1850

1850 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar).

Events

• 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 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 18 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.
• April 4 - Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.
• July 9 - President Zachary Taylor dies while in office and Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States (he is inaugurated the next day).
• 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
• December 16 - The first four ships arrived at Lyttelton to settle Christchurch, New Zealand.
• December - Christian mystic Hong Xiuquan begins the Taiping Rebellion.
• End of the Irish potato famine
• The United States Republican Party is founded
• 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
• Use of anesthesia in surgery increases in USA and Europe
• 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

Births

• January 4 - Frederick York Powell, English historian and scholar (died 1904)
• January 6 - Eduard Bernstein, German social democratic theoretician and politician (died 1932)
• January 6 - Xaver Scharwenka, Polish-German composer (died 1924)
• January 10 - John Wellborn Root, U.S. architect (died 1891)
• January 11 - Philipp von Ferrary, Italian stamp collector (died 1917)
• January 14 - Pierre Loti, French sailor and writer (died 1923)
• January 15 - Mihai Eminescu, Romanian romantic poet (died 1889)
• January 15 - Leonard Darwin, son of the British naturalist Charles Darwin (died 1943)
• January 15 - Sofia Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician (died 1891)
• January 17 - Aleksandr Taneyev, Russian composer (died 1918)
• January 18 - Seth Low, American educator (died 1916)
• January 19 - Augustine Birrell, English author and politician (died 1933)
• January 24 - Mary Noailles Murfree, American novelist (died 1922)
• January 27 - Edward Smith, Captain of the Titanic (died 1912)
• January 27 - Samuel Gompers, U.S. labor union leader (died 1924)
• January 28 - Edward Merritt Hughes, U.S. Navy officer (died 1903)
• February 12 - William Morris Davis, U.S. geographer (died 1934)
• February 14 - Kiyoura Keigo, Prime Minister of Japan (died 1942)
• February 15 - Albert B. Cummins, U.S. political figure (died 1926)
• February 17 - Alf Morgans, Premier of Western Australia (died 1933)
• February 23 - César Ritz, Swiss hotelier (died 1918)
• February 27 - Henry Huntington, U.S. railroad pioneer and art collector (died 1927)
• March 7 - Tomáš Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia (died 1937)
• March 7 - Champ Clark, U.S. politician (died 1921)
• March 7 - Éphrem-A. Brisebois, Canadian police officer (died 1890)
• March 13 - Hugh John Macdonald, premier of Manitoba (died 1929)
• March 26 - Edward Bellamy, U.S. author (died 1898)
• March 31 - Charles Doolittle Walcott, U.S. invertebrate paleontologist (died 1927)
• April 11 - Isidor Rayner, U.S. senator (died 1912)
• April 12 - Nikolai Golitsyn, Prime Minister of Russia (died 1925)
• April 13 - Arthur Matthew Weld Downing, British astronomer (died 1917)
• April 15 - William Thomas Pipes, Nova Scotia politician (died 1909)
• April 15 - Edmund Peck, Canadian missionary (died 1924)
• April 16 - Paul von Breitenbach, German railway planner (died 1930)
• April 18 - Joseph Labadie, U.S. labor organizer (died 1933)
• April 20 - Daniel Chester French, U.S. sculptor (died 1931)
• April 26 - Harry Bates, British sculptor (died 1899)
• April 26 - James Drake, Australian politician (died 1915)
• April 27 - Hans Hartwig von Beseler, German soldier (died 1921)
• April 29 - George Murdoch, first mayor of Calgary (died 1910)
• May 1 - Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom (died 1942)
• May 7 - Anton Seidl, Hungarian conductor (died 1898)
• May 8 - Ross Barnes, U.S. baseball player (died 1915)
• May 10 - Thomas Lipton, Scottish merchant and yachtsman (died 1931)
• May 12 - Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. statesman (died 1924)
• May 12 - Charles McLaren, 1st Baron Aberconway, Scottish Liberal politician and jurist (died 1934)
• May 12 - Frederick Holder, premier of South Australia (died 1909)
• May 14 - Alva Adams, Governor of Colorado (died 1922)
• May 18 - Oliver Heaviside, British engineer (died 1925)
• May 21 - Giuseppe Mercalli, Italian volcanologist (died 1914)
• May 27 - Thomas Neill Cream, serial killer (died 1892)
• May 28 - Frederic William Maitland, English jurist and historian (died 1906)
• May 30 - Frederick Dent Grant, U.S.soldier and statesman (died 1912)
• June 2 - Jesse Boot, 1st Baron Trent, British businessman (died 1931)
• June 3 - Albert M. Todd, American businessman and politician (died 1931)
• June 5 - Pat Garrett, American bartender and sheriff (died 1908)
• June 6 - Karl Ferdinand Braun, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1918)
• June 12 - Roberto Ivens, Portuguese explorer of Africa (died 1898)
• June 22 - Ignaz Goldziher, Jewish Hungarian orientalist (died 1921)
• June 24 - Horatio Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British Field Marshal and statesman (died 1916)
• June 27 - Ivan Vazov, Bulgarian poet (died 1921)
• June 27 - Lafcadio Hearn, Greco-Japanese author (died 1904)
• June 27 - Jørgen Pedersen Gram, Danish mathematician (died 1916)
• July 2 - Robert Ridgway, U.S. ornithologist (died 1929)
• July 8 - Charles Rockwell Lanman, U.S. Sanskrit scholar (died 1941)
• July 12 - Newell Sanders, U.S. businessman and politician (died 1938)
• July 12 - Otto Schoetensack, German anthropologist (died 1912)
• July 15 - Mother Cabrini, U.S. saint (died 1917)
• July 20 - John G. Shedd, U.S. businessman (died 1926)
• July 28 - William Whittingham Lyman, U.S. vintner (died 1921)
• July 31 - Robert Love Taylor, Tennessee congressman (died 1912)
• July 31 - Robert Planquette, French composer of stage musicals (died 1903)
• August 5 - Guy de Maupassant, French writer
• August 6 - Henri Chantavoine, French writer (died 1918)
• August 14 - W. W. Rouse Ball, British mathematician (died 1925)
• August 26 - Charles Robert Richet, French physiologist (died 1935)
• August 27 - Silas Alexander Ramsay, mayor of Calgary (died 1942)
• August 30 - Cal McVey, U.S. baseball player (died 1926)
• September 2 - Woldemar Voigt, German physicist (died 1919)
• September 2 - Eugene Field, U.S. writer (died 1895)
• September 2 - Albert Spalding, U.S. baseball player and businessman (died 1915)
• September 2 - Alfred Pringsheim, German mathematician (died 1941)
• September 8 - Paul Gerson Unna, German dermatologist (died 1929)
• September 9 - Jane Ellen Harrison, British classical scholar and feminist (died 1928)
• September 28 - Charles William Dorsett, U.S. prohibitionist (died 1936)
• October 1 - David R. Francis, Governor of Missouri (died 1927)
• October 18 - Pablo Iglesias, Spanish socialist politician (died 1925)
• October 18 - Basil Hall Chamberlain, British Japanologist (died 1935)
• October 22 - Charles Kingston, Premier of South Australia (died 1908)
• October 30 - John Patton, Jr., U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan (died 1907)
• November 5 - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, U.S. author and poet (died 1919)
• November 12 - Mikhail Chigorin, Russian chess player (died 1908)
• November 13 - Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (died 1894)
• November 13 - Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet, British politician (died 1922)
• November 16 - Federico Errázuriz Echaurren, Chilean political figure (died 1901)
• November 22 - Georg Dehio, German historian of art (died 1932)
• November 28 - Robert Koehler, German born painter and art teacher (died 1917)
• November 30 - Cayetano Coll y Toste, Puerto Rican historian and writer (died 1930)
• December 8 - Robert E. Pattison, governor of Pennsylvania (died 1904)
• December 9 - th]] - Emma Abbott, U.S. opera singer (died 1891)
• December 11 - Mary Victoria Hamilton, Scottish-German-French great-grandmother of Prince Rainier III of Monaco (died 1922)
• December 12 - Martin F. Ansel, Governor of South Carolina (died 1945)
• December 21 - Zdeněk Fibich, Czech composer (died 1900)
• December 24 - Brandon Thomas, British actor and playwright (died 1914)
• December 25 - Florence Griswold, U.S. art curator (died 1937)
• December 28 - Francesco Tamagno, Italian operatic tenor (died 1905)
• Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, Saudi ruler (died 1928)
• Montague Aldous, Canadian surveyor
• Léon-Adolphe Cardinal Amette, French Catholic cardinal and archbishop of Paris (died 1920)
• Yaa Asantewaa, Queen Mother of Edweso (approximate date; died 1921)
• Pavel Axelrod, Russian politician (died 1928)
• Bernhard Baron, Jewish cigarette-manufacturer and philanthropist (died 1929)
• Daniel Carter Beard, U.S. scouting pioneer (died 1941)
• Steve Bellan, Cuban baseball player (died 1932)
• Ernst Bernheim, German-Jewish historian (died 1922)
• Charles Braithwaite, Manitoba politician and agrarian leader (died 1910)
• John Casper Branner, U.S. geologist (died 1922)
• Cuthbert A. Brereton, British civil engineer (died 1910)
• Hendry Brown, U.S. outlaw (approximate date; died 1884)
• Johann Büttikofer, Swiss zoologist (died 1929)
• Kate Chopin, U.S. novelist (died 1904)
• John Collier, British writer and painter (died 1934)
• Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, U.S. publisher (died 1933)
• Andria Dadiani, Prince of Samegrelo (died 1910)
• Fanny Davenport, U.S. actress (died 1898)
• Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Catalan architect (died 1923)
• Hermann Ebbinghaus, German psychologist (died 1909)
• Fernando Fernandez, Puerto Rican distiller (approximate date; died 1940)
• J. Walter Fewkes, U.S. anthropologist (died 1930)
• Abraham Fischer, Prime Minister of the Orange River Colony in South Africa (died 1913)
• John Wycliffe Lowes Forster, Canadian portrait painter (died 1938)
• Lucien Gaulard, French inventor (died 1888)
• Daniel J. Greene, Newfoundland politician (died 1911)
• Edward John Gregory, British painter (died 1909)
• Lawrence Hargrave, Australian engineer (died 1915)
• Per Hasselberg, Swedish sculptor (died 1371)
• Victor Henry, French philologist (died 1907)
• George Henschel, English musician (died 1934)
• George Hitchcock, U.S. artist (died 1913)
• Rudolf Hoernes, Austrian geologist
• Edmond Holmes, English writer and poet (died 1936)
• Ebenezer Howard, British urban planner (died 1928)
• Hermann von Ihering, German-Brazilian zoologist (died 1930)
• Vissarion Jughashvili, Joseph Stalin's father (approximate date; died 1890)
• James Kenyon, British pioneer of cinematography (died 1925)
• Maria Beatrix Krasińska, Polish noblewoman (died 1884)
• Victor Laloux, French Beaux-Arts architect (died 1937)
• Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, U.S. Roman Catholic nun and social worker (died 1926)
• William Lawrence, U.S. Episcopalian bishop of Massachusetts (died 1941)
• Alexandre Luigini, French conductor and composer (died 1906)
• László Lukács, Prime Minister of Hungary (died 1932)
• Murdo MacKenzie, Scottish-Brazilian rancher
• Philip Bourke Marston, English poet (died 1887)
• Alfred Maudslay, British colonial diplomat (died 1931)
• James Moore, British cyclist
• Alfred Gabriel Nathorst, Swedish Arctic explorer and geologist (died 1921)
• Edmond Nocard, French veterinarian and microbiologist (died 1903)
• Edgar Wilson Nye, U.S. humorist (died 1896)
• John Perry, Irish engineer (died 1920)
• Artur Władysław Potocki, Polish nobleman (died 1890)
• William Pugsley, Canadian politician and lawyer (died 1925)
• Bernardo Reyes, Mexican general (died 1913)
• Laura E. Richards, U.S. author (died 1943)
• Johnny Ringo, U.S. cowboy (died 1892)
• Solomon Schechter, founder of the United Synagogue of America (died 1915)
• Emanuel Schiffers, Russian chess player (died 1904)
• Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, responsible for diabetes mellitus (died 1935)
• Thomas Alexander Smith, U.S. politician (died 1932)
• Charles Hazelius Sternberg, U.S. fossil collector and amateur paleontologist (died 1943)
• Oscar Straus, U.S. politician (died 1936)
• Hamo Thornycroft, British sculptor (died 1925)
• Rose la Touche, lover of John Ruskin
• Henricus van de Wetering, Archbishop of Utrecht (died 1929)
• Georg von Vollmar, Socialist politician in Bavaria (died 1922)
• Ernest Albert Waterlow, English painter (died 1919)
• Julius Wernher, German born British businessman and art collector (died 1912)
• William Wallace Wotherspoon, U.S. general (died 1921)
• Zaharoff Basil, Anglo-Turkish financier and arms manufacturer (died 1936)

Deaths

• January 20 - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger, Danish poet and playwright (born 1779)
• January 22 - William Joseph Chaminade, French Catholic priest (born 1761)
• January 26 - Francis Jeffrey, Scottish judge and literary critic (born 1773)
• January 27 - Johann Gottfried Schadow, German sculptor (born 1764)
• January 27 - Philipp Roth, composer (born 1779)
• February 4 - Daniel Turner, officer in the United States Navy (born 1794)
• February 25 - Daoguang Emperor, of the Qing dynasty of China (born 1782)
• February 27 - Samuel Adams, Democratic Governor of the State of Arkansas (born 1805)
• March 3 - Oliver Cowdery, U.S. religious leader (born 1806)
• March 26 - Samuel Turell Armstrong, U.S. political figure (born 1784)
• March 27 - Wilhelm Beer, German banker and astronomer (born 1797)
• March 28 - Gerard Brandon, Governor of Mississippi (born 1788)
• March 31 - John C. Calhoun, U.S. politician (born 1782)
• April 7 - William Lisle Bowles, English poet and critic (born 1762)
• April 9 - William Prout, English chemist and physician (born 1785)
• April 16 - Marie Tussaud, French wax sculptor (born 1761)
• April 23 - William Wordsworth, English poet (born 1770)
• April 24 - John Norvell, U.S. newspaperman and senator (born 1789)
• May 1 - Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville, French zoologist and anatomist (born 1777)
• May 10 - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, French chemist and physicist (born 1778)
• May 21 - Christoph Friedrich von Ammon, German theological writer and preacher (born 1766)
• May 31 - Giuseppe Giusti, Tuscan satirical poet (born 1809)
• June 19 - Margaret Fuller, U.S. journalist (born 1810)
• June 30 - Richard Dillingham, U.S. Quaker teacher (born 1823)
• July 2 - Robert Peel, British Prime Minister (born 1788)
• July 4 - William Kirby, English entomologist (born 1759)
• July 7 - Timothy Hackworth, British steam locomotive engineer
• July 8 - Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge (born 1774)
• July 9 - Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States (born 1784)
• July 9 - Jean Pierre Boyer, president of Haiti (born 1776)
• July 14 - August Neander, German theologian and church historian (born 1789)
• July 25 - Richard Barnes Mason, military governor of California (born 1797)
• August 3 - Jacob Jones, officer in the United States Navy (born 1768)
• August 13 - Martin Archer Shee, Irish portrait painter and president of the Royal Academy (born 1770)
• August 18 - Honoré de Balzac, French author (born 1799)
• August 22 - Nikolaus Lenau, Austrian poet (born 1802)
• August 26 - King Louis-Philippe of France (born 1773)
• August 27 - Thomas Kidd, English classical scholar and schoolmaster (born 1770)
• September 12 - Presley O'Bannon, officer in the United States Marine Corps (born 1784)
• September 22 - Johann Heinrich von Thünen, German economist (born 1783)
• September 23 - José Gervasio Artigas, Uruguayan revolutionary (born 1764)
• October 2 - Sarah Biffen, English painter (born 1784)
• October 29 - Marmaduke Williams, Democratic-Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina (born 1774)
• November 2 - Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Democratic governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina (born 1796)
• November 3 - Thomas Ford, governor of Illinois (born 1800)
• November 4 - Gustav Schwab, German classical scholar (born 1792)
• November 19 - Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President of the United States (born 1780)
• November 22 - Lin Zexu, Chinese politician (born 1785)
• November 30 - Germain Henri Hess, Swiss chemist and doctor (born 1802)
• December 4 - William Sturgeon, English physicist and inventor (born 1783)
• December 10 - François Sulpice Beudant, French mineralogist and geologist (born 1787)
• December 22 - William Plumer, U.S. lawyer and lay preacher (born 1759)
• December 24 - Frédéric Bastiat French author and economist (born 1801)
• December 28 - Heinrich Christian Schumacher, German astronomer (born 1780)
• Charles Arbuthnot, British Tory politician (born 1767)
• Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer, 5th Baron Aylmer, British military officer and colonial administrator (born 1775)
• Józef Bem, Polish general (born 1794)
• Edward Bickersteth, English evangelical divine (born 1786)
• Báb, Bahá'í founder (born 1819)
• Valentín Canalizo, acting president of Mexico (born 1794)
• François-Xavier-Joseph Droz, French writer on ethics and political science (born 1773)
• Robert Gilfillan, Scottish poet (born 1798)
• Hone Heke, Maori chief and war leader
• Adoniram Judson, U.S. Baptist missionary (born 1788)
• Jan Krukowiecki, Polish general (born 1772)
• William Lawson, British explorer of New South Wales (born 1774)
• William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist (born 1792)
• Frances Sargent Osgood, U.S. poet (born 1811)
• Saint Vincent Pallotti, Italian missionary (born 1795)
• José Manuel de la Peña y Peña, interim President of Mexico (born 1789)
• Jane Porter, English novelist (born 1776)
• Antoni Potocki, Polish nobleman (born 1780)
• Juan Martín de Pueyrredón y O'Dogan, Argentine general and politician (born 1776)
• Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł, Polish noble (born 1778)
• Tan Tock Seng, Singaporean businessman philanthropists
• Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of John Graves Simcoe (born 1762)
• Owen Stanley, British naval officer and explorer of New Guinea (born 1811)
• Robert Stevenson, Scottish lighthouse engineer (born 1772)
• Charles Watkin Williams-Wynn, British Tory politician (born 1775)