21Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots "Little Dave" Davis Tutt dead over a poker debt, in what is regarded as the first true western fast draw showdown.
• Jul 27Businessman Asa Packer establishes Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
• Sep 26Champ Ferguson becomes the first person (and one of only two) to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges, arising from the murder of 53 people. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz for war crimes.
• Nov 6American Civil War: The CSS Shenandoah, last remnant of the Confederate States of America and its military, surrenders in Liverpool after fleeing westward from the Pacific.
• Dec 24Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form the Ku Klux Klan in the American South, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate carpetbaggers and scalawags, as well as to repress the freedpeople.

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Europe7

• Apr 21German chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim, to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.
• May 12Electric equipment and mobile brand Nokia founded in Tampere, Finland.
• May 17The International Telegraph Union is founded.
• Jun 10Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde debuts at the Munich Court Theatre.
• Jul 2The Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London, by William and Catherine Booth.
• Jul 4Lewis Carroll publishes his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England (first trade editions in December).
• Dec 17Leopold II becomes King of the Belgians, following the death (on December 10) of his father, King Leopold I.

Asia1

• Nov 11Duar War between Britain and Bhutan ends with the Treaty of Sinchula, in which Bhutan cedes control of its southern passes to Britain in return for an annual subsidy.

Latin America5

• May 1The Treaty of the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay against Paraguay is formally signed, following the outbreak of the Paraguayan War.
• Jun 11Battle of the Riachuelo: The Brazilian Navy squadron defeats the Paraguayan Navy.
• Oct 11Morant Bay rebellion: Paul Bogle leads hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the British governor Edward John Eyre with 400 executed.
• Nov 17Chincha Islands War: Action of 17 November 1865 – A Spanish gunboat is captured by the Chilean tugboat Independencia off Tomé, in the Bay of Concepción, Chile.
• Nov 26Chincha Islands War: Battle of Papudo – The Spanish ship Covadonga is captured by the Chileans and the Peruvians, north of Valparaíso, Chile.