The Congress authorizes the minting of a three dollar gold piece as legal tender. It will be minted until 1890. (By John Osborne)

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was sworn in as the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America and delivered his inaugural address on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery.  He warned others that southerners would be "found equal to any measures of defense which soon their security may require."  The speech contained no mention of or allusion to slavery.  (By John Osborne)

The Old Broadway Theater in New York City staged Herne, the Hunter and attempted to include live horses in the presentation. The result was a predictable disaster with portions of the stage collapsing and several injuries to actors, human and equine, as well as members of the audience. (By John Osborne)

The American Party convention in Philadelphia abolished the party's secretive earlier rules and then nominated former president Millard Fillmore of New York as its presidential candidate. (By John Osborne)

On this date, the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania finally opened its doors in Centre County, Pennsylvania.  It had been incorporated in the Pennsylvania legislature in April, 1854, had this authority repealed, and was reincorporated on February 22, 1855. Frederick Watts, a Dickinson College alumnus who had been instrumental in guiding through the enabling legislation, became the first president of the board of trustees of the institution that would grow to become what is today the Pennsylvania State University. (By John Osborne)

President James Polk became the first sitting president to be photographed when he posed for Mathew Brady in Brady's New York City studio. (By John Osborne)

Between February 13 and 14, 1861, Bernard Irwin, a medical assistant surgeon, took command of his detachment of United States Cavalry and defeated a group of Chiricahua Apache near Apache Pass, Arizona. This was a full year before the Congressional Medal of Honor was authorized but the award was made decades later, in January 1894, to then Colonel Irwin for this action. (By John Osborne)

The Agricultural College of Michigan is chartered.  It will open on May 13, 1857 in Lansing, Michigan with sixty-three students, under the presidency of Joseph Williams. (By John Osborne)

The Women's Hospital Association of New York adopts the constitution for a women's hospital in the city, the first of its kind.  On May 4, 1855, the Women's Hospital of New York City will open with forty beds in a rented building on Madison Avenue. (By John Osborne)