1850

Year 1850 (MDCCCL) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar.

Events

• Dost Mohammad Khan captured Balkh^[1]

January–March

• January 18 – British foreign secretary Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, sends ships to blockade the port of Piraeus, ostensibly as a result of the Don Pacifico affair.
• January 20 – The ships of the McClure Arctic Expedition set sail from Plymouth.
• January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
• February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah.
• March 5 – Opening of the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait.
• 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.
• March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is published.
• March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.
• March 31 – The paddle steamer RMS Royal Adelaide, bound from Cork to London, sinks in the English Channel with the loss of all 250 on board.^[2]

April–June

• April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a city.
• April 15 – San Francisco is incorporated as a city.
• April 19 – 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.
• May 23 – The USS Advance puts to sea from New York to search for John Franklin's Arctic expedition.
• May 25 – The hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first seen in Europe since Roman times.
• 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.
• June 1 – The postage stamp issues of Austria begin with a series of imperforate typographed stamps featuring the coat of arms.
• June 3 – The traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding. This is the date on which it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".

July–September

• July – Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan orders the general mobilisation of rebel forces.
• July 9
  • Mírzá 'Alí-Muhammad, known as the Báb, is executed by a firing squad in Tabriz, Persia for claiming to be a prophet.
  • Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States following the death of President Taylor.
• July 10 – President Millard Fillmore is sworn in.
• August 28 – Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin (including the Bridal Chorus) premieres under the direction of Franz Liszt in Weimar.
• September 9
  • California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
  • The United States Congress.
• September 13 – First ascent of Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps.
• September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by the United States Congress.
• September 29 – The Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX and future Pope Pius X .

October–December

• October 1 – The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.
• October 19 – Phi Kappa Sigma international fraternity was founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
• October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
• November – Taiping Rebellion: The first clashes of the Taiping Rebellion occur between Imperialist militia and the Heavenly Army.
• November 29 – The treaty called 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.
• December 16 – The first settlers for the settlement of Christchurch arrive at the Port of Lyttelton (New Zealand).

Date unknown

• The American system of watch manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (the Waltham Watch Company).
• Bingley Hall, the world's first purpose-built exhibition hall, opens in Birmingham, England.
• Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.
• Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.
• The temperance organisation, Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
• St. Mary's Institute (the future University of Dayton) is founded in Dayton, Ohio.
• US census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race.
• The city of Manchester reaches 400,000 inhabitants.
• Europeans make up 22% of the world population.
• 1850 – 1880 – 144,000 East Indian laborers go to Trinidad and 39,000 East Indians come to Jamaica.
• University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, NY.
• Lehman Brothers is established in Montgomery, Alabama.

Ongoing

• Great Famine in Ireland

Births

January–March

• January – John Barclay Armstrong, Texas Ranger and U.S. Marshal (d. 1913)
• January 4 – Frederick York Powell, English historian and scholar (d. 1904)
• January 6 – Eduard Bernstein, German social democratic theoretician and politician (d. 1932)
• January 6 – Xaver Scharwenka, Polish-German composer (d. 1924)
• January 10 – John Wellborn Root, American architect (d. 1891)
• January 11 – Philipp von Ferrary, Italian stamp collector (d. 1917)
• January 14 – Pierre Loti, French sailor and writer (d. 1923)
• January 15
  • Mihai Eminescu, Romanian romantic poet (d. 1889)
  • Leonard Darwin, son of the British naturalist Charles Darwin (d. 1943)
  • Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician (d. 1891)
• January 17 – Aleksandr Taneyev, Russian composer (d. 1918)
• January 18 – Seth Low, American educator (d. 1916)
• January 19 – Augustine Birrell, English author and politician (d. 1933)
• January 24
  • Hermann Ebbinghaus, German psychologist (d. 1909)
  • Mary Noailles Murfree, American novelist (d. 1922)
• January 27
  • John Collier, British writer and painter (d. 1934)
  • Edward Smith, captain of the Titanic (d. 1912)
  • Samuel Gompers, American labor union leader (d. 1924)
• January 28 – Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (d. 1903)
• January 29
  • Ebenezer Howard, British urban planner (d. 1928)
  • Lawrence Hargrave, Australian engineer (d. 1915)
• February 12 – William Morris Davis, American geographer (d. 1934)
• February 14 – Kiyoura Keigo, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1942)
• February 15 – Albert B. Cummins, American political figure (d. 1926)
• 1933)
• 1934)
• February 23 – César Ritz, Swiss hotelier (d. 1918)
• February 27
  • Henry Huntington, American railroad pioneer and art collector (d. 1927)
  • Laura E. Richards, American author (d. 1943)
• March 7
  • Tomáš Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia (d. 1937)
  • Champ Clark, American politician (d. 1921)
  • Éphrem-A. Brisebois, Canadian police officer (d. 1890)
  • 1922)
• March 9 – Hamo Thornycroft, British sculptor (d. 1925)
• March 10 – Spencer Gore, British tennis player and cricketer (d. 1906)
• March 13 – Hugh John Macdonald, premier of Manitoba (d. 1929)
• March 26 – Edward Bellamy, American author (d. 1898)
• March 31 – Charles Doolittle Walcott, American invertebrate paleontologist (d. 1927)

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April–June

• April 8 – John Peters, American 19th century baseball player (d. 1924)
• April 9 – Julius Wernher, German-born British businessman and art collector (d. 1912)
• April 10 – Fanny Davenport, actress (d. 1898)
• April 11 – Isidor Rayner, U.S. senator (d. 1912)
• April 12 – Nikolai Golitsyn, Prime Minister of Russia (d. 1925)
• April 13 – Arthur Matthew Weld Downing, British astronomer (d. 1917)
• April 15
  • William Thomas Pipes, Nova Scotia politician (d. 1909)
  • Edmund Peck, Canadian missionary (d. 1924)
• April 16 – Paul von Breitenbach, German railway planner (d. 1930)
• 1933)
• April 20 – Daniel Chester French, American sculptor (d. 1931)
• April 23 – Agda Montelius, Swedish feminist (d. 1920)
• April 24 – Murdo MacKenzie, Scottish-Brazilian rancher (d. 1939)
• April 26
  • Harry Bates, British sculptor (d. 1899)
  • James Drake, Australian politician (d. 1915)
• April 27 – Hans Hartwig von Beseler, German soldier (d. 1921)
• 1910)
• May 1 – Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom (d. 1942)
• May 3 – Johnny Ringo, American cowboy (d. 1882)
• May 4 – Emanuel Schiffers, Russian chess player (d. 1904)
• May 7 – Anton Seidl, Hungarian conductor (d. 1898)
• May 8 – Ross Barnes, U.S. baseball player (d. 1915)
• May 10 – Thomas Lipton, Scottish merchant and yachtsman (d. 1931)
• May 12
  • Henry Cabot Lodge, American statesman (d. 1924)
  • Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, Scottish Liberal politician and jurist (d. 1934)
• May 12 – Frederick Holder, premier of South Australia (d. 1909)
• May 14 – Alva Adams, Governor of Colorado (d. 1922)
• May 18 – Oliver Heaviside, British engineer (d. 1925)
• May 21 – Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian volcanologist (d. 1914)
• May 26 – James Kenyon, British pioneer of cinematography (d. 1925)
• May 27 – Thomas Neill Cream, serial killer (d. 1892)
• May 28 – Frederic William Maitland, English jurist and historian (d. 1906)
• May 30 – Frederick Dent Grant, U.S. soldier and statesman (d. 1912)
• May 31 – Alphonse Pénaud, French aeronautical pioneer (d. 1880)
• June 2
  • Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, British businessman (d. 1931)
  • Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, responsible for diabetes mellitus (d. 1935)
• June 3 – Albert M. Todd, American businessman and politician (d. 1931)
• June 5 – Pat Garrett, American bartender and sheriff (d. 1908)
• June 6 – Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1918)
• June 12 – Roberto Ivens, Portuguese explorer of Africa (d. 1898)
• June 15 – Charles Hazelius Sternberg, American fossil collector and amateur paleontologist (d. 1943)
• June 18 – Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, American publisher (d. 1933)
• June 21 – Daniel Carter Beard, U.S. scouting pioneer (d. 1941)
• June 22 – Ignaz Goldziher, Jewish Hungarian orientalist (d. 1921)
• June 24 – Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British field marshal and statesman (d. 1916)
• June 27
  • Ivan Vazov, Bulgarian poet (d. 1921)
  • Lafcadio Hearn, Greco-Japanese author (d. 1904)
  • Jørgen Pedersen Gram, Danish mathematician (d. 1916)

July–September

• July 2 – Robert Ridgway, American ornithologist (d. 1929)
• July 8 – Charles Rockwell Lanman, American Sanskrit scholar (d. 1941)
• July 11 – Annie Armstrong, American missionary leader (d. 1938)
• July 12
  • Newell Sanders, American businessman and politician (d. 1938)
  • Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (d. 1912)
• July 15 – Mother Cabrini, American saint (d. 1917)
• July 20 – John G. Shedd, American businessman (d. 1926)
• July 28 – William Whittingham Lyman, U.S. vintner (d. 1921)
• July 31
  • Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (d. 1912)
  • Robert Planquette, French composer of stage musicals (d. 1903)
• August – Bernardo Reyes, Mexican general (d. 1913)
• August 5 – Guy de Maupassant, French writer (d. 1893)
• August 6 – Henri Chantavoine, French writer (d. 1918)
• August 9 – Johann Büttikofer, Swiss zoologist (d. 1929)
• August 13 – Philip Bourke Marston, English poet (d. 1887)
• August 14 – W. W. Rouse Ball, British mathematician (d. 1925)
• August 30 – Marcelo H. del Pilar, Filipino writer and journalist (d. 1896)

October–December

• October 1
  • David R. Francis, American politician (d. 1927)
  • Thomas Vincent Welch, New York Assemblyman (d. 1903)
• October 14 – Newton E. Mason, United States Navy rear admiral (d. 1945)
• October 26 – Grigore Tocilescu, Romanian historian, archaeologist, epigrapher and folkorist, author of many books on ancient Dacia (d. 1909)
• November 2 – Antonio Jacobsen, maritime artist (d. 1921)
• November 13 – Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (d. 1894)
• November 15 – Victor Laloux, French architect (d. 1937)

Date unknown

• Hortensia Antommarchi, Colombian poet (d. 1915)

Deaths

January–March

• January 2 – Manuel de la Peña y Peña, interim President of Mexico (b. 1789)
• January 20 – Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and playwright (b. 1779)
• January 22
  • William Joseph Chaminade, French Catholic priest (b. 1761)
  • Saint Vincent Pallotti, Italian missionary (b. 1795)
• January 26 – Francis Jeffrey, Scottish judge and literary critic (b. 1773)
• January 27
  • Johann Gottfried Schadow, German sculptor (b. 1764)
  • Philipp Roth, composer (b. 1779)
• February 4 – Daniel Turner, officer in the United States Navy (b. 1794)
• February 20 – Valentín Canalizo, acting president of Mexico (b. 1794)
• February 23 – Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer, British military officer and colonial administrator (b. 1775)
• February 25 – Daoguang Emperor of the Qing Dynasty of China (b. 1782)
• February 27 – Samuel Adams, Democratic Governor of the State of Arkansas (b. 1805)
• March 3 – Oliver Cowdery, U.S. religious leader (b. 1806)
• March 13
  • Juan Martín de Pueyrredón y O'Dogan, Argentine general and politician (b. 1776)
  • Owen Stanley, British naval officer and explorer of New Guinea (b. 1811)
• March 26 – Samuel Turell Armstrong, U.S. political figure (b. 1784)
• March 27 – Wilhelm Beer, German banker and astronomer (b. 1797)
• March 28 – Gerard Brandon, Governor of Mississippi (b. 1788)
• March 31 – John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President of the United States (b. 1782)

April–June

• April 7 – William Lisle Bowles, English poet and critic (b. 1762)
• April 9 – William Prout, English chemist and physician (b. 1785)
• April 12 – Adoniram Judson, U.S. Baptist missionary (b. 1788)
• April 16 – Marie Tussaud, French wax sculptor (b. 1761)
• April 17 – Jan Krukowiecki, Polish general (b. 1772)
• April 22 – Friedrich Robert Faehlmann, Estonian philologist and physician (b. 1798)
• April 23 – William Wordsworth, English poet (b. 1770)
• April 24 – John Norvell, U.S. newspaperman and senator (b. 1789)
• May 1 – Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville, French zoologist and anatomist (b. 1777)
• May 2 – Joseph Plumb Martin, American Revolutionary soldier and narrative author. (b. 1760)
• May 10 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (b. 1778)
• May 12 – Frances Sargent Osgood, U.S. poet (b. 1811)
• May 21 – Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, German theological writer and preacher (b. 1766)
• May 24
  • Jane Porter, English novelist (b. 1776)
  • Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł, Polish noble (b. 1778)
• May 31 – Giuseppe Giusti, Tuscan satirical poet (b. 1809)
• June 9 – John Green Crosse, English surgeon
• June 16 – William Lawson, British explorer of New South Wales (b. 1774)
• June 19 – Margaret Fuller, American journalist (b. 1810)
• June 30 – Richard Dillingham, American Quaker teacher (b. 1823)

July–September

• July 2 – Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1788)
• July 4 – William Kirby, English entomologist (b. 1759)
• July 7 – Timothy Hackworth, British steam locomotive engineer
• July 8 – Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge (b. 1774)
• July 9
  • The Báb, Persian founder of the Bábí Faith (b. 1819) (executed by a firing squad)
  • Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (b. 1784)
  • Jean-Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti (b. 1776)
• July 12 – Robert Stevenson, Scottish lighthouse engineer (b. 1772)
• July 14 – August Neander, German theologian and church historian (b. 1789)
• July 16 – Julia Glover, Irish-born British stage actress (b. ca. 1779)
• July 25 – Richard Barnes Mason, military governor of California (b. 1797)
• August 3 – Jacob Jones, U.S. Navy officer (b. 1768)
• August 6
  • Edward Walsh, Irish poet (b. 1805)
  • Hone Heke, Maori chief and war leader
• August 13 – Martin Archer Shee, Irish painter and president of the Royal Academy (b. 1770)
• August 17 – General José de San Martín, Argentine military and South American independence hero (b. 1778)
• August 18
  • Charles Arbuthnot, British Tory politician (b. 1767)
  • Honoré de Balzac, French author (b. 1799)
• August 22 – Nikolaus Lenau, Austrian poet (b. 1802)
• August 26 – King Louis Philippe I of France (b. 1773)
• August 27 – Thomas Kidd, English classical scholar and schoolmaster (b. 1770)
• September 2 – Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, British Tory politician (b. 1775)
• September 12 – Presley O'Bannon, officer in the United States Marine Corps (b. 1784)
• September 22 – Johann Heinrich von Thünen, German economist (b. 1783)
• September 23 – José Gervasio Artigas, Uruguayan revolutionary (b. 1764)

October–December

• October 2 – Sarah Biffen, English painter (b. 1784)
• October 29 – Marmaduke Williams, Democratic-Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina (b. 1774)
• November 2 – Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Democratic governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina (b. 1796)
• November 3 – Thomas Ford, governor of Illinois (b. 1800)
• November 4 – Gustav Schwab, German classical scholar (b. 1792)
• November 9 – François-Xavier-Joseph Droz, French writer on ethics and political science (b. 1773)
• November 19 – Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President of the United States (b. 1780)
• November 22 – Lin Zexu, Chinese politician (b. 1785)
• November 30 – Germain Henri Hess, Swiss chemist and doctor (b. 1802)
• December 4
  • Robert Gilfillan, Scottish poet (b. 1798)
  • William Sturgeon, English physicist and inventor (b. 1783)
• December 10
  • Józef Bem, Polish general (b. 1794)
  • François Sulpice Beudant, French mineralogist and geologist (b. 1787)
• December 22 – William Plumer, U.S. lawyer and lay preacher (b. 1759)
• December 24 – Frédéric Bastiat French author and economist (b. 1801)
• December 28 – Heinrich Christian Schumacher, German astronomer (b. 1780)

Date unknown

• Edward Bickersteth, English evangelical divine (b. 1786)
• Pierre M. Lapie, French cartographer (f. 1779)^[1]
• Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of John Graves Simcoe (b. 1762)
• Nara Singh, regent of Manipur
• Tan Tock Seng, Singaporean businessman philanthropist
• William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist (b. 1792)

References