1852

January–March

• January 14 – President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte makes a new constitution for the French Second Republic.
• January 15 – Nine men from various Hebrew charitable organizations come together to form what will become the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
• January 17 – The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Transvaal.
• February 3 – Battle of Caseros or Battle of Monte Caseros, Argentina
• February 11 – The first British public toilet for women opens in Bedford Street, London.
• February 15 – The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits its first patient.
• February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company is started.
• February 19 – The Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity is founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
• February 25 – The HMS Birkenhead sinks near Cape Town, South Africa. Only 193 of the 643 on board survive.
• March 1 – Archibald William Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton is made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
• March 2 – The first American steam fire engine was tested.^[1]
• March 4 – Phi Mu Sorority is founded in Macon Georgia
• March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published.

April–June

• April 1 – The Second Burmese War begins.
• April 18 – Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces begin the siege of Guilin.
• May 19 – Taiping Rebellion: The siege of Guilin is lifted.
• June 12 – Taiping Rebellion: Taiping forces enter Hunan.

July–September

• July 1 – United States statesman Henry Clay is the first to have the honor of lying in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.
• July 4 – Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro" in Rochester, New York.
• July 28 – Henry Clay steamboat disaster in Riverdale, Bronx, with several deaths including Stephen Allen.
• August 3 – The first Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, the first American intercollegiate athletic event, is held.
• September 24 – French engineer Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip from Paris to Trappes.

October–December

• November 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1852: Democrat Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeats Whig Winfield Scott of Virginia.
• November 4 – Count Cavour becomes the Piedmontese prime minister.
• November 11 – The new Palace of Westminster opens in Britain.
• November 21–November 22 – The New French Empire is confirmed
• December 2 – Napoleon III becomes Emperor of the French.
• December 23 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hanyang and begins the siege of Wuchang.
• December 29 – Taiping Rebellion: The Taiping army takes Hankou.

Date unknown

• Justin Perkins, an American Presbyterian missionary, makes the first translation of the Bible in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic.
• The Devil's Island penal colony opens.
• In Hawaii sugar planters bring over the first Chinese laborers on 3 or 5 year contracts.
• Queen Victoria embarks on a worldwide tour of the British Empire.
• Loyola College is chartered in Baltimore, Maryland.
• Germans are encouraged to move to Chile
• Antioch College is started. Its first president is Horace Mann.
• Mills College is started.
• Leo Tolstoy's first novel, Childhood, is published in book form.

January–June

• January 8 – James Milton Carroll, Baptist pastor, leader, historian, and writer (d. 1931)
• January 11 – Konstantin Fehrenbach, Chancellor of Germany (d. 1926)
• February 16 – Charles Taze Russell (Pastor Russell), prominent Protestant reformer and evangelist (d. 1916)
• March 1 – Théophile Delcassé, French statesman (d. 1923)
• April 1 – Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter (d. 1911)
• April 13 – F.W. Woolworth, American merchant and businessman (d. 1919)
• April 22 – Guillaume IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (d. 1912)
• May 1 – Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Spanish histologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1934)
• May 4 – Alice Pleasance Liddell, inspiration for the children's classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (d. 1934)
• May 31 – Julius Richard Petri, German scientist (d. 1921)
• June 25 – Antoni Gaudi, Spanish modernist architect (d. 1926)

July–December

• July 12 – Hipólito Yrigoyen, President of Argentina (d. 1933)
• August 23 – Clímaco Calderón, President of Colombia (d. 1913)
• August 30 – Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1911)
• September 10 – Hans Niels Andersen, Danish businessman, founder of the East Asiatic Company (d. 1937)
• September 12 – Herbert Henry Asquith, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1928)
• September 15 – Edward Bouchet, American physicist (d. 1918)
• September 28
  • John French, 1st Earl of Ypres, British general, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I (d. 1925)
  • Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1907)
• September 30 – Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer, resident in England (d. 1924)
• October 2 – William Ramsay, Scottish chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1916)
• October 9 – Hermann Emil Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1919)
• November 1 – Eugene W. Chafin, American politician (d. 1920)
• November 3 – Prince Mutsuhito of Japan, the future Emperor Meiji (d. 1912)
• November 11 – Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, Austro-Hungarian field marshal (d. 1925)
• November 22 – Paul-Henri-Benjamin d'Estournelles de Constant, French diplomat, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1924)
• November 26 – Yamamoto Gonnohyōe, the 16th and 22nd Prime Minister of Japan, an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy
• December 15 – Henri Becquerel, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1908)
• December 19 – Albert Abraham Michelson, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1931)
• December 21 – George Callaghan, British admiral (d. 1920)

January–June

• January 1 – John George Children, British chemist, mineralogist and zoologist (b. 1777)
• January 6 – Louis Braille, French teacher of the blind and inventor of braille (b. 1809)
• May 3 – Sara Coleridge, English writer and translator (b. 1802)
• March 4 – Nikolai Gogol, Russian writer (b. 1809)
• April 17 – Étienne Maurice Gérard, Marshal of France and Prime Minister of France (b. 1773)
• June 7 – José Joaquín Estudillo, second alcalde of Yerba Buena (b. 1800)
• June 29 – Henry Clay, American statesman (b. 1777)

July–December

• July 20 – José Antonio Estudillo, early California settler (b. 1805)
• July 22 – Auguste Marmont, French marshal (b. 1774)
• September 4 – William MacGillivray, Scottish naturalist and ornithologist (b. 1796)
• September 14
  • Augustus Pugin, English architect (b. 1812)
  • Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, British general and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1769)
• September 20 – Philander Chase, American founder of Kenyon College (b. 1775)
• October 13 – John Lloyd Stephens, American traveler, diplomat and Mayanist archaeologist (b. 1805)
• October 24 – Daniel Webster, American statesman (b. 1782)
• October 25 – John C. Clark, American politician (b. 1793)
• October 26 – Vincenzo Gioberti, Italian philosopher (b. 1801)
• November 2 – Pyotr Kotlyarevsky, Russian military hero (b. 1782)
• November 27 – Augusta Ada King (née Byron), Countess of Lovelace, early English computer pioneer (b. 1815)
• November 29 – Nicolae Bălcescu, Wallachian revolutionary (b. 1819)
• November 30 – Junius Brutus Booth, English-born actor (b. 1796)
• December 16 – Andries Hendrik Potgieter, Voortrekker leader (b. 1792)