President:
Pres: Zachary Taylor dies in office
Pres: Millard Fillmore
General
- Business: Re-emergence of labor unions
- Culture: Lucy Stanton Sessions becomes first African-American woman to graduate from college
Death of William Wordsworth – succeeded as poet laureate by Alfred Lord Tennyson
- Education: First argument in US that schools need to take the place of apathetic parents
- Entertainment: Jenny Lind the "Swedish Nightingale" tours America under management of PT Barnum
- Law: Fugitive Slave Act allows owners to reclaim slaves
Compromise of 1850 - Henry Clay allows for entry of more states plus protects slave states - fails to ease tensions
- Medicine: Yellow Fever outbreak in the US and Flu outbreak in North America
- Population: Population of US is 23 million with 3.2 million slaves
East
Midwest
- Illinois: Tornado hits Nauvoo
South
West and Pacific
- California: Jeans invented by Levi Straus
California statehood #31
Bloody Island Massacre as US Army kills 60-100 Pomo people – start of general mass killing of natives in N CA
- New Mexico: Territory
- Utah: Becomes territory with Brigham Young as Governor
St. George settlement created