The World in 1864 the year armies agreed to spare the wounded

Clothes were getting cheaper. Until recently every shirt and coat was cut and stitched by hand, so a working family owned very few and mended them for years. The sewing machine moved that work onto a treadle, and armies ordering uniforms by the hundred thousand pushed makers into standard sizes. Ready made clothing began appearing in shops at prices ordinary people could meet. Women's skirts were still held out on hooped crinolines wide enough to fill a doorway.

The year in 8 events

China's Taiping war ended after fourteen years. Historians put the dead at 20 million or more, which was more people than lived in Spain at the time.

• ⚔️Feb 1 Prussian and Austrian troops march into Schleswig, beginning a short war with Denmark.
• 👑Apr 10 Maximilian of Austria accepts the crown of Mexico, offered to him with French backing.
• 🏯Jul 19 Nanjing falls to imperial troops, ending the Taiping war in China.
• 🏥Aug 22 Twelve governments sign the first Geneva Convention, promising to protect wounded soldiers and the people treating them.
• 🔥Sep 2 Union troops under William Sherman take Atlanta.
• 🤝Sep 28 Workers' delegates meeting in London set up the International Working Men's Association.
• 🗳️Nov 8 Abraham Lincoln is re-elected president, with heavy support from soldiers in the field.
• 🚂Dec 21 Sherman's army reaches Savannah on the Atlantic coast, having wrecked farms and railways across Georgia on the way.

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