Events of 1851

January–June

May 1: Great Exhibition in Hyde Park

• January 11 – Taiping Rebellion: Hong Xiuquan officially begins the Taiping Rebellion.

• January 15 – Christian Female College, now Columbia College, receives its charter from the Missouri General Assembly.

• 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 – The first white men reportedly see Yosemite Valley.

• March 30 – A population census is taken in the United Kingdom.

• 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 21- John Stuart Mill marries Harriet Taylor

• 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, is 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.

• 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 Hélène Jégado is arrested in Rennes, France.

• July 10 – The 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 including seven children (as well as two ponies).

• 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 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.

• 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. A year later he declares himself as Emperor Napoleon III, ending the Second Republic.

• December 6 – The trial of Hélène Jégado 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. The First Lancashire Darts Federation was founded, after years of being several separate societies.

• 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.

Undated

• 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)

• First Schleswig War (1848–1851)

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 14 – John Sebastian Little, American politician and congressman (d. 1916)

• March 18 – Julien Dupré, Fench artist (d. 1910)

• 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 8 – Arthur Evans, British archaeologist (d. 1941)

• 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)

• September 14 – H.E. Beunke, Dutch writer (d. 1925)

• 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 3 – Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, Congressman from Massachusetts secretary of U.S. Navy (b. 1772)

• 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 10 – Louis Daguerre, French artist and chemist (b. 1787)

• 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)