Events Date 1850 | History by KabAstro

Jan 5 California Exchange opens
Jan 18 British blockade Piraeus, Greece, to enforce mercantile claims

1st Northwest Passage

Jan 20 HMS Investigator headed by Robert McClure leaves England, 1st expedition to make a Northwest passage (though some over ice)

Jan 22 Alta California becomes a daily paper, 1st such in Calif
Jan 26 1st German language daily newspaper in US published, NYC

Compromise of 1850

Jan 29 Senator Henry Clay drafts the Compromise of 1850 to defuse tensions between slave states and free states over territories won during the Mexican–American War

Feb 5 Adding machine employing depressible keys patented, New Paltz, NY
Feb 12 Original Washington's farewell address manuscript sells for $2,300
Feb 18 California Legislature creates nine Bay Area counties
Feb 27 12th Grand National: Chris Green wins aboard Irish outsider Abd-El-Kader; goes on to become first dual winner and first to win in consecutive years
Feb 28 The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah
Mar 5 The Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales is opened

Compromise of 1850

Mar 7 Daniel Webster endorses Compromise of 1850, proposed by Henry Clay to settle issues over slavery between states

Speaker of the House, Senator and US Secretary of State Henry Clay

Mar 11 Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania opens, 2nd female medical school in the US
Mar 12 1st US $20 gold piece issued

The Scarlet Letter

Mar 16 Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" published by Ticknor, Reed and Fields in Boston

Mar 18 Henry Wells & William Fargo form American Express in Buffalo
Mar 29 SS Royal Adelaide sinks in storm; 200 die
Mar 31 US population hits 23,191,876 (Black population: 3,638,808 (15.7%))
Apr 1 San Francisco County government established
Apr 4 City of Los Angeles incorporated
Apr 15 City of San Francisco incorporated
Apr 25 Paul Julius Reuter sets up carrier-pigeon service, using 40 pigeons to carry stock market prices between Aachen and Brussels
May 1 John Geary becomes 1st mayor of San Francisco
May 11 Work starts on 1st brick building in San Francisco
May 27 Mormon Temple in Nauvoo, Illinois, destroyed by tornado
Jun 4 Empire Engine Company No. 1 organized, in San Francisco, California
Jun 4 Self-deodorizing fertilizer patented in England
Jun 14 Third great fire of early San Francisco, starts in a bakery chimney
Jun 17 Paddle-wheeler "G P Griffith" burns off Mentor Ohio, 206 die
Jun 29 Autocephaly Officially Granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to The Church of Greece.

Robert Peel Falls Off His Horse

Jun 29 British ex-Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel falls off his horse; dies three days later

Jul 1 At least 626 ships lie at anchor around San Francisco Bay
Jul 2 Benjamin Lane patents gas mask with a breathing apparatus
Jul 7 Scottish explorer Edward Eyre reaches Albany, Western Australia

Event of Interest

Jul 10 Millard Fillmore sworn in as President of US (replacing Taylor)

Jul 12 Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts establishment of Provincial States
Jul 14 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration by Florida physician John Gorrie
Jul 15 John Wisden bowls all 10 South batsmen, North v South at Lord's
Jul 17 Harvard Observatory takes 1st photograph of a star (Vega)

Wreck of the Elizabeth

Jul 19 American cargo ship 'Elizabeth', returning from Italy, wrecks in a storm of coast of Fire Island, New York, killing 10, including journalist Margaret Fuller, her husband, and child [1]

Jul 23 17th Postmaster General: Nathan K. Hall of NY takes office
Jul 25 Gold discovered in Oregon (Rogue River)
Aug 23 1st US National Women's Rights Convention convenes in Worcester, Massachusetts

Lohengrin

Aug 28 Richard Wagner's opera "Lohengrin" premieres at Weimar, Germany

Aug 30 Honolulu, Hawaii, becomes a city
Aug 31 California pioneers organized at Montgomery & Clay Streets
Sep 9 California is admitted as the thirty-first state of the Union
Sep 9 Territories of New Mexico & Utah created

The Swedish Nightingale

Sep 11 Opera singer Jenny Lind - "The Swedish Nightingale", gives 1st US concert, at Castle Garden in New York City, promoted by P. T. Barnum

Circus Showman and Businessman P. T. Barnum

Sep 13 The main-belt asteroid "12 Victoria" is discovered by J R Hind
Sep 17 Fourth great fire in San Francisco
Sep 18 US Congress passes Fugitive Slave Law as part of Compromise of 1850, requires slaves be returned to their owners
Sep 20 Slave trade abolished in DC, but slavery allowed to continue
Sep 24 Papal Bull issued, establishes Roman Catholic hierarchy in England
Sep 28 US Navy abolishes flogging as punishment
Oct 17 Knickerbocker Engine Co Number 5 organized
Oct 23 First US National Women's Rights convention opens in Brinley Hall, Worcester, Massachusetts
Oct 26 Robert McClure sights the fabled Northwest Passage for the first time (from Banks Island towards Melville Island)
Nov 6 1st Hawaiian fire engine
Nov 6 Yerba Buena & Angel Islands (San Francisco Bay) reserved for military use

Tennyson Poet Laureate

Nov 19 Alfred Tennyson becomes British Poet Laureate, succeeding William Wordsworth

Nov 29 The treaty, Punctation of Olmütz, signed in Olomouc means diplomatic capitulation of Prussia to Austrian Empire, taking over the leadership of German Confederation
Dec 16 Ships the Charlotte-Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand
Dec 20 Hawaiian post office established
Dec 27 Hawaiian Fire Department established
Dec 28 Rangoon, Burma, destroyed by fire