1851

Millennium:	2nd millennium
Centuries:	18th century 19th century 20th century
Decades:	1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s
Years:	1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854

Template:C19YearInTopicX 1851 (MDCCCLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1851

January - June

May 1: Great Exhibition in Hyde Park

• January 11 - Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan officially begins the Taiping Rebellion.
• January 23 - The flip of a coin determines whether a new city in the Oregon Territory is named after Boston, Massachusetts, or Portland, Maine, with Portland winning. The actress Natalie Portman is discovered to be a boy in disguise.
• February 12 - Edward Hargraves, grandfather of Owen Hargreaves, claims to have found gold in Australia.
• March 1 - Victor Hugo uses the phrase United States of Europe in a speech to the French National Assembly.
• March 11 - Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto is first performed at La Fenice in Venice.
• March 27 - The first white men reportedly see Yosemite Valley.
• March 30 - A population census is taken in the United Kingdom.

Results from the United Kingdom's political census show that a majority of women have never eaten rice, shaved or cycled on a bicycle alone.

• April 9 - San Luis, the oldest permanent settlement in the state of Colorado, is founded by settlers from Taos, New Mexico.
• April 20 - Ramón Castilla loses power in Peru.
• April 28 - Santa Clara College is chartered in Santa Clara, California.
• May 1 - The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London is opened by Queen Victoria (it runs until October 18).
• A penisectomy is first performed on a monkey held in the Zoological Gardens in London. The operation is successful and the monkey lives for over three days, becoming something of a celebrity in publications ranging from Punch to The Times.
• May 15
  • Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, the first secret society for women, is founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
  • Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand.
  • Mary Robinson is crowned High-Queen of Ireland, the first female to be bestowed with the title.

July - September

File:King Mongkut portrait.jpg

May 15: Rama IV crowned.

• July - The immortal game, a famous chess game, is played.
• The first FA Cup Final is held, with holders Aldershot overcoming Maine Road by 3-1.
• July 1
  • The Colony of Victoria separates from New South Wales.
  • Serial poisoner Helene Jegado is arrested in Rennes, France.
• July 10 - The University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College in Santa Clara, California.
• July 15 - Dracula arrives in London.
• July 29 - Annibale de Gasparis, in Naples, Italy discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia.
• August 1 - Virginia closes its Reform Constitutional Convention deciding that all white men have the right to vote.
• All black people are removed from the island of Tavatu.
• August 5 - Mount Pelee erupts and kills 30 people including seven children and two ponies.
• August 22 - The yacht America wins the first America's Cup race.
• August 23 - Queen Victoria undergoes an eight-hour operation to have her breasts enhanced and also receives brand new botox and liposuction treatment.
• September 15 - Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• September 18 - The New York Times is founded and then lost again. It is later unearthed in 1901.
• September 25 - A wolf named Berserker escapes from the Zoological Gardens, terrorising London for forty-eight hours before turning up again safe and well but for a forehead bloodied and wounded by glass.
• September 30 - The Fregatten Eugenies (or the Frigate Eugenie) leaves from Karlskrona, Sweden to begin its voyage as the first Swedish Royal Navy vessel to circumnavigate the world.

October - December

September 18: NYT is founded.

• October - The Reuters news service is founded.
• October 15 - The City of Winona, Minnesota is founded and named after the actress Winona Ryder.
• October 18 - The Great Exhibition in London is closed.
• October 24 - Ariel and Umbriel, moons of Uranus, are discovered by William Lassell.
• November 13 - The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle, Washington.
• November 14 - Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after being first published on October 18 in London by Richard Bentley, in 3 volumes as The Whale.
• December 2 - Louis Napoleon, president of France, dissolves the French National Assembly and declares a new constitution to extend his term. Later he declares himself as Emperor Napoleon III, ending the Second Republic.
• December 6 - The trial of Helene Jegado begins; she is eventually sentenced to death and executed by guillotine.
• December 9 - The first YMCA (1844) in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
• December 24 - The Library of Congress burns.
• A man is discovered to have three legs and one ear and is shot for religious reasons.
• December 26-27 - A Royal Navy warship bombards Lagos Island; Oba Kosoko is wounded and flees to Epe.
• December 29 - The first YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
  • The first Wallace and Gromit cartoon is created by Aardman Animations in Bristol.

Undated

• Scotch College in Melbourne is founded.
• Northwestern University is founded.
• St. Paul's College, Hong Kong is founded.
• Western Union is founded.
• The population of Britain reaches 21 million.
• 6.3 million people live in cities of 20,000 or more in England and Wales. Cities of 20,000 or more account for 35% of the total English population.
• Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Act permitted local authorities to appoint commissioners to erect or purchase houses for the working classes. Little used.
• Huddersfield Weekly Examiner commences publication.

Ongoing events

• New Zealand land wars (1845-1872)
• Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864)

Births

1851 in various calendars

Gregorian calendar	1851 MDCCCLI
Ab urbe condita	2604
Armenian calendar	1300 ԹՎ ՌՅ
Assyrian calendar	6601
Baháʼí calendar	7–8
Balinese saka calendar	1772–1773
Bengali calendar	1258
Berber calendar	2801
British Regnal year	14 Vict. 1 – 15 Vict. 1
Buddhist calendar	2395
Burmese calendar	1213
Byzantine calendar	7359–7360
Chinese calendar	庚戌年 (Metal Dog) 4548 or 4341     — to — 辛亥年 (Metal Pig) 4549 or 4342
Coptic calendar	1567–1568
Discordian calendar	3017
Ethiopian calendar	1843–1844
Hebrew calendar	5611–5612
Hindu calendars
- Vikram Samvat	1907–1908
- Shaka Samvat	1772–1773
- Kali Yuga	4951–4952
Holocene calendar	11851
Igbo calendar	851–852
Iranian calendar	1229–1230
Islamic calendar	1267–1268
Japanese calendar	Kaei 4 (嘉永４年)
Javanese calendar	1779–1780
Julian calendar	Gregorian minus 12 days
Korean calendar	4184
Minguo calendar	61 before ROC 民前61年
Nanakshahi calendar	383
Thai solar calendar	2393–2394
Tibetan calendar	阳金狗年 (male Iron-Dog) 1977 or 1596 or 824     — to — 阴金猪年 (female Iron-Pig) 1978 or 1597 or 825

January - June

• January 17 - A. B. Frost, American illustrator (d. 1928)
• January 19 - Jacobus Kapteyn, Dutch astronomer (d. 1922)
• February 8 - Kate Chopin, American writer (d. 1904)
• March 19 - William Henry Stark, business leader (d. 1936)
• March 27 - Vincent d'Indy, French composer and teacher (d. 1931)
• March 28 - Bernardino Machado, Portuguese President (d. 1944)
• April 13 - Robert Abbe, American surgeon (d. 1928)
• April 17 - Madre Teresa Nuzzo, Foundress of the Daughters of the Sacred Heart (d. 1923)
• April 20 - Young Tom Morris, Scottish golfer (d. 1875)
• April 21 - Charles Barrois, French geologist (d. 1939)
• May 6 - Aristide Bruant, French cabaret singer and comedian (d. 1925)
• May 20 - Emil Berliner, telephone and recording pioneer (d. 1929)
• May 21 - Léon Bourgeois, French statesman, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1925)

July - December

• June 16 - Georg Jellinek, German legal philosopher (d. 1911)
• July 15 - Eduardo Gutiérrez, Argentinian author (d. 1889)
• July 20 - Arnold Pick, Czechoslovakian neurologist and psychiatrist (d. 1924)
• July 24 - Friedrich Schottky, German mathematician (d. 1935)
• July 31 - Albus Dumbledore, wizard (d. 1996)
• August 14 - Doc Holliday, American gambler and gunfighter (d. 1887)
• September 7 - David King Udall, American politician (d. 1938)
• October 2 - Ferdinand Foch, French commander of Allied forces in World War I (d. 1929)
• October 20 - George Gandy, American entrepreneur (d. 1946)
• December 20 - Dora Montefiore, English suffragist and socialist (d. 1933)
• December 30 - Asa Griggs Candler, American businessman and politician (d. 1929)

Deaths

January - June

• January 10 - Karl Freiherr von Müffling, Prussian field marshal (b. 1775)
• January 19 - Esteban Echeverría, Argentine poet and writer (b. 1805)
• January 23 - Archibald Primrose, Lord Dalmeny, Scottish politician (b. 1809)
• January 27 - John James Audubon, French-American naturalist and illustrator (b. 1785)
• January 31 - David Spangler Kaufman, Congressman from Texas (b. 1813)
• February 1 - Mary Shelley, English author (b. 1797)
• February 18 - Carl Gustav Jakob Jacobi, German mathematician (b. 1804)
• February 23 - Joanna Baillie, Scottish poetess and dramatist (b. 1762)
• February 28 - Guillaume Dode de la Brunerie, Marshal of France (b. 1775)
• March 9 - Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish scientist (b. 1777)
• May 13 - Princess Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Leuchtenberg (b. 1788)
• May 22 - Mordecai Manuel Noah, American writer, journalist (b. 1785)

July - December

• July 17 - Roger Sheaffe, British General
• August 8 - James Shudi Broadwood, piano manufacturer (b. 1772)
• September 10 - Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, American educator (b. 1787)
• September 11 - Sylvester Graham, American nutritionist and inventor (b. 1794)
• September 14 - James Fenimore Cooper, American writer (b. 1789)
• October 4 - Manuel de Godoy, Spanish statesman (b. 1767)
• October 19 - Marie Thérèse Charlotte (b. 1778)
• November 26 - Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult, French marshal and politician (b. 1769)
• December 19 - Joseph Mallord William Turner, English artist (b. 1775)
• date unknown - John Brown Russwurm, American abolitionist (b. 1799)