Explore 534 historical events from 1850–1859.
William Learned Marcy was an American lawyer, politician, and judge who served as U.S. Senator, the eleventh Governor of New York, U.S. Secretary of War and the twenty-first U.S. S…
William L. Marcy, American lawyer, judge, and politician, 21st United States Secretary of State (born 1786)
Carl Czerny was an Austrian composer, music educator, and pianist of Czech origin. His music spanned the late Classical and early Romantic eras. His vast musical production amounte…
Carl Czerny, Austrian pianist and composer (born 1791)
Stefano Franscini was a Swiss politician and statistician. He was one of the initial members of the Swiss Federal Council elected in 1848 and Switzerland's first native Italian spe…
Stefano Franscini, Swiss statistician and politician (born 1796)
Reverend Thomas Dick, was a British church minister, science teacher and writer, known for his works on astronomy and practical philosophy, combining science and Christianity, and …
Thomas Dick, Scottish minister, astronomer, and author (born 1774)
Marie-Joseph "Eugène" Sue was a French novelist. He was one of several authors who popularized the genre of the serial novel in France with his very popular and widely imitated The…
Eugène Sue, French author and politician (born 1804)
Rufus Wilmot Griswold was an American anthologist, editor, poet, and critic. Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15 years old. He worked as a journalist, editor, and cr…
Rufus Wilmot Griswold, American anthologist, poet, and critic (born 1815)
Mindon Min, born Maung Lwin, was the penultimate king of Burma (Myanmar) from 1853 to 1878. He was one of the most popular and revered kings of Burma because of his role in the Fif…
Mindon Min was crowned as King of Burma
The Revolution of the Ganhadores was a labor strike that involved African porters, known as ganhadores, in the Brazilian city of Salvador, Bahia. The strike began following the pas…
The Revolution of the Ganhadores, the first general strike in Brazil, began in Salvador, Bahia
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power, including military …
Indian Rebellion: An eight-day siege of a fortified outbuilding in Arrah occupied by 68 defenders against more than…
The Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company was a banking institution based in Cincinnati, Ohio, which existed from 1830 to 1857. The Panic of 1857, an economic depression, resulted …
The New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Co. collapsed following widespread embezzlement, leading…
The Australian labour movement began in the early 19th century and since the late 19th century has included industrial and political wings. Trade unions in Australia may be formed …
Australian labour movement: Stonemasons and building workers on building sites around Melbourne march from the Universit
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
The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah, who used handcarts to transpo…
Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail
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)
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
The Pitcairn Islands, officially Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, are a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas…
A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island and the second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of 407,800, and a met…
Christchurch, New Zealand, is chartered as a city.
The 1856 Last Island hurricane was a deadly and destructive tropical cyclone that is tied with 2020's Hurricane Laura and 2021's Hurricane Ida as the strongest hurricane on record …
The Last Island hurricane strikes Louisiana, resulting in over 200 deaths.
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)
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)