In Des Moines, Iowa, closely contested municipal elections overturned the result of the previous year, when Democrats took control of the city council and mayor's office.  A ticket of Republicans and War Democrats took eleven of the fourteen council seats and William E. Leas was elected Mayor to replace the incumbent Democrat, Thomas Cavanaugh. (By John Osborne)  

The gathering of representatives of the railway and steamboat companies running services between New York and Montreal in Canada met in Burlington, Vermont to set and confirm schedules. Service on Lake Champlaign, for example, was set to begin immediately, organized to meet trains from Ogdenburgh and Montreal at one end and Troy, Albany, and New York at the other. (By John Osborne)

In Chicago, Illinois, the Democrats took control of the City Council in municipal elections against a weak and disunited Unionist ticket.  (By John Osborne) 

President Lincoln had announced a national day of fasting and prayer a month before.  The day of reflection was celebrated across the North, with public buildings and many business closed for the day and services held in most churches and synagogues in the major cities. (By John Osborne)

The 1700 ton British registered ship Anglo-Saxon sailed from Liverpool eleven days before for Quebec.  Hundreds of passengers were immigrants bound for Canada West.  In heavy seas and fog, the vessel hit rocks off Cape Race, Newfoundland around noon and began to break up. Boats were launched and several hundred people were saved.  The remaining 237 drowned when the Anglo-Saxon slipped into deeper water. (By John Osborne) 

King Radamo II had ruled Madagascar since 1861. When he began to place trusted friends in his cabinet, established politicians, led by the Prime Minister, feared they were being marginalized.  They demanded that Radomo purge his inner circle and when he refused, twelve of these advisors were abducted and killed, and in the early morning hours of May 12, 1863, the King himself was strangled to death.  His wife Rasoherina was ordered to take the throne, on the condition that the political status quo be maintained.  (By John Osborne)

The year before, the Bavarian born king of Greece, Otto I, had been deposed, touching off a six-month international debate over who would follow him.  At the end of March, 1863, the Greek Parliament voted to request that seventeen year old Prince William of Denmark accept the throne.  Prince William acceded to the request in a formal ceremony in Copenhagen and became King George I of Greece. He would rule, for two weeks shy of fifty years, until his death in 1913.  (By John Osborne)  

Zygmunt Seriakowski was a former Russian Army officer and a military leader in the Polish Insurrection against the Russian Empire.  Wounded and captured in battle the month before, he was tried and hanged in Vilnius, Lithuania, despite intense foreign lobbying for clemency. The Polish Insurrection went on till the following year when it was finally crushed. (By John Osborne)

Known as the Battle of Birzami, three consecutive engagements near Birji in Lithuania, between Polish insurgents, led by former Russian Army officer Zygmunt Seriakowski, and Russian imperial forces, ended on the third day with defeat for the 1500 Poles, the death of more than two hundred, and the capture of their wounded leader soon after.  Seriakowski was later tried and hanged in Vilnius on June 27, 1863, despite intense foreign lobbying for clemency. The Polish Insurrection went on till the following year when it was crushed. (By John Osborne)