1850: Rise of steamship sailings to Skye.
1851: Skye Emigration Society formed.
1851: 500 Skye people evicted from Strathaird to make way for sheep.
1851: Alexander MacLeod, An Dotair Ban, lays out gardens on The Lump overlooking Portree and builds a tower there (now restored).
1853: Hypodermic syringe invented.
1853: Enlargement of Lord MacDonald’s Sconsor deer forest forces more clearances.
1854: 129 people forcibly shipped from Raasay.
1857: Rona lighthouse built.
1857: Transatlantic cable laid.
1857: Ascent of Blaven by Professor Nicol and the poet Swinburne.
1859: Oil first pumped in Pennsylvania.
1860: Bessemer mass produces steel.
1861: Pasteur develops germ theory.
1861: Skye’s population 19,000.
1863: Maxwell develops theory of electromagnetism.
1863: 4th Lord MacDonald dies, succeeded by Somerled.
1865: Royal Assent for Dingwall & Skye Railway Act.
1866: Sconsor-born John MacKenzie, later a top Cuillin guide, climbs Sgurr nan Gillean at the age of 10..
1866: Nobel develops dynamite.

Courtesy of Geoff Holman