* 1851 – Guillaume Bigourdan, French astronomer ( d. 1932 )

* 1851 – Edward Walter Maunder, English astronomer ( d. 1928 )

* 1851 – Felix Adler, German-American religious leader and social reformer ( d. 1933 )

* 1779 – Lorenz Oken, German historian ( d. 1851 )

* 1929 – Emile Berliner, German-American inverter and businessman, invented the phonograph ( b. 1851 )

* 1777 – Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish physicist ( d. 1851 )

* 1851 – Yannoulis Chalepas, Greek sculptor ( d. 1938 )

* 1851 – Doc Holliday, American gambler and dentist ( d. 1887 )

* 1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine.

* 1851 – Rama IV is crowned King of Thailand.

* 1797 – Mary Shelley, English author ( d. 1851 )

* John Cramp, 1851 – 1853 ( and 1856 – 1869 )

* 1809 – John Kirk Townsend, American naturalist ( d. 1851 )

* 1851 – Charles Barrois, French geologist ( d. 1939 )

* 1851 – Leopoldo Alas, Spanish novelist ( d. 1901 )

* Platine War ( 1851 – 1852 ): The Brazilian Empire and its allies went to war against the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas of the Argentine Confederation.

* Henry Campbell Bruce, 2nd Baron Aberdare ( 1851 – 1914 )

In 1998, Pensacola Christian College produced a widely distributed videotape, arguing that this " leaven of fundamentalism " was passed from the 19th-century Princeton theologian Benjamin B. Warfield ( 1851 – 1921 ) to Charles Brokenshire ( 1885 – 1954 ), who served BJU as Dean of the School of Religion, and then to current BJU faculty members and graduates.

#** Charles Joseph Bonaparte ( 1851 – 1921 ), U. S. Attorney General married Ellen Channing Day

* Reuben Cone ( 1788 – 1851 ), an important pioneer and landowner in Atlanta, Georgia

Internally, the Taiping Rebellion ( 1851 – 1864 ), a quasi-Christian religious movement led by the " Heavenly King " Hong Xiuquan, would raid roughly a third of Chinese territory for over a decade until they were finally crushed in the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864.

** Anne Darwin ( 1841 – 1851 ), daughter of Charles Darwin ( 1809 – 1882 )

The first opportunity for the protectionist Tories under Disraeli and Stanley to take office came in 1851, when Lord John Russell's government was defeated in the House of Commons over the Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851.

The Challicum bunyip, an outline image of a bunyip carved by Aborigines into the bank of Fiery Creek, near Ararat, Victoria, was first recorded by The Australasian newspaper in 1851.

Until the mid-19th century, the Museum's collections were relatively circumscribed but, in 1851, with the appointment to the staff of Augustus Wollaston Franks to curate the collections, the Museum began for the first time to collect British and European medieval antiquities, prehistory, branching out into Asia and diversifying its holdings of ethnography.

The Arithmometer, invented in 1820 as a four-operation mechanical calculator, was released to production in 1851 as an adding machine and became the first commercially successful unit ; forty years later, by 1890, about 2, 500 arithmometers had been sold plus a few hundreds more from two arithmometer clone makers ( Burkhardt, Germany, 1878 and Layton, UK, 1883 ) and Felt and Tarrant, the only other competitor in true commercial production, had sold 100 comptometers.

* 1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.

* 1851 – The first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India.

* 1851 – The first American YMCA opens in Boston, Massachusetts.

It is a term first used in 1891 in this Latin form by Arnold Pick ( 1851 – 1924 ), a professor of psychiatry at the German branch of Charles University in Prague.

The first encyclopedia written originally in Swedish was Svenskt konversationslexikon ( 4 volumes, 1845 – 1851 ) by Per Gustaf Berg.

The most significant figure of the era, however, was General José María Urbina, who first came to power in 1851 through a coup d ' état, remained in the presidency until 1856, and then continued to dominate the political scene until 1860.

Title page of the first U. S. edition of Moby-Dick, 1851

The current state insurance regulatory framework has its roots in the 19th century, when New Hampshire appointed the first insurance commissioner in 1851.

* 1851 – Northwestern University becomes the first chartered university in Illinois.

A later painting, Keats, at Hampstead, when he first imagined his Ode to a Nightingale ( 1851 ), is also notable.

Young took out a patent on his process and the resulting products in 1850, and built the first truly commercial oil-works in the world at Bathgate in 1851, using oil extracted from locally mined torbanite, shale, and bituminous coal.

* 1851 – The first performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi takes place in Venice.

These reforms included guarantees to ensure the Ottoman subjects perfect security for their lives, honour, and property ; the introduction of the first Ottoman paper banknotes ( 1840 ) and opening of the first post offices ( 1840 ); the reorganization of the finance system according to the French model ( 1840 ); the reorganization of the Civil and Criminal Code according to the French model ( 1840 ); the establishment of the Meclis-i Maarif-i Umumiye ( 1841 ) which was the prototype of the First Ottoman Parliament ( 1876 ); the reorganization of the army and a regular method of recruiting, levying the army, and fixing the duration of military service ( 1843 – 44 ); the adoption of an Ottoman national anthem and Ottoman national flag ( 1844 ); the first nationwide Ottoman census in 1844 ( only male citizens were counted ); the first national identity cards ( officially named the Mecidiye identity papers, or informally kafa kağıdı ( head paper ) documents, 1844 ); the institution of a Council of Public Instruction ( 1845 ) and the Ministry of Education ( Mekatib-i Umumiye Nezareti, 1847, which later became the Maarif Nezareti, 1857 ); the abolition of slavery and slave trade ( 1847 ); the establishment of the first modern universities ( darülfünun, 1848 ), academies ( 1848 ) and teacher schools ( darülmuallimin, 1848 ); establishment of the Ministry of Healthcare ( Tıbbiye Nezareti, 1850 ); the Commerce and Trade Code ( 1850 ); establishment of the Academy of Sciences ( Encümen-i Daniş, 1851 ); establishment of the Şirket-i Hayriye which operated the first steam-powered commuter ferries ( 1851 ); the first European style courts ( Meclis-i Ahkam-ı Adliye, 1853 ) and supreme judiciary council ( Meclis-i Ali-yi Tanzimat, 1853 ); establishment of the modern Municipality of Istanbul ( Şehremaneti, 1854 ) and the City Planning Council ( İntizam-ı Şehir Komisyonu, 1855 ); the abolition of the capitation ( Jizya ) tax on non-Muslims, with a regular method of establishing and collecting taxes ( 1856 ); non-Muslims were allowed to become soldiers ( 1856 ); various provisions for the better administration of the public service and advancement of commerce ; the establishment of the first telegraph networks ( 1847 – 1855 ) and railroads ( 1856 ); the replacement of guilds with factories ; the establishment of the Ottoman Central Bank ( originally established as the Bank-ı Osmanî in 1856, and later reorganized as the Bank-ı Osmanî-i Şahane in 1863 ) and the Ottoman Stock Exchange ( Dersaadet Tahvilat Borsası, established in 1866 ); the Land Code ( Arazi Kanunnamesi, 1857 ); permission for private sector publishers and printing firms with the Serbesti-i Kürşad Nizamnamesi ( 1857 ); establishment of the School of Economical and Political Sciences ( Mekteb-i Mülkiye, 1859 ); the Press and Journalism Regulation Code ( Matbuat Nizamnamesi, 1864 ); among others.

With his brother Edwin, they built the yacht America and were aboard its 1851 regatta victory in England, later recognized as the first winner of the America's Cup.

The " Volante " competed in the first America's Cup in 1851.