Explore 418 historical events from 1850–1859.
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and journalist. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist …
Charles Dickens publishes the first edition of his literary magazine, All the Year Round, containing the first installme
Nicolás Bravo Rueda was a Mexican soldier and politician who served as interim President of Mexico three times, in 1839, 1842, and 1846. Previously, he fought in the Mexican War of…
Nicolás Bravo, Mexican general and politician, 11th President of Mexico (born 1786)
Horatio Gordon "Horace" Hutchinson was an English amateur golfer who played in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Hutchinson won the 1886 and 1887 Amateur Championships.…
Horace Hutchinson, English golfer (died 1932)
Tantia Tope was an Indian general in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British East India Company.
Tatya Tope, Indian general (born 1814)
Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (Fählmann) was an Estonian writer, medical doctor and philologist. He was a co-founder of the Learned Estonian Society and its chairman (1843-1850).
Friedrich Robert Faehlmann, Estonian philologist and physician (born 1798)
The Wernerian Natural History Society, commonly abbreviated as the Wernerian Society, was a learned society interested in the broad field of natural history, and saw papers prese…
The Wernerian Natural History Society, a former Scottish learned society, is dissolved
The Great Indian Peninsula Railway was a predecessor of the Central Railway, whose headquarters was at the Boree Bunder in Mumbai. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company was in…
The Great Indian Peninsula Railway opens the first passenger rail in India, from Bori Bunder to Thane
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in…
Members of the Melbourne Football Club codify the first rules of Australian rules football
Joseph Diez Gergonne was a French mathematician and logician.
Joseph Diaz Gergonne, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1771)
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the Ho…
Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the h
The Suez Canal is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. It is the bor…
British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal
The Pomona was a fast packet clipper ship constructed in 1856 for Howland and Frothingham. She operated for just over two and a half years transporting emigrants and cargo from Liv…
The sailing clipper ship Pomona is wrecked on the coast of Ireland with the loss of 424 of the 448 passengers and crew a
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and journalist. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist …
Charles Dickens publishes the first edition of his literary magazine, All the Year Round, containing the first installme
The Cornwall Railway was a 7 ft 1⁄4 in broad gauge railway from Plymouth in Devon to Falmouth in Cornwall, England, built in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was const…
The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in…
Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified the first rules of Australian rules football
The Melbourne Football Club, nicknamed the Demons or colloquially the Dees, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It competes in…
Members of the Melbourne Football Club codify the first rules of Australian rules football
The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the H…
The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time
The Aletschhorn is a mountain in the Alps in Switzerland, lying within the Jungfrau-Aletsch region, which has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The mountain shares p…
First ascent of Aletschhorn, second summit of the Bernese Alps
A dog show is an animal show; it is an event where dogs are exhibited. A conformation show, also referred to as a breed show, is a kind of dog show in which a judge, familiar with …
The first conformation dog show is held in Newcastle upon Tyne, England
Midway Atoll is a 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States, and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory of …
The United States discovers and claims Midway Atoll.
The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Sardinian War, the Austro-Sardinian War, the Franco-Austrian War, or the Italian War of 1859, was fought by the Second Frenc…
Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army
Queensland is a state in northeastern Australia, the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New So…
Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales
The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between the United States and the United Kingdom over the British–U.S. border in the San Juan Islands, between Vancouver Island and the Wash…
Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty leads to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between American and British/Canadian settle
The Battle of Solferino on 24 June 1859 was the climactic battle of the Second Italian War of Independence and resulted in the victory of the allied French army under Napoleon III …
Battle of Solferino (Battle of the Three Sovereigns): Sardinia and France defeat Austria in Solferino, northern Italy
Acrobatics is the performance of human feats of balance, agility, and motor coordination. Acrobatic skills are used in performing arts, sporting events, and martial arts. Extensive…
French acrobat Charles Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope
Charles XV and IV was King of Sweden and King of Norway, there often referred to as Charles IV, from 8 July 1859 until his death in 1872. Charles was the third Swedish monarch from…
King Charles XV & IV accedes to the throne of Sweden–Norway.
The Grand Combin is a mountain massif in the western Pennine Alps in the canton of Valais. At a height of 4,309 metres (14,137 ft) the summit of Combin de Grafeneire is one of the …
First ascent of Grand Combin, one of the highest summits in the Alps.
Jacqueline Comerre, née Paton was a French painter and sculptor, and the wife of the painter Léon-François Comerre (1850–1916).
Jacqueline Comerre-Paton, French painter and sculptor (died 1955)
Jerome Klapka Jerome was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Other works include the essay collections Idle Thoughts of …
Jerome K
August "Garry" Herrmann was an American political operative for Cincinnati political boss George B. Cox, an executive of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team, and president of the Nat…
August Herrmann, American executive in Major League Baseball (died 1931)
Charles Barnum Hanford was an American stage actor, known as one of the most popular American Shakespearean actors of his time. After an early career working with leading actors su…
Charles B
Johan Ludwig William Valdemar Jensen, mostly known as Johan Jensen, was a Danish mathematician and engineer. He was the president of the Danish Mathematical Society from 1892 to 19…
Johan Jensen, Danish mathematician and engineer (died 1925)
William Alden Smith was a U.S. representative and U.S. senator from the state of Michigan. After the 1912 sinking of the Titanic, Smith chaired the Senate hearings into the disaste…
William Alden Smith, American lawyer and politician (died 1932)
Frank Wilson, was the ninth Premier of Western Australia, serving on two separate occasions – from 1910 to 1911 and then again from 1916 to 1917.
Frank Wilson, English-Australian politician, ninth Premier of Western Australia (died 1918)