Explore 259 historical events from 1850–1859.
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, was a French diplomat, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America and The Old Regim…
Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian and philosopher, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (born 1805)
Tantia Tope was an Indian general in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 against the British East India Company.
Tatya Tope, Indian general (born 1814)
Joseph Diez Gergonne was a French mathematician and logician.
Joseph Diaz Gergonne, French mathematician and philosopher (born 1771)
Johann Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet was a German mathematician. In number theory, he proved special cases of Fermat's Last Theorem and created analytic number theory. In analysis…
Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, German mathematician and academic (born 1805)
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a German polymath, geographer, naturalist, explorer, and proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brot…
Alexander von Humboldt, German geographer and explorer (born 1769)
Sergey Timofeyevich Aksakov was a 19th-century Russian literary figure remembered for his semi-autobiographical tales of family life, as well as his books on hunting and fishing.
Sergey Aksakov, Russian author and academic (born 1791)
Ferdinand II was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death in 1859.
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies (born 1810)
David Cox was an English landscape painter, one of the most important members of the Birmingham School of landscape artists and an early precursor of Impressionism.
David Cox, English painter (born 1783)
Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, known as Klemens von Metternich or Prince Metternich, was a German statesman and diplomat in the service…
Klemens von Metternich, German-Austrian politician, 1st State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire (born 1773)
The San Juan Islands are part of an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. T…
The shooting of a pig in the San Juan Islands led to the so-called Pig War over the border between the United States and
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 Principality of Montenegro was a principality in Southeastern Europe that existed from 13 March 1852 to 28 August 1910. It was then proclaimed a kingdom by Nikola I, who then b…
Montenegrin forces under Grand Duke Mirko Petrović-Njegoš defeat an Ottoman army under Hussein Pasha in the battle of Gr
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defeating t…
Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois
The Bawani Imli massacre was the execution of 52 Indian freedom fighters including Jodha Singh Ataiya by British East India Company forces on 28 April 1858 during the Indian Rebell…
The Bawani Imli massacre, where 52 Indian freedom fighters are hanged to death on a tamarind tree by British colonial fo
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have…
Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as
Dhondo Keshav Karve, popularly known as Maharshi Karve, was a social reformer in India in the field of women's welfare. He advocated widow remarriage, and he himself remarried a wi…
Dhondo Keshav Karve, Indian educator and activist, Bharat Ratna Awardee (died 1962)
Alexander Minasi Movsisian, better known by his pen name Alexander Shirvanzade was an Armenian playwright and novelist. He was one of the main representatives of the realist moveme…
Alexander Shirvanzade, Armenian playwright and author (died 1935)
Dame Ethel Mary Smyth was an English composer and a member of the women's suffrage movement. Her compositions include songs, works for piano, chamber music, orchestral works, chora…
Ethel Smyth, English composer (died 1944)
Frédéric Henri Godefroid Émile Constantin (Fritz) ridder Mayer van den Bergh was a Belgian art collector and art historian.
Fritz Mayer van den Bergh, Belgian art collector and art historian (died 1901)
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck was a German theoretical physicist. He won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the services he rendered to the advancement of physics by his discovery…
Max Planck, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1947)
John Laing Leal was an American physician and water treatment expert who, in 1908, was responsible for conceiving and implementing the first disinfection of a U.S. drinking water s…
John L
Heinrich Berté, born Heinrich Bettelheim was an Austrian-Hungarian composer of operas and operettas.
Heinrich Berté, Slovak-Austrian composer (died 1924)
John Meade Falkner was an English novelist and poet, best known for his 1898 novel Moonfleet. An extremely successful businessman, he became chairman of the arms manufacturer Armst…
J
Édouard Jean-Baptiste Goursat was a French mathematician, now remembered principally as an expositor for his Cours d'analyse mathématique, which appeared in the first decade of the…
Édouard Goursat, French mathematician (died 1936)