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The 1850s

1,789 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 19th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1850 CE172 entries

  • 18 January – Don Pacifico affair: Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, sends a Royal Navy squadron to blockade the port of Piraeus in the Aegean Sea in defence of the interests of a British citizen, causing a diplomatic incident with Russia and France.
  • May 25 – The hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first seen in Europe since Roman times.
  • 25 May – The hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first to live in the British Isles since prehistoric times.

1851 CE179 entries

  • 7 July – News of the discovery of gold at Clunes, Victoria is published in the Geelong Advertiser.
  • November 13 – The first protected submarine telegraph cable is laid, across the English Channel.
  • December 2 – In what amounts to a coup d'etat, President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte of France dissolves the French National Assembly, and declares a new constitution to extend his term. A year later he declares himself as Emperor Napoleon III, ending the Second Republic.

1852 CE175 entries

  • January 15 – Nine men representing various Hebrew charitable organizations come together to form what will become the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.
  • February 20 - the victorious Brazilian Army marches through the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
  • August – Halkyn-born Mormon missionary Dan Jones begins his second (4-year) mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales. He also oversees translation of the Book of Mormon into the Welsh language.

1853 CE172 entries

  • March 5 – Steinway & Sons, a piano maker, is founded in Manhattan by the German immigrant Henry E. Steinway (Heinrich E. Steinweg) and his family.
  • April 16 – Indian Railways: The first passenger railway in India opens from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, 22 mi.
  • December 14 – Compagnie Générale des Eaux, predecessor of Vivendi and Veolia, a global media conglomerate, is founded in Paris, France.

1854 CE184 entries

  • March 31 – Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy signs the Treaty/Convention of Kanagawa with the Japanese government (the Tokugawa Shogunate), opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade (see History of Japan).
  • May 30 – The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law (replacing the Missouri Compromise of 1820), creating the Kansas Territory and the Nebraska Territory, west of the State of Missouri and the State of Iowa. The Kansas–Nebraska Act also establishes that these two new Territories will decide either to allow or disallow slavery, depending on balloting by their residents (these areas would have been strictly "free territory" under the Missouri Compromise, which allowed slavery in the State of Missouri but disallowed it in any other new state north of latitude 36° 30', which forms most of the southern boundary of Missouri. This prohibition of slavery extended all the way from the western boundary of Missouri to the Pacific Ocean).
  • June – The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern United States inhabitants from Chicago to Rock Island, Illinois, by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to Saint Paul, Minnesota, by steamboat.

1855 CE175 entries

  • January 23 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota (a crossing made today by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge).
  • May 22 – In Australia, the province of Victoria (named for then reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria) to the southeast is separated administratively from the earlier larger province of New South Wales to the north.
  • September 29 – The Port of Iloilo in the Philippines is opened to international trade, by Queen Isabella II of Spain. This year also the ports of Sual (modern-day Pangasinan) and Zamboanga City are opened to international trade.

1856 CE197 entries

  • February 18 – The American Party (Know-Nothings) convene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to nominate their first presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
  • May 1 – The province of Isabela is created in the Philippines, in honor of Queen Isabella II of Spain.
  • November 4 – 1856 United States presidential election: Democrat James Buchanan defeats former President Millard Fillmore, representing a coalition of Know Nothings and Whigs, and John C. Frémont of the fledgling Republican Party, to become the 15th President of the United States.

1857 CE176 entries

  • January 24 – The University of Calcutta is established in Calcutta, as the first multidisciplinary modern university in South Asia. The University of Bombay is also established in Bombay, British India, this year.
  • May 15 – Spanish financial group, Banco Santander founded in Cantabria, Spain.
  • 12 July – in Belfast, confrontations between crowds of Catholics and Protestants turn into 10 days of rioting, exacerbated by the open-air preaching of Evangelical Presbyterian minister "Roaring" Hugh Hanna, with many of the police force joining the Protestant side. There are also riots in Derry, Portadown and Lurgan.

1858 CE172 entries

  • 31 January – I. K. Brunel's SS Great Eastern, the largest ship built to date, is launched on the River Thames.
  • 24 March – the Scottish National Gallery on The Mound in Edinburgh opens.
  • July 28 – In Bengal, India, British officer William James Herschel uses the hand impression of Rajyadhar Konai, as a contract fingerprint signature.

1859 CE187 entries

  • July 11 – Austro-Sardinian War – By the preliminary treaty signed at Villafranca, Italy, Lombardy is ceded to the French (who immediately cede it to Sardinia), while the Austrians keep Venetia, and the French promise to restore the Central Italian rulers expelled in the course of the war. This brings the Austro-Sardinian War effectively to a close.
  • August 28–September 2 – The solar storm of 1859, the largest geomagnetic solar storm on record, causes the Northern lights to be visible as far south as Montería, Colombia and knocks out telegraph communication (this is also called the Carrington event).
  • October 16 – John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an unsuccessful bid to spark a general slave rebellion.