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1850: The death in Fort William of Scotland's last great outlaw, Ewan MacPhee.
29 January 1850: The birth in Muthill of Helen Gloag, who through a series of remarkable events went on to become the Empress of Morocco.
29 August 1850: The Royal Border Bridge carrying the main line railway across the River Tweed at Berwick-upon-Tweed is opened by Queen Victoria.
24 September 1850: St Mary's Dalmahoy is consecrated at a service led by the Bishop of Edinburgh.
13 November 1850: The birth in Edinburgh of Robert Louis Stevenson, the renowned essayist, poet, and author of fiction and travel books.
1851: James Young sets up the world's first oil refinery in Bathgate.
19 September 1851: The birth in Lancashire of William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, an English industrialist, philanthropist and colonialist who, amongst many other ventures, for a time owned Lewis and Harris and had a profound and lasting influence on the island.
1852: John Brown Shipbuilding and Engineering is formed in Glasgow. The company moves to Clydebank in 1872.
12 March 1852: The last recorded salmon is caught in Glasgow's River Kelvin as industrial pollution rises. The species does not return to the river until February 1999.
24 May 1852: The birth in London of Robert Cunninghame Graham, the socialist politician who became the first president of the Scottish National Party.
2 March 1854: The death in Saint Petersburg of Sir James Wylie, the Scottish doctor who rose to become the Russian imperial court surgeon and served three tsars.
17 September 1854: The birth in Arbroath of David Dunbar Buick, who would go on to found the Buick Motor Company in the United States.
20 September 1854: Arctic explorer Dr John Rae sails from Canada for England with news of the fate of the missing expedition of Sir John Franklin.
2 October 1854: The birth in Ballater of Sir Patrick Geddes, the noted biologist and botanist who went on to become a pioneer in the field of town planning.
28 October 1854: The death in Dunkeld of Charles Edward Stuart, Count Roehenstart, the illegitimate son of the legitimised daughter of Charles Edward Stewart, better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie.
15 August 1856: The birth of Keir Hardie, who would rise from extremely humble origins to become one of Britain's most well regarded politicians, and the first leader of the Labour Party.
24 December 1856: The death of geologist and writer, Hugh Miller.
19 March 1857: The death of William Henry Playfair, one of the most influential Scottish architects of the 1800s and a man who played a leading role in shaping the Edinburgh we see today.
23 March 1857: Pierre Emile L'Angelier dies of arsenic poisoning in Glasgow. In a sensational subsequent trial his lover, Madeleine Smith, is adjudged "not proven" of his murder.
14 February 1858: The birth near Thornhill of Joseph Thomson, a geologist and explorer who played an important part in the "Scramble for Africa" in the 1880s and 1890s.
10 June 1858: The death in London of Robert Brown, the botanist best known for his work in Australia, and one of the first to observe the phenomenon since called Brownian motion.
9 September 1858: Fisherman's wife May Moar saves the crew of a fishing boat off the island of Yell.
17 November 1858: The death in Wales of Robert Owen, the businessman and a social reformer closely associated with the cotton mills at New Lanark.
22 May 1859: The birth in Edinburgh of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the highly successful author best known for creating Sherlock Holmes.
10 September 1859: The birth in England of J. Norman Collie, the eminent scientist and pioneering mountaineer who did much to popularise climbing on the Isle of Skye.
14 October 1859: The new water supply to Glasgow from Loch Katrine is opened.
27 January 1860: The death in Largs of Sir Thomas Brisbane the successful soldier who went on to become Governor of New South Wales.
9 May 1860: The birth in Kirriemuir of novelist and dramatist J.M. Barrie, best known for inventing the character of Peter Pan.
15 September 1860: Marischal College and King's College in Aberdeen merge to form a single University of Aberdeen.
31 October 1860: The death in London of Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, who achieved fame as one of the most daring and successful naval captains of the Napoleonic Wars, and later led the navies of Chile, Brazil and Greece in independence struggles.
9 January 1861: The death in London of Macgregor Laird, the Scottish merchant who did much to open up the River Niger in Africa as a trade route.
1 January 1862: The birth in Galloway of Andrew Blain Baird, who in 1910, while working as a blacksmith in Rothesay, made the first flight by an entirely Scottish designed and built aeroplane.
26 January 1861: The One O'Clock Gun is fired at Edinburgh Castle for the first time.
19 June 1861: The birth in Edinburgh of Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, the commander of the British forces in France and Belgium during the latter half of the First World War.
22 June 1861: The death while fighting a fire in London of James Braidwood, who founded the world's first municipal fire service in Edinburgh and pioneered the science of modern fire-fighting.
9 July 1861: The birth in Glasgow of Sir William Burrell, a shipping magnate who gifted his huge collection of art to Glasgow City Council.
7 November 1861: The death in Stromness of Isobel Gunn, who enrolled as a man in the Hudson's Bay Company and was the first European woman to reach western Canada.
14 December 1861 : The death of Queen Victoria's Consort, Prince Albert.
13 October 1862: 15 people are killed when two trains collided head on in a cutting a mile and a half north-east of Winchburgh.
20 December 1862: The death in London of Robert Knox, the Edinburgh surgeon and anatomist whose reputation was ruined through his involvement with the bodysnatchers, Burke and Hare.
29 April 1863: Mary Livingstone, wife of explorer David Livingstone, dies in Africa of dysentery while accompanying her husband's Zambezi Expedition.
3 June 1863: The birth in Inveraray of Neil Munro, the journalist and author best remembered as the creator the the fictional Clyde puffer Vital Spark and her captain, Para Handy.
14 August 1863: The death of Field Marshal Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde the soldier remembered particularly for his service in the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny.
16 August 1864: The birth in India of Elsie Inglis, who would make her name as a pioneering surgeon and as a suffragette, and do much to improve medical care for women.
4 November 1864: The birth in Edinburgh of Sir Robert Lorimer, the architect known particularly for his restorations of historic houses and castles and his promotion of the Arts & Crafts style.
5 November 1864: The birth of Margaret Macdonald, the artist whose work helped define "The Glasgow Style" and who married Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
15 April 1865: The birth in Dalry of Walter Wingate, the poet known especially for his children's verse.
8 June 1865: Glenfarclas Distillery in Moray is acquired by John Grant, marking the beginning of a period of major expansion.
12 October 1866: The birth in Lossiemouth of Ramsay MacDonald, who would rise to become Britain's first Labour Prime Minister in 1924.
5 January 1867: The death near Edinburgh at the tragically early age of 37 of Alexander Smith, a Scottish poet who is best remembered for some of the prose he wrote.
9 July 1867: Scotland's first football club, Queen's Park, is formed.
10 February 1868: The death of Sir David Brewster, FRS, the renowned scientist who studied optics and invented the kaleidoscope.
27 February 1868: The death of Arthur Anderson, native of Shetland and founder of P&O.
22 March 1868: The last fully publicly hanging in Scotland takes place in Perth, of Joseph Bell.
5 June 1868: The birth in Edinburgh of James Connolly, the Irish socialist and republican executed by the British for his part in the Irish Easter Rising in 1916.
22 April 1869: The death of Patrick Bell, the Church of Scotland minister best remembered as the inventor of the reaping machine, the partial forerunner to today's combine harvester.
22 November 1869: The clipper "Cutty Sark" is launched at Dumbarton on the River Clyde.
6 May 1870: The death of Sir James Young Simpson, the first man ever to be knighted for his services to medicine, who is principally remembered for introducing anaesthesia to childbirth.
17 May 1870: The death of David Octavius Hill, the artist who went on to help pioneer many aspects of photography in Scotland.
4 August 1870: The birth in Portobello of Sir Harry Lauder, the highly successful Scottish singer and entertainer who toured the world for four decades.
18 November 1870: The first seven female undergraduates studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh are prevented from sitting an exam by the "Surgeons' Hall Riot".
23 January 1871: The death in New Zealand of Thomas Burns, the Presbyterian church minister from Ayrshire who became an early European settler and religious leader in New Zealand.
22 October 1871: The death in London of the eminent geologist Sir Roderick Murchison.
1872: The Education Act provides for schooling of all children aged between 5 and 13.
14 January 1872: The death of Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye Terrier who is said to have spent 14 years tending his master's grave in Greyfriars kirkyard in Edinburgh.
1 June 1872: The death in New York of James Gordon Bennett, the founder, publisher and editor of the New York Herald.
13 June 1872: The birth in Edinburgh of Chrystal Macmillan, who would become a barrister and a campaigner for women's rights.
20 August 1872: The death in Glasgow of William Miller, the Scottish poet best known as the author of the nursery rhyme Wee Willie Winkie.
29 November 1872: The scientist, mathematician and writer, Mary Somerville dies in Italy.
30 November 1872: The world's first football international is held between Scotland and England, ending in a goalless draw.
13 March 1873: The Scottish Football Association is formed, making it the second oldest national football association in the world.
1 May 1873: The death in in present-day Zambia of David Livingstone, one of the most famous of the European missionaries and explorers.
11 November 1874: The birth in Ireland of Dame Anne Louise McIlroy, the pioneering woman doctor who helped establish the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service during the First World War.
30 May 1875: The birth near Banff of Isabel Gunn, who as Isabel Kerr became a doctor and missionary who pioneered the treatment of leprosy in India.
26 August 1875: The birth in Perth of John Buchan, the lawyer and politician who became Governor General of Canada, and is most widely remembered as a prolific author of a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books,
27 November 1875: The death of William Dingwall Fordyce, the Aberdeenshire landowner who became a Liberal Member of Parliament and introduced innovations which greatly benefitted his tenants.
14 February 1876: Alexander Graham Bell's lawyers file a patent application for the telephone with the US Patent Office.
7 March 1876: Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for the telephone by the US Patent Office.
11 March 1876: A meeting is held in the Argyll Arms Hotel in Campbeltown that leads to the formation of the Machrihanish Golf Club.
7 May 1876 : The death of David Bryce, the leading Scottish architect in the Victorian era.
23 June 1876: The death of Robert Napier, the engineer often remembered as "The Father of Clyde Shipbuilding."
5 August 1876: The missionary Mary Slessor sets sail for Nigeria.
6 September 1876: The birth near Dunkeld of John James Macleod, a doctor who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1923.
2 January 1877: The death in Kirkintilloch of Alexander Bain, an instrument maker, an inventor and a clockmaker best known for inventing the fax machine and the electric clock.
22 October 1877: An explosion in the Blantyre Colliery kills 207 miners in Scotland's worst mining disaster.
3 December 1877: Mount Stewart on Bute is badly damged by fire.
26 January 1878: The death of Kirkpatrick Macmillan, the blacksmith credited by many as the inventor of the rear-wheel driven bicycle.
3 February 1878: The birth in 10 Downing Street in London of Dame Flora MacLeod the 28th Chief of Clan MacLeod.
1 June 1878: The Tay Railway Bridge opens linking Dundee with Fife.
6 August 1879: The death in Munich of Johann von Lamont, the eminent Scottish-born astronomer.
24 August 1879: The birth near Glasgow of John Maclean, the revolutionary socialist politician who played an important part in the Red Clydeside movement.
29 October 1879: A service of consecration is held at the newly completed St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh.
5 November 1879: The death of James Clerk Maxwell, one of greatest scientists of any era.
28 December 1879: The Tay Railway Bridge, designed by Thomas Bouch, collapses while being crossed by a train with the loss of 75 lives.
5 February 1881: The death of essayist, satirist, and historian, Thomas Carlyle.
21 July 1881: 58 fishermen drown off the island of Yell in the Gloup Disaster.
6 August 1881: The birth near Darvel of Sir Alexander Fleming, the eminent biologist primarily remembered for his discovery in 1928 of the antibiotic penicillin.
14 October 1881: 189 fishermen, including 129 from Eyemouth are killed when 20 boats are lost in a storm.
2 November 1881: The birth in Kirkintilloch of Tom Johnston, who would serve as Secretary of State for Scotland from 1941 to 1945 and is best remembered for his role in driving ahead a number of large hydro-electricity schemes across the Highlands.
10 March 1882: The death of Professor Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, the eminent oceanographer who served as chief scientist on the 3½ year 70,000 mile expedition by HMS Challenger, the ship that would have a Space Shuttle named after it.
17 April 1882: The "Battle of the Braes" takes place on the Isle of Skye over the crofters' refusal to pay their rents until the landowner returns traditional grazing rights. Attempts to serve eviction notices by 50 police are met with violent resistance.
24 April 1882: The birth in Moffat of Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, best remembered as the commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain.
17 January 1883: The author if "Whisky Galore", Compton Mackenzie, is born in Hartlepool in North-East England.
27 March 1883 : The death at Windsor Castle of John Brown, servant, friend and possibly second husband of Queen Victoria.
20 May 1883: The death in Edinburgh of William Chambers, the publisher who became Lord Provost of Edinburgh.
3 July 1883: The steamer "Daphne" sinks with the loss of 124 lives on the Clyde during its maiden voyage.
1 July 1884 : Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the US Secret Service, dies in Chicago.
1885: The Scottish Office is created as part of the Whitehall government, and with it the post of Secretary of State for Scotland.
12 September 1885: A professional football match held in Arbroath results in a scoreline of Arbroath, 36: Bon Accord (an Aberdeen club), 0. For over a century this stood as the largest margin of victory in professional football.
5 October 1885: The birth in Cumnock of Nan Hughes, socialist, local politician, and daughter of Keir Hardie, first leader of the Labour Party.
30 January 1886: Betty Mouat sets sail from Grutness in Sheltand for Lerwick aboard the Columbine. She is washed ashore in Norway nine days later.
25 June 1886: The Crofters Holding Act, sometimes called the "Magna Carta of Gaeldom", is passed, protecting the tenure of crofters.
15 May 1887: The birth in Orkney of Edwin Muir, a novelist and translator as well as one of Scotland's most important poets of the 1900s.
28 May 1887: 73 miners are killed in a firedamp explosion at Udston Colliery near Hamilton. It is said to be Scotland's second worst coal mining disaster.
20 June 1887: The rebuilt Tay Rail Bridge opens.
1888: The Scottish Liberal Association votes for home rule for Scotland.
6 November 1887: Celtic Football Club is formally constituted at a meeting in St. Mary's church hall in East Rose Street in Glasgow.
1888: The Scottish Labour Party is formed by Keir Hardie.
13 August 1888: The birth in Helensburgh of John Logie Baird, the engineer who is best remembered as the inventor of the first working electromechanical television system.
1 February 1889: The the birth in Cawdor of John MacGregor, who would join the Canadian army and become a First World War recipient of the Victoria Cross.
30 May 1889: The birth near Kirkliston of Isabel Hutchison, the pioneering arctic traveller and author.
20 July 1889: The birth in Stonehaven of John Reith, who goes on to become 1st Baron Reith and the father of the BBC.
31 July 1889: The death in Edinburgh of Horatius Bonar, a clergyman and writer who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1883.
21 January 1890: Two 1,000ft long test trains, each comprising a locomotive and 50 wagons, and each weighing 900 tons, roll onto the newly-built Forth Bridge side by side from the south.
4 March 1890: The Forth Rail Bridge is officially opened by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, a fortnight after the first complete end-to-end crossing by a train.
7 May 1890: The death in Kent of James Nasmyth, the inventor and engineer remembered mostly for his development of the steam hammer.
6 June 1891: The death in Ottowa of Sir John A. Macdonald, the dominant figure of Canadian Confederation who became the first Prime Minister of Canada.
8 November 1891: The birth in Dunbeath of Neil M. Gunn, a prolific novelist, critic and dramatist who is rated as one of the most important Scottish authors in the first half of the 20th Century.
13 April 1892: The birth in Brechin of Sir Robert Watson-Watt, generally regarded to be the "inventor of radar". While not the first to consider the possibilities in this area, he was the first to produce a workable system that turned the theory into a weapon critical to winning World War Two.
17 April 1892: The death in Toronto of Scottish-born Alexander Mackenzie, the second Prime minister of Canada.
11 August 1892: The birth in Langholm of Christopher Murray Grieve who, writing as Hugh MacDiarmid, is widely regarded as the most important Scottish poet of the 20th Century.
27 September 1893: The death William Walls, an Orcadian who was active in the local politics of Glasgow in the second half of the 1800s.
11 February 1893: The birth near Aberdeen of Nan Shepherd, a poet and author who set her novels in north-east Scotland and also wrote about the Cairngorms.
7 August 1894: The first train arrives in Fort William on the newly opened West Highland Line.
3 December 1894: The death in Samoa of renowned poet, and author of fiction and travel books, Robert Louis Stevenson.
17 April 1895: The first cremation in Scotland takes place, at the Western Necropolis in Glasgow.
19 July 1896: The birth of the author A.J. Cronin, one of the most commercially successful Scottish writers of the 20th Century.
24 October 1896: St Michael's Parish Church, Linlithgow, is rededicated after a major renovation.
14 December 1896: The Glasgow District Underground opens for service.
25 March 1897: The Scottish Trades Union Congress is formed.
6 June 1897: The birth near Dumfries of Jane Haining, who became a Church of Scotland missionary in Budapest and later died in Auschwitz.
8 September 1897: The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in the Braes of Glenlivet is officially opened by the Archbishop of St Andrews & Edinburgh and the Bishop of Aberdeen.
25 November 1897: The birth in Callander of Helen Duncan, the medium and spiritualist best remembered as the last person to be jailed under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, a prosecution that contributed to the Act's repeal.
26 April 1898: The birth in Deanston of John Grierson, the father of documentary film making in Britain and Canada.
5 January 1899: The first electric-powered tram in Glasgow begins the replacement of the horse-drawn service.
8 March 1899: The novelist Eric Linklater is born in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, before spending much of his childhood in Orkney.
30 December 1899: The Albion Motor Car Company Ltd, later known as Albion Motors, is founded in Glasgow.
Click for Timeline: 1900 to 1950
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