Originally Posted by Chairman
There was plenty going on in Europe during the 1860s. At the beginning of the decade was the Franco-Austrian War (1859) in Italy that paved the way for the Kingdom of Sardinia (Savoy) to unify most of the peninsula the next year; The Second Schleswig War (1864) where Austria and Prussia annexed the southern territories of Denmark within the German Confederation. Two years later, Prussia kicked Austria out of German affairs permenantly in the Austro-Prussian War (1866), with newly consolidated Italy supporting Prussia. This war had the strange incident at the battle of Lissa, when the desperate Austrian admiral ordered his ironclads to close to point-blank range and ram the more powerful Italian warships, actually succeeding in winning the battle. At the end of the decade, Prussia, leading the new North German Confederation and their southern Allies invaded France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), which ended in unification and creation of Second German Reich, the deposition of Napoleon III and the German annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. So, the 1860s were also quite exciting for Europe as well. These are just the major wars that involved the big powers within Europe. In the colonial sphere, in 1860, Great Britain and France launched an expedition against China in the Second Opium War. In 1861-67, a coalition of European powers led by France unsuccessfully attempted to install the Austrian Maximilian of Habsburg-Lorraine as the first emperor of Mexico, leading to his execution in 1867. In Asia, the Taiping rebellion finally ends in 1864 after 14 years with the fall of Nanjing; in Japan, the Meiji Restoration takes place 1866-69.
Chairman