1868 in Belgium

Events in the year 1868 in Belgium.

Incumbents

 * Monarch: Leopold II
 * Head of government: Charles Rogier (to 3 January); Walthère Frère-Orban (from 3 January)

Events

 * January
 * 3 January – Walthère Frère-Orban replaces Charles Rogier as Prime Minister
 * 28 January – Victor-Auguste-Isidor Deschamps enthroned as Archbishop of Mechelen.


 * March
 * 1 March – Société Libre des Beaux-Arts founded.
 * 24 March – 20 killed when soldiers shoot on striking miners from the Epine mine in Dampremy.


 * May
 * 25 May – Provincial elections


 * June
 * 9 June – Partial legislative elections of 1868


 * August
 * 6 August – 47 miners killed by a fire damp explosion in the Sainte Henriette mine near Jemappes.


 * September
 * 7 September – Third international workers congress opens in Brussels.


 * October
 * 23 October – Frederick Doulton, MP, brought to trial in Brussels on charges of fraud in public works, but acquitted of having broken any law.

Publications

 * Periodicals
 * Almanach royal officiel (Brussels, E. Guyot)
 * Collection de précis historiques, vol. 17, edited by Edouard Terwecoren S.J.
 * Socialist daily newspaper De Werker launched in Antwerp (October).


 * Series
 * Biographie Nationale de Belgique, vol. 2


 * History
 * Charles Niellon, Histoire des événements militaires et des conspirations orangistes de la révolution en Belgique de 1830 à 1833 (Brussels, M.J. Poot)


 * Literature
 * Maria Doolaeghe, Winterbloemen

Art and architecture

 * Société Libre des Beaux-Arts founded


 * Paintings
 * Charles-Philogène Tschaggeny, The Covered Wagon


 * Sculptures
 * Louis Jehotte's equestrian statue of Charlemagne inaugurated in Liège

Births

 * 11 January – François Ruhlmann, conductor (died 1948)
 * 5 February – Lodewijk Mortelmans, composer (died 1952)
 * 23 February – Paul Bergmans, librarian (died 1935)
 * 5 March – Prosper Poullet, politician (died 1937)
 * 27 April – Herman Vander Linden, politician (died 1956)
 * 18 June – Anna Kernkamp, artist (died 1947)
 * 23 August – Paul Otlet, bibliographer (died 1944)
 * 15 November – Marguerite Putsage, painter (died 1946)
 * 28 November – Louis Franck, politician (died 1937)

Deaths

 * 13 February – Dieudonné Stas (born 1791), newspaperman
 * 17 April – Guillaume-Hippolyte van Volxem (born 1791), politician
 * 30 April – Charles Le Hon (born 1792), politician
 * 9 July – Toussaint-Henry-Joseph Fafchamps (born 1783), military inventor
 * 21 July – Édouard Ducpétiaux (born 1804), prison reformer