1850


Events

   * End of the Irish potato famine
   * Millard Fillmore succeeds Zachary Taylor as President of the United
     States of America
   * The United States Republican Party is founded
   * January 4 - The first American ice-skating club is formed
     (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).
   * January 29 - Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United
     States Congress
   * February 28 - University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City, Utah
   * March 7 - 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.
   * March 18 - American Express is founded by Henry Wells & William Fargo.
   * April 4 - Los Angeles, California is incorporated as a city.
   * July 9 - President Zachary Taylor dies while in office and Millard
     Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States (he is
     inaugurated the next day).
   * August 28 - Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin premieres
   * September 9 - California is admitted as the 31st U.S. state.
   * December 16 - The first four ships arrived at Lyttleton to settle
     Christchurch, New Zealand.

Births

   * January 21 - Paul Vinzenz Busch, ringmaster (+ 1927)
   * January 27 - Samuel Gompers, labor union leader (+ 1924)
   * May 1 - Prince Arthur of the United Kingdom, third son of Queen
     Victoria and Prince Albert, later Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
   * May 12 - Henry Cabot Lodge, U.S. statesman (+ 1924)
   * September 2 - Albert Spalding, baseball player and sporting goods
     manufacturer
   * November 13 - Robert Louis Stevenson (+ 1894)

Deaths

   * July 8 - Prince Adolphus of the United Kingdom, 1st Duke of Cambridge
   * July 9 - Zachary Taylor, President of the United States
   * August 18 - Honore de Balzac