Explore 534 historical events from 1850–1859.
Cyrus West Field was an American businessman and financier who, along with other entrepreneurs, created the Atlantic Telegraph Company and laid the first telegraph cable across the…
Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It…
Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply footy or just football, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an o…
The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.
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)
The Eiger is a 3,967-metre (13,015 ft) mountain of the Bernese Alps, overlooking Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, just north of the main waters…
The Eiger in the Bernese Alps is ascended for the first time by Charles Barrington accompanied by Christian Almer and…
James Buchanan Jr. was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the 17th United States secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represe…
U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen…
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 first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of…
The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates in 1858 between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent…
The first of the Lincoln–Douglas debates is held in Ottawa, Illinois.
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)
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…
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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)
Belmiro Barbosa de Almeida was a Brazilian painter, illustrator, sculptor and caricaturist.
Belmiro de Almeida, Brazilian painter, illustrator, sculptor (died 1935)
Carl Richard Nyberg was a Swedish inventor and industrialist. Nyberg was a pioneer in mechanical engineering. He received a patent for a blow lamp and was an aviation pioneer.
Carl Richard Nyberg, Swedish inventor and businessman, developed the blow torch (died 1939)
Graham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics.
Graham Wallas, English socialist, social psychologist, and educationalist (died 1932)
Charlotte Angas Scott was a British mathematician who made her career in the United States; she was influential in the development of American mathematics, including the mathematic…
Charlotte Scott, English mathematician (died 1931)
Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston was a British explorer, botanist, artist, colonial administrator, and linguist who travelled widely across Africa to speak some of the languages spoken …
Harry Johnston, English botanist and explorer (died 1927)
Henry Scott Tuke was an English artist. His most notable work was in the Impressionist style and he is best known for his paintings of nude boys and young men.
Henry Scott Tuke, English painter and photographer (died 1929)
Gustaf V was King of Sweden from 8 December 1907 until his death in 1950. He was the eldest son of King Oscar II and Sophia of Nassau, a half-sister of Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxem…
Gustaf V, King of Sweden (died 1950)
Eben Sumner Draper was an American businessman and politician from Massachusetts. He was for many years a leading figure in what later became the Draper Corporation, the dominant m…
Eben Sumner Draper, American businessman and politician, 44th Governor of Massachusetts (died 1914)
Andrew Russell Forsyth, FRS, FRSE was a British mathematician.
Andrew Forsyth, Scottish-English mathematician and academic (died 1942)