Things that happened of note...

During the reign of her Imperial British Majesty Queen Victoria... Huzzah!
A series of entries for every year.

The Victorian Era at angelpig.net

Some examples...

1850
27 January - Birth - Edward Smith, Captain of the Titanic (d. 1912)
23 April - Death - William Wordsworth, poet (b. 1770)
1 May - Birth - Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, member of the Royal Family (d. 1942)
2 July - Death - Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1788)
13 November - Birth - Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (d. 1894)
-- In Memoriam AHH published: Tennyson's long poem cycle, inspired by premature grief at the death of his friend Arthur Hallam. Tennyson went on to become Poet Laureate and one of the central literary figures of the age. He was photographed on numerous occasions by his friend, Julia Margaret Cameron.
-- First bowler hat worn: Invented for James Coke, the bowler hat was midway between the formality of a top hat and the soft felt hat worn by the lower middle classes. The hat was hard, to protect the head. It became the traditional accessory of every City gent and only went out of everyday use in the 1960s.
-- Publication - Elizabeth Barrett Browning publishes her sonnet cycle, Sonnets From The Portuguese. A celebration of the love between herself and fellow poet Robert Browning, it contains this famous poem, often read at weddings; which begins "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." The true-life story of their secret love, elopement and happy marriage in Italy is as romantic as the poems themselves.

1854
28 March - United Kingdom declares war on Russia - Crimean War begins.
01 August - Cholera outbreak in Broad Street Some 500 people died in only ten days from drinking infected water from the Broad Street pump in London - but nobody knew it was the drinking water that was spreading the disease until Dr John Snow began to investigate and realised it was a water- rather than an air-born infection. He had the pump sealed up and the deaths ceased. This was a break-through in medicine and was influential on later Public Health legislation; and forming the starting point for epidemiology. 2,000 people died during one week of the cholera epidemic.

6 October - The great fire of Newcastle and Gateshead is ignited by a spectacular explosion.
16 October - Birth - Oscar Wilde, writer (d. 1900)
21 October - Florence Nightingale leaves for Crimea with 38 other nurses.
04 Nov - Ms Nightingale arrives in Scutari: Florence Nightingale takes over the running of the military hospital at Scutari and transforms the conditions there. Her pioneering attitude to hygiene and dedication to nursing transformed the profession.
-- Publication - Alfred Tennyson's poem The Charge of the Light Brigade
-- Publication - Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times
-- Publication - William Makepeace Thackeray's novel The Rose and the Ring

Lots more at the link.

Keep your sight glass full and your firebox trimmed.

KJ