The World in 1863 the year trains started running under London

City workers walked. Anyone living more than a couple of miles from the office lost an hour each way, so London dug a railway under its own streets. The Metropolitan Railway ran steam engines through brick tunnels just below the road, with gas lamps in the carriages. Passengers came up coughing and smelling of smoke, complained about it in the papers, and kept riding.

The year in 8 events

A drafted man in the North could pay $300 and stay home. A labourer earning a dollar a day would have needed most of a year's wages to find it.

• ⭐Jan 1 The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect, declaring enslaved people in the rebelling states to be free.
• 🚇Jan 10 London opens the world's first underground railway, running from Paddington to Farringdon.
• ⚔️Jan 22 Poles rise against Russian rule in Warsaw and across the countryside.
• 🕯️Jul 1 The battle of Gettysburg begins in Pennsylvania. Three days of fighting leave about 50,000 men killed, wounded or missing.
• 📜Aug 11 Cambodia's king signs a treaty that makes his kingdom a French protectorate.
• ⚽Oct 26 Clubs meeting in a London tavern form the Football Association and begin writing one set of rules.
• 🗣️Nov 19 Lincoln speaks for about two minutes at the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery.
• 🕯️Dec 8 Fire sweeps through a packed church during an evening service in Santiago, Chile. Around two thousand people die.

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