1850 - What happened in 1850 ?

January 1850

Friday 04:

The first American ice-skating club is formed (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

Tuesday 29:

Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.

February 1850

Thursday 28:

The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah.

March 1850

Thursday 07:

United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.

Saturday 16:

Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is first published.

Monday 18:

American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.

April 1850

Thursday 04:

Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.

June 1850

Saturday 29:

Coal discovered on Vancouver Island.

July 1850

Tuesday 02:

The self-contained gas mask is patented by Benjamin J. Lane.

Tuesday 09:

President Zachary Taylor dies and Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States.

Wednesday 10:

Millard Fillmore is inaugurated as the 13th President of the United States.

August 1850

Saturday 17:

Argentine's War of Independence hero, General José de San Martín, dies in Boulogne-sur-Mer (France), at the age of 77.

Wednesday 28:

Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres in Weimar, Germany.

Friday 30:

Honolulu, Hawaii, becomes a city

September 1850

Monday 09:

The Compromise of 1850 strips Texas of a third of its claimed territory (now parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming) in return for the U.S. federal government assuming $10 million of Texas's pre-annexation debt.

Wednesday 18:

The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act.

December 1850

Monday 16:

The first four ships arrive to settle Christchurch, New Zealand.