Born ThenLife in the 1850s
Be born somewhere between 1850 and 1859, weighted by real births, and live five lives from that year on.
The numbers
The world had about 1.3 billion people, and about 0.52 billion babies were born in the 1850s. A child born then could expect, on world average, about 30 years of life; 45% of children died before turning five. Women had about 5.8 children each. Roughly 25% of adults could read, and 18% of people lived in towns and cities. The places with the most births were China (30%), India (19%), Russia (4%), USA (2%), Germany (2%).
From Gapminder and the World Bank, averaged over the world and weighted by births; before 1950 most are estimates. How it works
What happened
- Atlantic slave trade, final decades 1800–1866
- Slavery in the United States 1800–1865
- Slavery in Brazil 1800–1888
- Serfdom in the Russian Empire 1800–1861
- British emigration to the colonies and America 1815–1913
- Cultivation System in Java 1830–1870
- Indian indenture system 1834–1917
- German emigration to the Americas 1840–1893
- Great Famine in Ireland 1845–1852
- Chinese emigration from Guangdong and Fujian 1845–1913
- Third cholera pandemic 1846–1860
- Taiping Rebellion 1850–1864
- Victorian gold rush 1851–1869
- Irish emigration after the Famine 1852–1913
- Crimean War 1853–1856
- Third plague pandemic 1855–1930
- Indian Rebellion of 1857 1857–1858
- French conquest of Vietnam 1858–1887