[Edit]

This page is about the year 1850. For the board game, see 1850.

top

January 4 - The first American ice-skating club is formed (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

January 29 - Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress

February 20 - The first train to ever run in Columbus, Ohio runs from Columbus, Ohio to Xenia, Ohio, a distance of 54 miles, in three hours and five minutes on the Columbus & Xenia Railroad.

February 28 - University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah

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 19 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.

April 4 - Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.

June 3 - The traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding. This is the date on which it was incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".

July - Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan sends out the order for general mobilisation of the rebel forces.

July 9 - President Zachary Taylor dies while in office and Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States (he is inaugurated the next day).

July 9 - The Báb, founder of the Bábí Faith, is executed by firing squad in Tabriz, Persia

August 28 - Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres

September 9 - California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.

September 9 - New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress

September 29 - The Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX.

November - Taiping Rebellion: First clashes of the Taiping Rebellion occur between Imperialist militia and the Heavenly Army.

November 29 - The treaty called Punctation of Olmütz was signed in Olomouc. It meant diplomatic capitulation of Prussia to Austrian Empire, which took over the leadership of German Confederation.

December 16 - The first four sailing ships arrived at the Port of Lyttelton (New Zealand), with 792 emigrants or Canterbury Pilgrims as they called themselves. On this day they founded an exclusive theocratic Utopia, which they called Christchurch.

top

Foundation of the University of Sydney, the oldest in Australia

The American System of Watch Manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Mass.U.S.A. Waltham Watch Company

Bingley Hall, the world's first purpose- built exhibition hall, opens in Birmingham, England.

Pinkerton Detective Agency

France begins to transport colonists to Algeria

Modern acoustic guitar created in Spain

Rifling becomes common in firearms

Entre Ríos Province in Argentina revolts - it is backed by Brazil in alliance with Paraguay and the Uruguayan Colorado Party

Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad

James Beckwourth discovers Beckwourth Pass.

the International Organisation of Good Templars is established, then as the order Knights of Jericho.

Foundation of St. Mary’s Institute in Dayton, OH, which would eventually become the University of Dayton.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is published.

top

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, U.S. 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)

January 15 - Leonard Darwin, son of the British naturalist Charles Darwin (d. 1943)

January 15 - 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 - Mary Noailles Murfree, American novelist (d. 1922)

January 27 - Edward Smith, Captain of the Titanic (d. 1912)

January 27 - Samuel Gompers, U.S. labor union leader (d. 1924)

January 28 - Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (d. 1903)

February 12 - William Morris Davis, U.S. geographer (d. 1934)

February 14 - Kiyoura Keigo, Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1942)

February 15 - Albert B. Cummins, U.S. political figure (d. 1926)

February 17 - Alf Morgans, Premier of Western Australia (d. 1933)

February 23 - César Ritz, Swiss hotelier (d. 1918)

February 27 - Henry Huntington, U.S. railroad pioneer and art collector (d. 1927)

March 7 - Tomáš Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia (d. 1937)

March 7 - Champ Clark, U.S. politician (d. 1921)

March 7 - Éphrem-A. Brisebois, Canadian police officer (d. 1890)

March 13 - Hugh John Macdonald, premier of Manitoba (d. 1929)

March 26 - Edward Bellamy, U.S. author (d. 1898)

March 31 - Charles Doolittle Walcott, U.S. invertebrate paleontologist (d. 1927)

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)

April 15 - Edmund Peck, Canadian missionary (d. 1924)

April 16 - Paul von Breitenbach, German railway planner (d. 1930)

April 18 - Joseph Labadie, U.S. labor organizer (d. 1933)

April 20 - Daniel Chester French, U.S. sculptor (d. 1931)

April 26 - Harry Bates, British sculptor (d. 1899)

April 26 - James Drake, Australian politician (d. 1915)

April 27 - Hans Hartwig von Beseler, German soldier (d. 1921)

April 29 - George Murdoch, first mayor of Calgary (d. 1910)

top

May 1 - Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom (d. 1942)

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, U.S. statesman (d. 1924)

May 12 - 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 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)

June 2 - Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, British businessman (d. 1931)

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 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)

June 27 - Lafcadio Hearn, Greco-Japanese author (d. 1904)

June 27 - Jørgen Pedersen Gram, Danish mathematician (d. 1916)

July 2 - Robert Ridgway, U.S. ornithologist (d. 1929)

July 8 - Charles Rockwell Lanman, U.S. Sanskrit scholar (d. 1941)

July 12 - Newell Sanders, U.S. businessman and politician (d. 1938)

July 12 - Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (d. 1912)

July 15 - Mother Cabrini, U.S. saint (d. 1917)

July 20 - John G. Shedd, U.S. businessman (d. 1926)

July 28 - William Whittingham Lyman, U.S. vintner (d. 1921)

July 31 - Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (d. 1912)

July 31 - Robert Planquette, French composer of stage musicals (d. 1903)

August 5 - Guy de Maupassant, French writer (d. 1893)

August 6 - Henri Chantavoine, French writer (d. 1918)

August 14 - W. W. Rouse Ball, British mathematician (d. 1925)

August 26 - Charles Robert Richet, French physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1935)

August 27 - Silas Alexander Ramsay, mayor of Calgary (d. 1942)

August 30 - Cal McVey, U.S. baseball player (d. 1926)

September 2 - Woldemar Voigt, German physicist (d. 1919)

September 2 - Eugene Field, U.S. writer (d. 1895)

September 2 - Albert Spalding, U.S. baseball player and businessman (d. 1915)

September 2 - Alfred Pringsheim, German mathematician (d. 1941)

September 8 - Paul Gerson Unna, German dermatologist (d. 1929)

September 9 - Jane Ellen Harrison, British classical scholar and feminist (d. 1928)

September 28 - Charles William Dorsett, U.S. prohibitionist (d. 1936)

October 1 - David R. Francis, Governor of Missouri (d. 1927)

October 1 - Thomas Vincent Welch, American politician and first Superintendent of Niagara Falls State Park (d. 1903)

October 18 - Pablo Iglesias, Spanish socialist politician (d. 1925)

October 18 - Basil Hall Chamberlain, British Japanologist (d. 1935)

October 22 - Charles Kingston, Premier of South Australia (d. 1908)

October 30 - John Patton, Jr., U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan (d. 1907)

November 5 - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, U.S. author and poet (d. 1919)

November 12 - Mikhail Chigorin, Russian chess player (d. 1908)

November 13 - Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (d. 1894)

November 13 - Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet, British politician (d. 1922)

November 16 - Federico Errázuriz Echaurren, Chilean political figure (d. 1901)

November 22 - Georg Dehio, German historian of art (d. 1932)

November 28 - Robert Koehler, German-born painter and art teacher (d. 1917)

November 30 - Cayetano Coll y Toste, Puerto Rican historian and writer (d. 1930)

December 8 - Robert E. Pattison, governor of Pennsylvania (d. 1904)

December 9 - Emma Abbott, U.S. opera singer (d. 1891)

December 11 - Mary Victoria Hamilton, Scottish-German-French great-grandmother of Prince Rainier III of Monaco (d. 1922)

December 12 - Martin F. Ansel, Governor of South Carolina (d. 1945)

December 21 - Zdeněk Fibich, Czech composer (d. 1900)

December 24 - Brandon Thomas, British actor and playwright (d. 1914)

December 25 - Florence Griswold, U.S. art curator (d. 1937)

December 28 - Francesco Tamagno, Italian operatic tenor (d. 1905)

top

Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, Saudi ruler (d. 1928)

Abraham Fischer, Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony in South Africa (d. 1913)

Alexandre Luigini, French conductor and composer (d. 1906)

Alfred Gabriel Nathorst, Swedish Arctic explorer and geologist (d. 1921)

Alfred Maudslay, British colonial diplomat (d. 1931)

Andria Dadiani, Prince of Samegrelo (d. 1910)

Bernhard Baron, Jewish cigarette-manufacturer and philanthropist (d. 1929)

Artur Władysław Potocki, Polish nobleman (d. 1890)

Bernardo Reyes, Mexican general (d. 1913)

Charles Braithwaite, Manitoba politician and agrarian leader (d. 1910)

Charles Hazelius Sternberg, U.S. fossil collector and amateur paleontologist (d. 1943)

Cuthbert A. Brereton, British civil engineer (d. 1910)

Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, U.S. publisher (d. 1933)

Daniel Carter Beard, U.S. scouting pioneer (d. 1941)

Daniel J. Greene, Newfoundland politician (d. 1911)

Ebenezer Howard, British urban planner (d. 1928)

Edgar Wilson Nye, U.S. humorist (d. 1896)

Edmond Holmes, English writer and poet (d. 1936)

Edmond Nocard, French veterinarian and microbiologist (d. 1903)

Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, responsible for diabetes mellitus (d. 1935)

Edward John Gregory, British painter (d. 1909)

Emanuel Schiffers, Russian chess player (d. 1904)

Ernest Albert Waterlow, English painter (d. 1919)

Ernst Bernheim, German-Jewish historian (d. 1922)

Fanny Davenport, U.S. actress (d. 1898)

Fernando Fernandez, Puerto Rican distiller (approximate date; died 1940)

Georg von Vollmar, Socialist politician in Bavaria (d. 1922)

George Henschel, English musician (d. 1934)

George Hitchcock, U.S. artist (d. 1913)

Hamo Thornycroft, British sculptor (d. 1925)

Hendry Brown, U.S. outlaw (approximate date; died 1884)

Henricus van de Wetering, Archbishop of Utrecht (d. 1929)

Hermann Ebbinghaus, German psychologist (d. 1909)

Hermann von Ihering, German-Brazilian zoologist (d. 1930)

top

J. Walter Fewkes, U.S. anthropologist (d. 1930)

James Kenyon, British pioneer of cinematography (d. 1925)

James Moore, British cyclist (d. ?)

Johann Büttikofer, Swiss zoologist (d. 1929)

John Casper Branner, U.S. geologist (d. 1922)

John Collier, British writer and painter (d. 1934)

John Perry, Irish engineer (d. 1920)

John Wycliffe Lowes Forster, Canadian portrait painter (d. 1938)

Johnny Ringo, U.S. cowboy (d. 1892)

Julius Wernher, German-born British businessman and art collector (d. 1912)

Kate Chopin, U.S. novelist (d. 1904)

László Lukács, Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 1932)

Laura E. Richards, U.S. author (d. 1943)

Lawrence Hargrave, Australian engineer (d. 1915)

Léon-Adolphe Cardinal Amette, French Catholic cardinal and archbishop of Paris (d. 1920)

Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Catalan architect (d. 1923)

Lucien Gaulard, French inventor (d. 1888)

Maria Beatrix Krasińska, Polish noblewoman (d. 1884)

Montague Aldous, Canadian surveyor (d. 1946)

Murdo MacKenzie, Scottish-Brazilian rancher (d. 1939)

Oscar Straus, U.S. politician (d. 1936)

Pavel Axelrod, Russian politician (d. 1928)

Per Hasselberg, Swedish sculptor (d. 1894)

Philip Bourke Marston, English poet (d. 1887)

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, U.S. Roman Catholic nun and social worker (d. 1926)

Rose la Touche, lover of John Ruskin (d. 1875)

Rudolf Hoernes, Austrian geologist (d. 1912)

Solomon Schechter, founder of the United Synagogue of America (d. 1915)

Steve Bellan, Cuban baseball player (d. 1932)

Thomas Alexander Smith, U.S. politician (d. 1932)

Victor Henry, French philologist (d. 1907)

Victor Laloux, French Beaux-Arts architect (d. 1937)

Vissarion Jughashvili, Joseph Stalin's father (approximate date; died 1890)

William Lawrence, U.S. Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts (d. 1941)

William Pugsley, Canadian politician and lawyer (d. 1925)

William Wallace Wotherspoon, U.S. general (d. 1921)

Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Mother of Edweso (approximate date; died 1921)

Zaharoff Basil, Anglo-Turkish financier and arms manufacturer (d. 1936)

top

January 20 - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and playwright (b. 1779)

January 22 - William Joseph Chaminade, French Catholic priest (b. 1761)

January 26 - Francis Jeffrey, Scottish judge and literary critic (b. 1773)

January 27 - Johann Gottfried Schadow, German sculptor (b. 1764)

January 27 - Philipp Roth, composer (b. 1779)

February 4 - Daniel Turner, officer in the United States Navy (b. 1794)

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 - 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, U.S. politician (b. 1782)

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 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 10 - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (b. 1778)

May 21 - Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, German theological writer and preacher (b. 1766)

May 31 - Giuseppe Giusti, Tuscan satirical poet (b. 1809)

top

June 9 - John Green Crosse, English surgeon

June 19 - Margaret Fuller, American journalist (b. 1810)

June 30 - Richard Dillingham, American Quaker teacher (b. 1823)

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)

July 9 - Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (b. 1784)

July 9 - Jean Pierre Boyer, President of Haiti (b. 1776)

July 14 - August Neander, German theologian and church historian (b. 1789)

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)

August 13 - Martin Archer Shee, Irish painter and president of the Royal Academy (b. 1770)

August 18 - Honoré de Balzac, French author (b. 1799)

August 22 - Nikolaus Lenau, Austrian poet (b. 1802)

August 26 - King Louis-Philippe of France (b. 1773)

August 27 - Thomas Kidd, English classical scholar and schoolmaster (b. 1770)

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 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 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 - William Sturgeon, English physicist and inventor (b. 1783)

December 10 - 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)

top

Antoni Potocki, Polish nobleman (b. 1780)

Báb, Bahá'í herald (b. 1819)

Charles Arbuthnot, British Tory politician (b. 1767)

Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, British Tory politician (b. 1775)

Edward Bickersteth, English evangelical divine (b. 1786)

Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of John Graves Simcoe (b. 1762)

Frances Sargent Osgood, U.S. poet (b. 1811)

François-Xavier-Joseph Droz, French writer on ethics and political science (b. 1773)

Hone Heke, Maori chief and war leader

Jan Krukowiecki, Polish general (b. 1772)

Jane Porter, English novelist (b. 1776)

Manuel de la Peña y Peña, interim President of Mexico (b. 1789)

Józef Bem, Polish general (b. 1794)

Juan Martín de Pueyrredón y O'Dogan, Argentine general and politician (b. 1776)

Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł, Polish noble (b. 1778)

Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer, British military officer and colonial administrator (b. 1775)

Robert Gilfillan, Scottish poet (b. 1798)

Robert Stevenson, Scottish lighthouse engineer (b. 1772)

Tan Tock Seng, Singaporean businessman philanthropist

Valentín Canalizo, acting president of Mexico (b. 1794)

Saint Vincent Pallotti, Italian missionary (b. 1795)

William Lawson, British explorer of New South Wales (b. 1774)

William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist (b. 1792)