Editing 1851 (section)

=== January&ndash;March ===
* [[January 11]] &ndash; [[Hong Xiuquan]] officially begins the [[Taiping Rebellion]] in China, one of the bloodiest revolts that would lead to 20 million deaths.
* [[January 15]] &ndash; Christian Female College, modern-day [[Columbia College (Missouri)|Columbia College]], receives its charter from the [[Missouri General Assembly]].
* [[January 23]] &ndash; The flip of a coin, subsequently named the [[Portland Penny]], determines whether a new city in the [[Oregon Territory]] will be named after [[Boston]], [[Massachusetts]], or [[Portland, Maine]], with [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]] winning.
* [[January 28]] &ndash; [[Northwestern University]] is founded in [[Illinois]].
* [[February 1]] &ndash; ''[[Brandtaucher]]'', the oldest surviving [[submersible]] craft, sinks during acceptance trials in the German [[port of Kiel]], but the designer, [[Wilhelm Bauer]], and the two crew escape successfully.
* [[February 6]] &ndash; [[Black Thursday (1851)|Black Thursday]] occurs in Australia as [[Bushfires in Australia|bushfires]] sweep across the state of [[Victoria (Australia)|Victoria]], burning about a quarter of its area.
* [[February 12]] &ndash; [[Edward Hargraves]] claims to have found [[gold]] in Australia.
* [[February 15]] &ndash; In [[Boston, Massachusetts]], members of the anti-slavery [[Boston Vigilance Committee]] rescue fugitive slave [[Shadrach Minkins]] from a courtroom, following his arrest by U.S. marshals.
* [[March 1]] &ndash; [[Victor Hugo]] uses the phrase ''[[European Federation|United States of Europe]]'', in a speech to the French National Assembly.
* [[March 11]] &ndash; [[Giuseppe Verdi]]'s opera ''[[Rigoletto]]'' is first performed at [[La Fenice]] in [[Venice]].
* [[March 27]] &ndash; The first European men reportedly see [[Yosemite Valley]].
* [[March 30]] &ndash; A [[United Kingdom Census 1851|United Kingdom Census]] is taken. The population has reached 21&nbsp;million. 6.3&nbsp;million live in cities of 20,000 or more in England and Wales, and cities of 20,000 or more account for 35% of the total English population. It also shows that a [[legacy of the Great Irish Famine]] is that the population of Ireland has fallen to 6,575,000 – a drop of 1,600,000 in ten years, many having emigrated.<ref>{{cite book|first=David|last=Ross|year=2002|title=Ireland: History of a Nation|edition=New|location=New Lanark|publisher=Geddes & Grosset|isbn=1842051644|pages=[https://archive.org/details/irelandhistoryof0000ross/page/216 216, 313]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/irelandhistoryof0000ross/page/216}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Cormac|last=Ó Gráda|title=Ireland's Great Famine: Interdisciplinary Perspectives|publisher=University College Dublin Press|year=2006|isbn=1-904558-57-7|page=3}}</ref>