Historical Events for Year 1850

Months in Year 1850: January February March April May June July August September October November December

Events 1 - 65 of 65

Jan 5th - California Exchange opens
Jan 18th - British blockade Piraeus, Greece to enforce mercantile claims
Jan 20th - Investigator, 1st ship to effect northwest passage, leaves England
Jan 22nd - Alta California becomes a daily paper, 1st such in Calif
Jan 26th - 1st German-language daily newspaper in US published, NYC
Jan 29th - Henry Clay introduces a comprise bill on slavery to US Senate
Feb 5th - Adding machine employing depressible keys patented, New Paltz, NY
Feb 12th - Original Washington's Farewell Address manuscript sells for $2,300
Feb 18th - California Legislature creates 9 Bay Area counties
Feb 28th - The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Mar 5th - The Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales is opened.
Mar 7th - Daniel Webster endorses Compromise of 1850
Mar 11th - Woman's Medical College of Penn (1st female medical school)
Mar 12th - 1st US $20 gold piece issued
Mar 16th - Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter" published
Mar 18th - Henry Wells & William Fargo forms American Express in Buffalo
Mar 29th - Ireland's SS Royal Adelaide sinks in storm; 200 die
Mar 31st - US population hits 23,191,876 (Black population: 3,638,808 (15.7%))
Apr 1st - SF County government established
American Statesman Daniel Webster Apr 4th - City of Los Angeles incorporated
Apr 15th - City of San Francisco incorporated
Apr 25th - Paul Julius Reuter, use 40 pigeons to carry stock market prices
May 1st - John Geary becomes 1st SF mayor
May 11th - Work starts on 1st brick building in SF
May 27th - Mormon Temple in Nauvoo Illinois destroyed by tornado
Jun 4th - Empire Engine Company No 1 organized
Jun 4th - Self deodorizing fertilizer patented in England
Jun 6th - Levi Strauss make his 1st pair of blue jeans
Jun 14th - Fire destroys part of SF
Jun 17th - Paddle-wheeler "G P Griffith" burns off Mentor Ohio (206 die)
Jun 29th - British ex-premier sir Robert Peel falls off his horse
Jun 29th - Autocephaly Officially Granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to The Church of Greece.
Jul 1st - At least 626 ships lie at anchor around SF Bay
Jul 2nd - Benjamin Lane patents gas mask with a breathing apparatus
British Prime Minister Robert Peel Jul 7th - Scottish explorer Edward Eyre reaches Albany, W-Australia
Jul 10th - Millard Fillmore sworn-in as president of US (replacing Taylor)
Jul 12th - Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts establishment of Provincial States
Jul 14th - 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration
Jul 15th - John Wisden bowls all 10 South batsmen, North v South at Lord's
Jul 17th - Harvard Observatory takes 1st photograph of a star (Vega)
Jul 19th - Airship Elizabeth leaves in storm for Fire Island, crashes (42 die)
Jul 23rd - 17th Postmaster General: Nathan K Hall of NY takes office
Jul 25th - Gold discovered in Oregon (Rogue River)
Aug 23rd - 1st national women's rights convention convenes in Worcester Mass
Aug 28th - Richard Wagner's opera "Lohengrin" premieres at Weimar Germany
Aug 30th - Honolulu, Hawaii becomes a city
Aug 31st - California pioneers organized at Montgomery & Clay Streets
Sep 9th - Territories of New Mexico & Utah created
Sep 9th - California is admitted as the thirty-first U.S. state
Composer Richard Wagner Sep 11th - "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind gives 1st US concert
Sep 17th - Great fire in San Francisco
Sep 18th - Congress passes Fugitive Slave Law as part of Compromise of 1850
Sep 20th - Slave trade abolished in DC, but slavery allowed to continue
Sep 24th - Papal Bull issued, establishes Roman Catholic hierarchy in England
Sep 28th - US Navy abolishes flogging as punishment
Oct 12th - 1st women's medical school (Women's Medical College of Penns), opens
Oct 17th - Knickerbocker Engine Co Number 5 organized
Nov 6th - 1st Hawaiian fire engine
Nov 6th - Yerba Buena & Angel Islands (SF Bay) reserved for military use
Nov 19th - Lord Tennyson becomes British poet laureate
Nov 29th - The treaty, Punctation of Olmütz, signed in Olomouc means diplomatic capitulation of Prussia to Austrian Empire, which took over the leadership of German Confederation.
Dec 16th - Ships the Charlotte-Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand
Dec 20th - Hawaiian post office established
Dec 27th - Hawaiian Fire Dept established
Dec 28th - Rangoon Burma, destroyed by fire