Events from the year 1850 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal government
President: Zachary Taylor (W-Kentucky) (until July 9), Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (starting July 9) Vice President: Millard Fillmore (W-New York) (until July 9), vacant (starting July 9) Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland) Speaker of the House of Representatives: Howell Cobb (D-Georgia) Congress: 31st
Events
January–March
January – Sacramento floods. January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to Congress. January 31 – The University of Rochester is chartered in Rochester, New York; it admits its first students in November c. January–February – The Liberty Head double eagle first issued for commerce. February 8–17 – Battle at Fort Utah: The Nauvoo Legion kills Timpanogos hostile to the Mormon settlement at Fort Utah on the orders of Brigham Young. February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City. 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 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel The Scarlet Letter is published in Boston, Massachusetts. March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
April–June
April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a city in California. April 15 – San Francisco is incorporated as a city in California. April 19 – Clayton–Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal. May 7 – The brigantine is loaned to the United States Navy. May 23 – The puts to sea from New York City to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic. June – Harper's Magazine published as a new monthly in New York City. June 1 – The 1850 United States census shows that 11.2% of the population classed as "Negro" are of mixed race. June 3 – Traditional date of Kansas City, Missouri's founding: it is incorporated by Jackson County, Missouri as the "Town of Kansas".
July–September
July 1 – St. Mary's Institute (the future University of Dayton) admits its first pupils in Dayton, Ohio. July 9 – President Zachary Taylor dies in office; Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th president of the United States. July 10 – President Fillmore is sworn in. July 14 – John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida. September 9 California is admitted to the Union as the 31st state (see History of California and An Act for the Admission of the State of California). Utah Territory is established. New Mexico Territory is organized by order of the U.S. Congress. September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is passed by the U.S. Congress. Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.
October–December
October 19 – Phi Kappa Sigma International Fraternity founded at the University of Pennsylvania. October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African American suffrage to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
Undated
The American system of watch manufacturing starts in Roxbury, Massachusetts, with the Waltham Watch Company. Mayer Lehman arrives from Germany to join his siblings in Lehman Brothers merchant business in Montgomery, Alabama. Allan Pinkerton forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, in Chicago. Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The temperance organization, International Organisation of Good Templars, is established in Utica, New York, as the order of the Knights of Jericho. One of the original segments of the historic Pacific Highway in Washington (state) in Clark and Cowlitz counties is established.
Ongoing
California Gold Rush (1848–1855)