1850

Centuries: 18th century - 19th century - 20th century

Decades: 1800s 1810s 1820s 1830s 1840s - 1850s - 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s

Years: 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 - 1850 - 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855

Table of contents

1 Events 2 Arts, Sciences, Literature and Philosophy 3 Births 4 Deaths

Events

• End of the Irish potato famine
• Millard Fillmore succeeds Zachary Taylor as President of the United States of America
• The United States Republican Party is founded
• January 4 - The first American ice-skating club is formed (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
• January 29 - Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States 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.
• December 16 - The first four ships arrived at Lyttleton to settle Christchurch, New Zealand.

• • March 16 - Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is published for the first time.

• January 21 - Paul Vinzenz Busch, ringmaster (+ 1927)
• January 27 - Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (+ 1924)
• May 1 - Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom, third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, later Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
• May 12 - Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. statesman (+ 1924)
• September 2 - Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer
• November 13 - Robert Louis Stevenson (+ 1894)

• July 8 - Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge
• July 9 - Zachary Taylor, President of the United States
• August 18 - Honore de Balzac