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| 1864 |
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| The Provincial Reform Law restructured the system of provincial government. A total of 27 provinces (vilayets) were created by the remodeling of the older provincial units. They were subdivided hierarchically into districts (sanjaks or livas), kazas, and nahiyes, with the village and urban quarter forming the basic administrative units. The governor and other senior officials were appointed from Istanbul and were to be advised by councils composed of elected and appointed members who represented local interest groups. The law, which remained the basis of provincial administration until the end of the empire, increased the powers of the governors, provided for central control exercised from Istanbul, and incorporated local opinion. | 1 |
| The Alliance Israélite Universelle (founded in Paris in 1860) opened in Damascus and Baghdad its first schools in the Ottoman Empire. They were designed to provide Jewish children with a modern curriculum of religious and secular studies. Similar schools continued to appear in North Africa and the Middle East, reaching 100 institutions with about 26,000 students by 1900. This Alliance educational network created cadres of Western-educated Jews in the region. | 2 |
| The first Hebrew-language newspaper in the empire, Ha-Lebanon, began publication in Jerusalem. It was joined by several Hebrew newspapers and periodicals in the following decades. | 3 |
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| 1865 |
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| Constitutional reorganization of the Jewish community (millet). The Organic Statute, drawn up by a committee of reform-minded Jews in Istanbul and approved by the sultan, provided for limits on rabbinical power, giving lay leaders, usually more receptive to new ideas, a greater role in running the civil affairs of the community. The chief rabbi (hahambashi) in Istanbul remained the official head of the empire's Jews, but he was now to accept the advice of lay and religious councils selected by an assembly of 80 members, 60 of whom were laymen. Similar arrangements were applied in the provincial towns. Members of the wealthy lay elite came to dominate the communal committees and to use their influence to promote modern education and cultural contacts with the West. | 4 |
| FORMATION OF THE YOUNG OTTOMANS, a society of liberal intellectuals and activists opposed to the direction of the Tanzimat reforms. The approaches of the members to the empire's problems varied widely, but they agreed on three basic needs: a constitution that would limit the powers of government and protect the citizens; a representative, popularly elected parliament; and the cultivation of a single Ottoman nationality with all the subjects having the same rights and obligations regardless of differences of religion or ethnic background. The leading figures of the Young Ottomans included Namik Kemal (1840–88), Ibrahim Shinasi (1826–71), Ziya Pasha (1825–80), and Ali Suavi (1838–78). Suppressed by the Ottoman authorities, some members of the group spent several years in exile in Europe, returning home to agitate for the 1876 constitution. | 5 |
| Foundation of the Palestine Exploration Fund, which carried out important archaeological surveys, including the investigation of the walls of Jerusalem. It sponsored the first stratified excavation of a tall (mound) at Tall al-Hesy (1890). | 6 |
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| Sept. 18 |
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| A great fire in Istanbul, the most destructive of the century, burned vast areas to the ground. Between 1853 and 1906 the city suffered 229 fires, which resulted in the application of European concepts of urban design to the rebuilt neighborhoods. | 7 |
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