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 ^[1] 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.
• February 12 - Edward Hargraves 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 - First reported case of white men seeing Yosemite Valley.
• March 30 - A population census is taken in the United Kingdom.
• 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.
• May 15
  • Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, the first secret society for women, founded at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia.
  • Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand.

July - September

May 15: Rama IV crowned.

• July - The immortal game, a famous chess game, is played.
• July 1
  • Colony of Victoria separates from New South Wales.
  • Serial poisoner Helene Jegado is arrested in Rennes, France
• July 10 - University of the Pacific is chartered as California Wesleyan College in Santa Clara, California
• 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.
• August 5 - Mount Pelee erupts and kills 30 people.
• August 22 - The yacht America wins the first America's Cup race.
• September 15 - Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• September 18 - The New York Times is founded.
• September 30 - The Fregatten Eugenies (or the Frigate Eugenie) left 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 - Reuters news service founded.
• October 18 - The Great Exhibition in London is closed.
• October 24 - Ariel and Umbriel, moons of Uranus, discovered by William Lassell.
• November 13 - The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what will become 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 it was first published, on October 18 in London by Richard Bentley, in 3 volumes as The Whale.
• December 2 - Louis Napoleon, president of France, dissolves French National Assembly and declares a new constitution to extend his term. Later he declares himself as an emperor Napoleon III. End of the Second Republic.
• December 6 - 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.
• December 26-27 - Royal Navy warship bombards Lagos island; Oba Kosoko is wounded and flees to Epe.
• December 29 - The first Boston YMCA opens (in Massachusetts).

Undated

• Scotch College in Melbourne is founded.
• Northwestern University is founded.
• St. Paul's College, Hong Kong is founded.
• Macy's department store founded by R.H. Macy.
• Western Union is founded.
• Almost 21 million population in Britain.
• 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.

Ongoing events

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

Births

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)
• 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, Abolitionist (b. 1799)

Notes

1. ↑ "Calendar in year 1851 (Russia)" (Julian calendar, starting Tuesday), webpage:

     Julian-1851
     (Russia used the Julian calendar until ).