Directory

1850 CE

The hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first seen in Europe since Roman times. Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin (including the Bridal Chorus) premieres under the direction of Franz Liszt, in Weimar. Papal bull Universalis Ecclesiae: The Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales, by Pope Pius IX and future Pope Pius X.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States Congress.source
  • March 7 – United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech, in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850, in order to prevent a possible civil war.source
  • April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a city in California.source
  • April 15 – San Francisco is incorporated as a city in California.source
  • September 9 – The New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the United States Congress.source
  • September 9 – California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.source
  • September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by the United States Congress.source
  • October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African-American suffrage, to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.source
  • November 29 – The treaty known as the Punctation of Olmütz is signed in Olomouc. It means diplomatic capitulation of Prussia to the Austrian Empire, which takes over the leadership of the German Confederation.source

Conflict & Security

  • May 15 – The Bloody Island Massacre takes place at Clear Lake in northern California.source
  • June 3 – the Cayuse Five (five members of the Cayuse people) were executed for murder following the Whitman massacre (an attack on a mission settlement near present-day Walla Walla, Washington)source
  • July – Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan orders the general mobilisation of rebel forces in China.source
  • Taiping Rebellion: The first clashes of the Taiping Rebellion occur, between the Imperialist militia and the Heavenly Army.source
  • Dost Mohammad Barakzai, emir of Afghanistan, captures Balkh.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.source
  • May 23 – The puts to sea from New York to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.source
  • June 1 – The transportation of British convicts to Western Australia begins, as the transportation of British convicts to other parts of Australia is phased out, when the ship Scindian arrives in Fremantle, with 75 male prisoners.source
  • September 4 – The Eusébio de Queirós Law is passed in the Brazilian Empire to abolish the international slave trade.source
  • December 16 – Members of the Canterbury Association, the first settlers bound for Christchurch, arrive from England at the port of Lyttelton, New Zealand, aboard the Charlotte Jane and Randolph.source
  • Mayer Lehman arrives from Germany to join his siblings in Lehman Brothers dry-goods business (predecessor of the bank) in Montgomery, Alabama.source
  • From this year until 1880, 144,000 East Indian laborers go to Trinidad and 39,000 to Jamaica.source
  • The temperance organisation, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.source
  • One of the original segments of the historic Pacific Highway (United States) in Washington (state) in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.source

Religion & Belief

  • July 9 – The Báb (Mírzá 'Alí-Muhammad) is executed by a firing squad in Tabriz, Persia, for claiming to be a prophet.source
  • September 13 – Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps, is first ascended.source
  • September 29 – Papal bull Universalis Ecclesiae: The Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales, by Pope Pius IX and future Pope Pius X.source
  • The first portion of the Oudh Bequest is transferred from Oudh State in the British Raj to the Shia Islam holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, in Persia.source
  • Pope Pius IX returns from exile to Rome.source

Economy & Finance

  • June 3 – Kansas City, Missouri, is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri, as the Town of Kansas (traditional date of its founding).source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • March 5 – The Britannia Bridge opens over the Menai Strait in Wales.source
  • April 19 – The Clayton–Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua, and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal.source
  • June 1 – The postage stamp issues of Austria begin with a series of imperforate typographed stamps, featuring the coat of arms.source
  • September 18 – Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.source
  • The American system of watch manufacturing is started in Roxbury, Massachusetts, by the Waltham Watch Company.source

Science & Discovery

  • May 25 – The hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first seen in Europe since Roman times.source
  • July 17 – Vega becomes the first star (other than the Sun) to be photographed.source

Health & Medicine

  • June 1 – The 1850 United States census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.source
  • The city of Manchester, England, reaches 400,000 inhabitants.source

Crime & Justice

  • Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in the United States.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • March 31 – The paddle steamer , bound from Cork to London, is wrecked in the English Channel with the loss of all 250 on board.source
  • April 15 – Angers Bridge collapses in France killing around 226 of the soldiers crossing it at the time.source
  • July 19 – The ship Elizabeth, an American merchant freighter carrying cargo that included mostly marble from Carrara, slammed into a sandbar less than 100 yards from Fire Island, New York, drowning Margaret Fuller, her husband Ossoli, and their young son Angelino.source

Climate & Environment

  • September 12 – The 1850 Xichang earthquake (7.9) shakes the Chinese province of Sichuan killing more than 20,000 people.source
  • Ongoing – Great Famine (Ireland) subsides.source

Culture & Society

  • January 31 – The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York.source
  • February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City.source
  • March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • July 1 – St. Mary School for Boys (the future University of Dayton) opens its doors in Dayton, Ohio.source
  • August 28 – Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin (including the Bridal Chorus) premieres under the direction of Franz Liszt, in Weimar.source
  • October 1 – The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.source
  • October 19 – The Phi Kappa Sigma international fraternity is founded, at the University of Pennsylvania.source
  • Undergraduates at Exeter College, Oxford arrange a "foot grind" (a cross-country steeplechase), the first organised university athletic event.source
  • Bingley Hall, the world's first purpose-built exhibition hall, opens in Birmingham, England.source
  • Stephen Foster's parlor ballad "Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway" is published in the United States.source
  • German physicist Rudolf Clausius publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat ("On the Moving Force of Heat") which first states the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics.source

Births

  • January 6 – Eduard Bernstein, German social democratic theoretician, politician (d. 1932)source
  • March 31 – Charles Doolittle Walcott, American invertebrate paleontologist (d. 1927)source
  • May 1 – Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, British prince and Governor General of Canada (d. 1942)source
  • May 12 – Henry Cabot Lodge, American statesman (d. 1924)source
  • May 27 – Thomas Neill Cream, Scottish-Canadian serial killer (d. 1892)source
  • May 28 – Frederic William Maitland, English jurist and historian (d. 1906)source
  • June 6 – Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1918)source
  • June 24 – Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British field marshal, statesman (d. 1916)source
  • June 27 – Lafcadio Hearn, Greco-Japanese author (d. 1904)source
  • July 11 – Annie Armstrong, American missionary leader (d. 1938)source
  • July 15 – Frances Xavier Cabrini, American saint (d. 1917)source
  • July 31 – Robert Love Taylor, American congressman, senator and Governor from Tennessee (d. 1912)source
  • August 25 – Charles Richet, French physiologist, Nobel Prize winner (d. 1935)source
  • August 30 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer, journalist (d. 1896)source

Deaths

  • January 2 – Manuel de la Peña y Peña, interim President of Mexico (b. 1789)source
  • February 1 - Abraham Lincoln’s second son, Edward Baker Lincoln, died at the age of three after 52 days for struggling with tuberculosis (consumption) before his fourth birthday in Springfield, Illinois.source
  • February 25 – Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynasty of China (b. 1782)source
  • March 31 – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (b. 1782)source
  • April 11 – Raja Nara Singh, regent of Manipur (b. 1792)source
  • May 2 – Joseph Plumb Martin, American Revolutionary soldier, narrative author (b. 1760)source
  • June 16 – William Lawson, British explorer of New South Wales (b. 1774)source
  • July 8 – Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge (b. 1774)source
  • July 9 – The Báb, Persian founder of the Bábí Faith (executed by a firing squad) (b. 1819)source
  • July 9 – Zachary Taylor, 65, 12th President of the United States (b. 1784)source
  • July 9 – Jean-Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti (b. 1776)source
  • July 19 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist (b. 1810)source
  • August 18 – Honoré de Balzac, French author (b. 1799)source
  • November 19 – Richard Mentor Johnson, 9th Vice President of the United States (b. 1780)source