Explore 193 historical events from 1850–1859.
Lawrence is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride …
Lawrence, Kansas is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces
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
Granville Tailer Woods was an American inventor who held more than 60 patents in the United States. He was the first African American mechanical and electrical engineer after the C…
Granville Woods, American inventor and engineer (died 1910)
Henri Philippe Bénoni Omer Joseph Pétain, better known as Marshal Pétain, was a French military officer who commanded the French Army in World War I and later became the head of th…
Philippe Pétain, French general and politician, 119th Prime Minister of France (died 1951)
Sir Joseph George Ward, 1st Baronet, was a New Zealand politician who served as the 17th prime minister of New Zealand from 1906 to 1912 and from 1928 to 1930. He was a dominant fi…
Joseph Ward, Australian-New Zealand businessman and politician, 17th Prime Minister of New Zealand (died 1930)
Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies arising from conflicts in the psyche through …
Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst (died 1939)
John Brown was an American Christian abolitionist in the decades preceding the American Civil War. First reaching national prominence in the 1850s for his radical abolitionism and …
John Brown and his men kill five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas
Robert Edwin Peary was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was long …
Robert Peary, American admiral and explorer (died 1920)
Pedro José Domingo de la Calzada Manuel María Lascuráin Paredes was a Mexican politician and lawyer who served as the 38th president of Mexico for 45 minutes on 19 February 1913, t…
Pedro Lascuráin, Mexican politician (died 1952)
Tom O'Rourke was born in Boston and became a boxing manager in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Tom O'Rourke, American boxer and manager (died 1938)
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum…
L
Matthias Zurbriggen (15 May 1856 in Saas-Fee – 21 June 1917 in Geneva) was a Swiss mountaineer. He climbed throughout the Alps, the Andes, the Himalayas and New Zealand.
Matthias Zurbriggen, Swiss mountaineer (died 1917)
Henri-Edmond Cross, born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix, was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism and he played an important role i…
Henri-Edmond Cross, French Neo-Impressionist painter (died 1910)
José Pablo Torcuato Batlle y Ordóñez, nicknamed Don Pepe, was a prominent Uruguayan politician who served two terms as President of Uruguay for the Colorado Party. The son of a for…
José Batlle y Ordóñez, Uruguayan journalist and politician, President of Uruguay (died 1929)
Louis Félix Marie François Franchet d'Espèrey was a French general during World War I. In September 1914, as the new commander of the French 5th Army, he played a notable role in o…
Louis Franchet d'Espèrey, Algerian-French general (died 1942)
John Wilbur was a prominent American Quaker minister and religious thinker who was at the forefront of a controversy that led to "the second split" in the Religious Society of Fr…
John Wilbur, American minister and theologian (born 1774)
James Gates Percival was an American poet, surgeon, and geologist.
James Gates Percival, American poet, surgeon and geologist (born 1795)
Adolphe Charles Adam was a French composer, teacher and music critic. A prolific composer for the theatre, he is best known today for his ballets Giselle (1841) and Le corsaire (18…
Adolphe Adam, French composer and critic (born 1803)
Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis was a member of the Mamelukes of the Imperial Guard, leading him to be known in his lifetime as "Mamelouk Ali". He was most notable as a faithful servant …
Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis, Arab-French servant to Napoleon I (born 1788)
Jacques Philippe Marie Binet was a French mathematician, physicist and astronomer born in Rennes; he died in Paris, France, in 1856. He made significant contributions to number the…
Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, French mathematician, physicist, and astronomer (born 1786)
Henry Constantine Wayne was a United States Army officer, and is known for his commanding the expedition to test the U.S. Camel Corps as part of Secretary of War Jefferson Davis's …
Major Henry C
The sacking of Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, when pro-slavery settlers, led by Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, attacked and ransacked Lawrence, Kansas, a town that had…
A crowd of about 800 pro-slavery Americans ransacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civi…
Senator Charles Sumner (pictured) was assaulted by Representative Preston Brooks in the United States Senate chamber in
William Walker was an American journalist and mercenary. In the era of the expansion of the United States, driven by the doctrine of manifest destiny, Walker organized unauthorized…
American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua