1850 - Definition and Overview

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.
• 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

Births

• January 21 - Paul Vinzenz Busch, ringmaster (d. 1927)
• January 27 - Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (d. 1924)
• May 1 - Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom, third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, later Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
• May 8 - Ross Barnes, baseball player
• May 12 - Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. statesman (d. 1924)
• September 2 - Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods manufacturer
• November 13 - Robert Louis Stevenson (d. 1894)

Deaths

• July 4 - William Kirby, English entomologist
• July 8 - Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge
• July 9 - Zachary Taylor, President of the United States
• August 18 - Honoré de Balzac, author
• August 26 - King Louis-Philippe of France (b. 1773)
• October 2 - Sarah Biffen, painter (b. 1784)
• November 19 - Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President of the United States
• December 24 - Frédéric Bastiat French classical liberal author and economist.