Crimean War: France declares war on Russia. March 31 – United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government (the Tokugawa shogunate), opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade. April–June April 1 – Hard Times begins serialisation in Charles Dickens' magazine, Household Words. April 16 – The United States packet ship Powhattan is wrecked off the New Jersey shore, with more than 200 victims. May 18 – The Catholic University of Ireland (forerunner of University College Dublin) is founded. May 27 – Taiping Rebellion: United States diplomatic minister Robert McLane arrives at the Heavenly Capital aboard the American warship . May 30 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law (replacing the Missouri Compromise of 1820), creating the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory, west of the State of Missouri and the State of Iowa. The Kansas–Nebraska Act also establishes that these two new Territories will decide either to allow or disallow slavery, depending on balloting by their residents (these areas would have been strictly "free territory" under the Missouri Compromise, which allowed slavery in the State of Missouri but disallowed it in any other new state north of latitude 36° 30', which forms most of the southern boundary of Missouri. This prohibition of slavery extended all the way from the western boundary of Missouri to the Pacific Ocean). June – The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern United States inhabitants from Chicago to Rock Island, Illinois, by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to Saint Paul, Minnesota, by steamboat. June 10 – The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduates at Annapolis, Maryland. June 21 – Battle of Bomarsund in Åland off the coast of Finland: British Royal Navy seaman's mate Charles Davis Lucas throws a live Russian artillery shell overboard by hand before it explodes, for which he is awarded the first Victoria Cross in 1857. July–September July 4 – James Ambrose Cutting takes out the first of his three United States patents for improvements to the wet plate collodion process (Ambrotype photography). July 6 In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the U.S. Republican Party is held. Said Pasha succeeds his nephew Abbas, as the Pasha of Egypt. July 7 – The Bombay Spinning and Weaving Company is established as the first cotton mill in India by Cowasjee Nanabhoy Davar and associates. July 17 – The Bienio progresista