WHAT ALL HAPPENED JANUARY TO DECEMBER 1851
Find out what all happened January to December 1851

Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is first published as The Whale by Richard Bentley of London. (18. October 1851)

Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine. (12. August 1851)

The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, before moving to the other side of Elliott Bay to what would become Seattle, Washington. (13. November 1851)

First reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans. (27. March 1851)

The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec. (9. December 1851)

Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand. (2. April 1851)

Saint Joseph's University is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (15. September 1851)

Northwestern University becomes the first chartered university in Illinois. (28. January 1851)

Kentucky marshals abduct abolitionist minister Calvin Fairbank from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and take him to Kentucky to stand trial for helping a slave escape. (9. November 1851)

Slavery is abolished in Colombia, South America. (21. May 1851)

India's first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India. (22. December 1851)

French President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte overthrows the Second Republic. (2. December 1851)

The first performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi takes place in Venice. (11. March 1851)

Annibale de Gasparis discovers asteroid 15 Eunomia. (29. July 1851)

Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper. (5. June 1851)

The largest Australian bushfires in a populous region in recorded history take place in the state of Victoria. (6. February 1851)

Library of Congress burns. (24. December 1851)

The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts. (29. December 1851)

First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times. (18. September 1851)

Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition in London. (1. May 1851)