Editing 1850 (section)

=== Date unknown ===
* [[Dost Mohammad Barakzai]], emir of Afghanistan, captures [[Balkh]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/11748/|title=Persia, Arabia, etc.|website=[[World Digital Library]]|date=1852|access-date=2013-07-27}}</ref>
* The first portion of the [[Oudh Bequest]] is transferred from [[Oudh State]] in the [[British Raj]] to the [[Shia Islam]] holy cities of [[Najaf]] and [[Karbala]], in [[Persia]].
* The [[American system of watch manufacturing]] is started in [[Roxbury, Massachusetts]], by the [[Waltham Watch Company]].
* [[Bingley Hall]], the world's first purpose-built exhibition hall, opens in [[Birmingham]], England.
* [[Allan Pinkerton]] forms the North-Western Police Agency, later the [[Pinkerton National Detective Agency]], in the United States.
* The temperance organisation, [[International Organisation of Good Templars]], is established in [[Utica, New York]], as the order of the Knights of Jericho.
* [[Mayer Lehman]] arrives from Germany to join his siblings in [[Lehman Brothers]] dry-goods business (predecessor of the bank) in [[Montgomery, Alabama]].
* One of the original segments of the historic [[Pacific Highway (United States)]] in [[Washington (state)]] in [[Clark County, Washington|Clark]] and [[Cowlitz County, Washington|Cowlitz]] counties is established.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pacific-hwy.net/vancouver.htm|title=The Historic Pacific Highway from Vancouver to Castle Rock|work=pacific-hwy.net}}</ref>
* German physicist [[Rudolf Clausius]] publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat ("On the Moving Force of Heat") which first states the basic ideas of the [[second law of thermodynamics]].
* The city of [[Manchester]], England, reaches 400,000 inhabitants.
* From this year until [[1880]], 144,000 [[Indian people|East Indian]] laborers go to [[Trinidad]] and 39,000 to [[Jamaica]].
* Ongoing &ndash; [[Great Famine (Ireland)]] subsides.<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|page=[https://archive.org/details/irelandhistoryof0000ross/page/313 313]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/irelandhistoryof0000ross}}</ref>