WORLD HISTORY · 19TH CENTURY 日本語
Events of the 1850s1850–1859
What happened in the 1850s?
In the 1850s (1850–1859), Commodore Perry's squadron arrived at Uraga, leading to the Treaty of Kanagawa with the United States, the opening of the port of Yokohama, and the start of the Ansei Purge. Elsewhere, Taiping rebels captured Nanjing, the Crimean War broke out, and Britain moved to rule India directly.
- Uncle Tom's Cabin publishedNorth America
- Taiping rebels take Nanjing as capitalAsia
- Perry's squadron arrives at UragaAsia
- Treaty of Kanagawa signed with the U.S.North America
- Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean WarEurope
- Britain moves to direct rule of IndiaAsia
- Arrests begin in the Ansei PurgeAsia
- Yokohama port opens with foreign settlementAsia
Summaries are written by the site editors.
The 1850s in AP history courses
| AP World History | Unit 5–6 (Revolutions; Consequences of Industrialization) |
|---|---|
| AP U.S. History | Period 5 |
Events of the 1850s (timeline · 236)
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The Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales is opened.
Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech endorsing the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
The Arana–Southern Treaty is ratified, ending "the existing differences" between Great Britain and Argentina.
The American League of Colored Laborers, the first African American labor union in the United States, is established in New York City.
Autocephaly officially granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to the Church of Greece.
U.S. President Zachary Taylor dies after eating raw fruit and iced milk; he is succeeded in office by Vice President Millard Fillmore.
U.S. President Millard Fillmore is sworn in, a day after becoming president upon Zachary Taylor's death.
The Compromise of 1850 transfers a third of Texas's claimed territory to federal control in return for the U.S. federal government assuming $10 million of Texas's pre-annexation debt.
The papal bull Universalis Ecclesiae restores the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales.
Danish troops defeat a Schleswig-Holstein force in the town of Lottorf, Schleswig-Holstein.
The treaty, Punctation of Olmütz, is signed in Olomouc. Prussia capitulates to Austria, which will take over the leadership of the German Confederation.
The Charlotte Jane and the Randolph bring the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims to Lyttelton, New Zealand.
Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan proclaims the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, starting the Jintian Uprising.
The largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history take place in the state of Victoria.
The first Australian gold rush is proclaimed, although the discovery had been made three months earlier.
Sojourner Truth delivers her famous Ain't I a Woman? speech at the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.
Christiana Resistance: Escaped slaves led by William Parker fight off and kill a slave owner who, with a federal marshal and an armed party, sought to seize three of his former slaves in Christiana, Pennsylvania, thereby creating a cause célèbre between slavery proponents and abolitionists.
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London.
Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape.
The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, before moving to the other side of Elliott Bay to what would become Seattle.
Mutineers take control of the Chilean penal colony of Punta Arenas in the Strait of Magellan.
Conservative Santiago-based government troops defeat rebels at the Battle of Loncomilla, signaling the end of the 1851 Chilean Revolution.
India's first freight train is operated in Roorkee, to transport material for the construction of the Ganges Canal.
The New Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, one of the largest and oldest museums in the world, opens to the public.
Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, is founded in London.
The Helsinki Cathedral (known as St. Nicholas' Church at time) is officially inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland.
Abolitionist Frederick Douglass delivers his "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" speech at a meeting organized by the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York.
Harvard University wins the first Boat Race between Yale University and Harvard. The race is also known as the first ever American intercollegiate athletic event.
Steamboat Atlantic sinks on Lake Erie after a collision, with the loss of at least 150 lives.
Outbreak of Revolution of September 11 resulting in the State of Buenos Aires declaring independence as a Republic.
Annibale de Gasparis discovers the asteroid Massalia from the north dome of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte.
The first powered, passenger-carrying airship, the Giffard dirigible, travels 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to Trappes.
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, becomes the prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expands to become Italy.
An earthquake as high as magnitude 8.8 rocks the Banda Sea, triggering a tsunami and killing at least 60 in the Dutch East Indies.
After having been kidnapped and sold into slavery in the American South, Solomon Northup regains his freedom; his memoir Twelve Years a Slave later becomes a national bestseller.
The Great Indian Peninsula Railway opens the first passenger rail in India, from Bori Bunder to Thane.
Opening of the first major US world's fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City.
Joaquin Murrieta, the famous Californio bandit known as the "Robin Hood of El Dorado", is killed.
Crimean War: Battle of Sinop: The Imperial Russian Navy under Pavel Nakhimov destroys the Ottoman fleet under Osman Pasha at Sinop, a sea port in northern Turkey.
Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London, England.
The RMS Tayleur sinks off Lambay Island on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Australia with great loss of life.
A law is approved to found the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Lectures started October 16, 1855.
A Penny Red with perforations becomes the first perforated postage stamp to be officially issued for distribution.
Commodore Matthew Perry signs the Convention of Kanagawa with the Tokugawa Shogunate, opening the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate to American trade.
The Kansas–Nebraska Act becomes law, establishing the U.S. territories of Kansas and Nebraska.
Åland War: The British navy destroys merchant ships and about 16,000 tar barrels of the wholesale stocks area in Oulu, Grand Duchy of Finland.
The Republican Party of the United States held its first convention in Jackson, Michigan.
In the Battle of Guaymas, Mexico, General José María Yáñez stops the French invasion led by Count Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon.
USS Constellation (1854), the last all-sail warship built by the United States Navy and current museum ship in Baltimore Harbor, is commissioned.
The First Sioux War begins when United States Army soldiers kill Lakota chief Conquering Bear and in return are massacred.
The paddle steamer SS Arctic, owned by the Collins Line of New York, sinks off the coast of Newfoundland, following a collision with a smaller vessel, the SS Vesta. Only 88 of over 300 people on board survive. About a dozen of the occupants of the Vesta are killed when their lifeboat is hit by the Arctic.
In England the Great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead leads to 53 deaths and hundreds injured.
The Battle of Balaclava takes place during the Crimean War. It is soon memorialized in verse as The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences.
In his Apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogmatic definition of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived free of Original Sin.
A locomotive on the Panama Canal Railway runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.
Origins of the American Civil War: "Border Ruffians" from Missouri invade Kansas and force election of a pro-slavery legislature.
American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.
Major Henry C. Wayne departs New York aboard the USS Supply to procure camels to establish the U.S. Camel Corps.
Twentieth opera of Giuseppe Verdi, Les vêpres siciliennes ("The Sicilian Vespers"), is premiered in Paris.
Signing of the Quinault Treaty: The Quinault and the Quileute cede their land to the United States.
The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published in Brooklyn.
American Indian Wars: In Nebraska, 700 soldiers under United States General William S. Harney avenge the Grattan massacre by attacking a Sioux village and killing 100 men, women and children.
Crimean War: The French assault the tower of Malakoff, leading to the capture of Sevastopol.
Crimean War: The Siege of Sevastopol comes to an end when Russian forces abandon the city.
A powerful earthquake occurs in Edo, Japan, causing considerable damage in the Kantō region from the shaking and subsequent fires. It had a death toll of 7,000–10,000 people and destroyed around 14,000 buildings.
David Livingstone becomes the first European to see the Victoria Falls in what is now Zambia-Zimbabwe.
In Birmingham, England, Albert, Prince Consort lays the foundation stone of the Birmingham and Midland Institute.
First Battle of Seattle: Marines from the USS Decatur drive off Native American attackers after all-day battle with settlers.
Queen Victoria issues a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual that establishes the Victoria Cross to recognise acts of valour by British military personnel during the Crimean War.
The Kingdom of Awadh is annexed by the British East India Company and Wajid Ali Shah, the king of Awadh, is deposed.
Second Battle of Rivas: Juan Santamaría burns down the hostel where William Walker's filibusters are holed up.
Australian labour movement: Stonemasons and building workers on building sites around Melbourne march from the University of Melbourne to Parliament House to achieve an eight-hour day.
Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina severely beats Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane in the hall of the United States Senate for a speech Sumner had made regarding Southerners and slavery.
A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.
The Second Opium War between several western powers and China begins with the Arrow Incident.
An M 7.7–8.3 earthquake off the Greek island of Crete cause major damage as far as Egypt and Malta.
Second Opium War: Dissatisfied with imperial commissioner Ye Mingchen's reparations for the alleged slighting of a British-owned vessel and at Consul Harry Parkes's urging, British Rear-Admiral Michael Seymour launches an assault on the Barrier Forts outside Canton in the first military engagement of the Second Opium War.
American Old West: On the Sonoita River in present-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.
The Coup of 1856 leads to Luxembourg's unilateral adoption of a new, reactionary constitution.
The 7.9 Mw Fort Tejon earthquake shakes Central and Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent).
The University of Calcutta is formally founded as the first fully fledged university in South Asia.
The Supreme Court of the United States rules 7–2 in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case that the Constitution does not confer citizenship on black people.
Sepoy Mangal Pandey of the 34th Regiment, Bengal Native Infantry mutinies against the East India Company's rule in India and inspires the protracted Indian Rebellion of 1857, also known as the Sepoy Mutiny.
The Spirits Book by Allan Kardec is published, marking the birth of Spiritualism in France.
The East India Company disbands the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry whose sepoy Mangal Pandey had earlier revolted against the British in the lead up to the War of Indian Independence.
Indian Rebellion of 1857: In India, the first war of Independence begins. Sepoys mutiny against their commanding officers at Meerut.
Louis Faidherbe, French governor of Senegal, arrives to relieve French forces at Kayes, effectively ending El Hajj Umar Tall's war against the French.
Indian Rebellion: Sixty-eight men hold out for eight days against a force of 2,500 to 3,000 mutinying sepoys and 8,000 irregular forces.
The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history.
Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers slaughter most members of a peaceful emigrant wagon train.
The Mountain Meadows massacre: Mormon settlers and Paiutes massacre 120 pioneers at Mountain Meadows, Utah.
The SS Central America sinks about 160 miles east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning a total of 426 passengers and crew, including Captain William Lewis Herndon. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California gold rush.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 ends with the recapture of Delhi by troops loyal to the East India Company.
The Russian warship Lefort capsizes and sinks during a storm in the Gulf of Finland, killing all 826 aboard.
Sheffield F.C., the world's oldest association football club still in operation, is founded in England.
Second relief of Lucknow: Twenty-four Victoria Crosses are awarded, the most in a single day.
Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of the Province of Canada.
Napoleon III of France escapes an assassination attempt made by Felice Orsini and his accomplices in Paris.
The Wedding March by Felix Mendelssohn is played at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter, Victoria, and Friedrich of Prussia, and becomes a popular wedding processional.
The first Hallé concert is given in Manchester, England, marking the official founding of The Hallé orchestra as a full-time, professional orchestra.
Bernadette Soubirous's first vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary occurs in Lourdes, France.
After the original Big Ben, a 14.5 tonnes (32,000 lb) bell for the Palace of Westminster, had cracked during testing, it is recast into the current 13.76 tonnes (30,300 lb) bell by Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
The 1858 Christiania fire severely destroys several city blocks near Stortorvet in Christiania, Norway, and about 1,000 people lose their homes.
The Bawani Imli massacre, where 52 Indian freedom fighters are hanged to death on a tamarind tree by British colonial forces.
Montenegrin forces under Grand Duke Mirko Petrović-Njegoš defeat an Ottoman army under Hussein Pasha in the battle of Grahovac. The battle is a significant step towards formal independence and quickly becomes a part of national folklore.
Charles Darwin receives a paper from Alfred Russel Wallace that includes nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin's own, prompting Darwin to publish his theory.
Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society of London.
The last apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous in Lourdes, France.
The Government of India Act 1858 replaces Company rule in India with that of the British Raj.
Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable after several unsuccessful attempts. It will operate for less than a month.
The first Australian rules football match is played between Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College.
The Eiger in the Bernese Alps is ascended for the first time by Charles Barrington accompanied by Christian Almer and Peter Bohren.
U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.
Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution through natural selection in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace's same theory.
Approximately 20 people die in Bradford, England, UK, after being poisoned from ingesting sweets that had been accidentally adulterated with arsenic trioxide.
The United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (later named Romania) is formed as a personal union under the rule of Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza.
Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Prince of Moldavia, is also elected as prince of Wallachia, joining the two principalities as a personal union called the United Principalities, an autonomous region within the Ottoman Empire, which ushered in the birth of the modern Romanian state.
Cochinchina Campaign: The French Navy captures the Citadel of Saigon, a fortress manned by 1,000 Nguyễn dynasty soldiers, en route to conquering Saigon and other regions of southern Viet Nam.
United States representative Daniel Sickles, after learning of an affair between his wife and United States Attorney Philip Barton Key II, murders him in Washington, D.C.
The two-day Great Slave Auction, once thought to be the largest such auction in United States history, begins.
The two-day Great Slave Auction, one of the largest such auctions in United States history, concludes.
The sailing clipper ship Pomona is wrecked on the coast of Ireland with the loss of 424 of the 448 passengers and crew aboard.
Charles Dickens publishes the first edition of his literary magazine, All the Year Round, containing the first installment of his best-selling classic, A Tale of Two Cities.
The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
Members of the Melbourne Football Club codify the first rules of Australian rules football.
The Great Clock at the Houses of Parliament (now known as the Elizabeth Tower) starts keeping time.
Italian Independence wars: In the Battle of Magenta, the French army, under Louis-Napoleon, defeat the Austrian army.
Queensland is established as a separate colony from New South Wales. The date is still celebrated as Queensland Day.
Ambiguity in the Oregon Treaty leads to the "Northwestern Boundary Dispute" between American and British/Canadian settlers.
Battle of Solferino (Battle of the Three Sovereigns): Sardinia and France defeat Austria in Solferino, northern Italy.
Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania, leading to the world's first commercially successful oil well.
The Carrington event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.
Origins of the American Civil War: Abolitionist John Brown and his supporters launch a raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).
Origins of the American Civil War: Militant abolitionist leader John Brown is hanged for his October raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).
Source: Wikipedia date pages ("January 1" … "December 31") / CC BY-SA 4.0. Regions are assigned by the site editors.
Dates and events are based on Wikipedia and other references. Summaries and regions are written by the site editors.