For the game, see: 1850 (board game).

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

Events of 1850

January - June

• 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 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.
• April 4 - Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.
• April 15 - San Francisco, California is incorporated as a city.
• May 7 - The Brigantine USS Advance is loaned to the United States Navy.
• May 16 - The French battleship Le Napoléon is launched.
• May 23 - The USS Advance puts to sea from New York to search for John Franklin's Arctic expedition.
• 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 - December

• 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.
• August 28 - Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres.
• September 9
• California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
• The New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress.
• September 18 - The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by the U.S. Congress.
• September 29 - The Catholic hierarchy is re-established in England and Wales by Pope Pius IX.
• October 1 - The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.
• 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).

Undated

• 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.
• France begins to transport colonists to Algeria.
• Rifling becomes common in firearms.
• Entre Ríos Province in Argentina revolts, backed by Brazil in alliance with Paraguay and the Uruguayan Colorado Party.
• Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.
• The International Organisation of Good Templars is established, then as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
• St. Mary’s Institute (the future University of Dayton) is founded in in Dayton, OH.
• Manchester reaches 400,000 inhabitants.
• Europeans are 22% of the world population.
• 1850 - 1880 - 144,000 East Indian laborers go to Trinidad and 39,000 East Indians come to Jamaica.

Births

January - June

• 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, 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)
• 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, U.S. 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, 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 18 - George Henschel, English musician (d. 1934)
• February 23 - César Ritz, Swiss hotelier (d. 1918)
• February 27
• Henry Huntington, U.S. railroad pioneer and art collector (d. 1927)
• Laura E. Richards, U.S. author (d. 1943)
• March 7
• Tomáš Masaryk, President of Czechoslovakia (d. 1937)
• Champ Clark, U.S. politician (d. 1921)
• Éphrem-A. Brisebois, Canadian police officer (d. 1890)
• Georg von Vollmar, Socialist politician in Bavaria (d. 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, U.S. author (d. 1898)
• March 31 - Charles Doolittle Walcott, U.S. invertebrate paleontologist (d. 1927)
• 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 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)
• April 18 - Joseph Labadie, U.S. labor organizer (d. 1933)
• April 20 - Daniel Chester French, U.S. sculptor (d. 1931)
• 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)
• April 29 - George Murdoch, first mayor of Calgary (d. 1910)
• May 1 - Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom (d. 1942)
• May 3 - Johnny Ringo, U.S. cowboy (d. 1892)
• 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, U.S. 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)
• 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, U.S. fossil collector and amateur paleontologist (d. 1943)
• June 18 - Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, U.S. 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 - December

• July 2 - Robert Ridgway, U.S. ornithologist (d. 1929)
• July 8 - Charles Rockwell Lanman, U.S. Sanskrit scholar (d. 1941)
• July 11 - Annie Armstrong, U.S. missionary leader (d. 1938)
• July 12
• Newell Sanders, U.S. businessman and politician (d. 1938)
• 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)
• 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)

Deaths

January - June

• 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 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 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 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 - December

• 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 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 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 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 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)
• Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of John Graves Simcoe (b. 1762)
• Nur Singh, regent of Manipur
• Tan Tock Seng, Singaporean businessman philanthropist
• William Hamilton Maxwell, Scots-Irish novelist (b. 1792)

Notes