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Date |
Event(s) |
| 1 | 1850 | - 1850: American Joel Houghton invented the first dishwasher. He made it out of wood, and gave it a hand-turned wheel that splashed water on the dishes inside. It didn't really work, but it did get the first "dishwasher" patent
- 1850: First machine-made paper bag
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| 2 | 1851 | - 1851: The Great Exhibition is staged in Hyde Park. Thanks to Prince Albert, it is a great success
- 1851: Patent for Singer sewing machine issued
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| 3 | 1852 | - 1852: Death of the Duke of Wellington. Derby's first minority Conservative government. Aberdeen's coalition government is established
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| 4 | 1853 | - 1853: Potato crisps invented by a cook named George Crum.
- 1853: Florence Nightingale first recommended the regimen of cleanliness which dramatically reduced the death rate in hospitals
- 1853: Vaccination against smallpox is made compulsory. Queen Victoria uses chloroform during birth of Prince Leopold. Gladstone presents his first budget
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| 5 | 1854 | - 1854: The Northcote-Trevelyan civil service report is published; and The Crimean War begins, as Britain and France attempt to defend European interests in the Middle East against Russia
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| 6 | 1855 | - 1855: John Snow, investigating London's piped water supply, showed graphically that cholera could be transmitted by water from a particular pump.
- 1855: End of Aberdeen's coalition government. Palmerston's first government comes to power
- 1855: Yale lock invented
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| 7 | 1856 | - 1856: Crimean War comes to an end. The Victoria Cross is instituted for military bravery
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| 8 | 1857 | - 1857: Cyrus Field made his first attempt at laying a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. In 1866, his fourth attempt was successful.
- 1857: The Second Opium War opens China to European trade. The Indian Mutiny erupts against British Rule on the sub-continent
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| 9 | 1858 | - 1858: Derby establishes his second minority government. Parliament passes the India Act
- 1858: Eraser fitted to end of pencil
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| 10 | 1859 | - 1859: Darwin in 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', asserted all life had a common ancestor and that the origin of species was natural selection
- 1859: End of Derby's second minority government. Palmerston brings his second Liberal government to power.
- 1859: Smiles' 'Self-Help' published
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| 11 | 1860 | - 1860: Joseph Wilson Swan invented the light bulb, an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament.
- 1860: Gladstone's budget and the Anglo-French Cobden Treaty codifies and extends the principles of free trade
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| 12 | 1861 | - 1861: Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis published his deduction that childbirth fever was transmitted on the hands of doctors during their examinations
- 1861: Death of Prince Albert, Prince Consort
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| 13 | 1862 | - 1862: Pasteur published the 'germ theory:': Infection is caused by self-replicating microorganisms, and that attenuated viral cultures granted immunity. These beneficent antigens he named 'vaccines' in honor of Jenner and his vaccinia virus
- 1862: Parliament passes the Limited Liability Act in order to provide vital stimulus to accumulation of capital in shares
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| 14 | 1863 | - 1863: Edward, Prince of Wales, marries Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Salvation Army is founded
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| 15 | 1865 | - 1865: Lister, using carbolic acid as antiseptic and sterilizing his instrument, proved the efficacy of antiseptic surgery
- 1865: Death of Palmerston. Russell establishes his second Liberal government
- 1865: Lewis Carroll publishes 'Alice's Adventure in Wonderland'
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| 16 | 1866 | - 1866: Gregor Mendel, in "Versuche ?ber Pflantenhybriden," interpreted heredity in terms of a pairing of dominant and/or recessive unit characters; that is, ones that could in practice be treated as indivisible and independent particles
- 1866: Alfred Nobel patented dynamite
- 1866: Russell and Gladstone fail to have their moderate Reform Bill passed in parliament. Derby takes power in his third minority Conservative government
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| 17 | 1867 | - 1867: Karl Marx, in Das Kapital, maintained the value, or exchange relation, of commodities is characterized by its alienation from its use-value, and thus its value as the product of human labor, which the capitalist treats as a variable and against which he accounts his surplus.
- 1867: Derby and Disraeli's Second Reform Bill doubles the franchise to two million. Canada becomes the first independent dominion in the British Empire under the Dominion of Canada Act
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| 18 | 1868 | - 1868: Disraeli succeeds Derby as Prime Minister. Gladstone becomes Prime Minister for the first time
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| 19 | 1869 | - 1869: George M. Beard distinguished 'neurasthenia,' a nervous disease of men, from hysteria, a women's disease, as, in an earlier time, men's 'hypochondriasis' had been distinguished from women's ' vapeurs.' Subforms of neurasthenia came to be called phobias.
- 1869: The Irish Church is disestablished. The Suez Canal is opened
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| 20 | 1870 | - 1870: Primary education becomes compulsory in Britain through the Forster-Ripon English Elementary Education Act. Parliament also passes the Women's Property Act, extending the rights of married women, and the Irish Land Act
- 1870: First British postcard devised by Anthony Trollope
- 1870: Wheeler introduces toilet paper roll in US
- 1870: Inauguration of London to Calcutta telegraph line, first electronic link between Europe and India
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| 21 | 1871 | - 1871: Trade Unions are legalized
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1850 - 1871 (20 years)