1869 CE

The Irish Church Act 1869 is given royal assent by Queen Victoria, disestablishing the Church of Ireland effective January 1, 1871. The first game of American football between two American colleges is played. Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4, in a forerunner to American football and College football. College of New Jersey (Princeton) defeat the Rutgers Queensmen (Rutgers) 6 to 4 in New Brunswick, N.J. in what is widely considered the first ever American football game with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, becoming known as "The Birthplace of College Football".

In the 1860s, the 19th century.

1869 at a glance

World population
about 1.33 billion Our World in Data
United States
Andrew Johnson, then Ulysses S. Grant (President) Wikipedia rev. 1370561602
United Kingdom
Victoria (Queen); William Ewart Gladstone (Prime minister) Wikipedia rev. 1370561602
Russian Empire
Alexander II (Emperor) Wikipedia rev. 1370561602
Qing dynasty
Tongzhi (Emperor) Wikipedia rev. 1370561602
Second French Empire
Napoleon III (Emperor) Wikipedia rev. 1370561602
Empire of Japan
Meiji (Emperor) Wikipedia rev. 1370561602

Who led every country in 1869 →

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • January 27 – The Republic of Ezo is proclaimed on the northern Japanese island of Ezo (which will be renamed Hokkaidō on September 20) by remaining adherents to the Tokugawa shogunate.source
  • January 27 – Following defeat of the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate on Honshū in the Boshin War, former Tokugawa military led by Admiral Enomoto Takeaki flee to Ezo (Hokkaido), the large but sparsely populated northernmost island in Japan, and establish the Republic of Ezo. Ezo is notable for being the first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan. Elections were based on universal suffrage among the samurai class. This was the first election ever held in Japan. Enomoto made a last effort to petition the Imperial Court to be allowed to develop Hokkaido and maintain the traditions of the samurai unmolested, but his request was deniedJapansource
  • 27 February – King Louis signs a decree of the government, chaired by the Marquis Sá da Bandeira, abolishing slavery in all Portuguese territories.Portugalsource
  • March 4 – Ulysses S. Grant is sworn in as the 18th president of the United States, and Schuyler Colfax is sworn in as the 17th vice president.United Statessource
  • March – In Japan, the daimyōs of the Tosa, Hizen, Satsuma and Chōshū Domains are persuaded to return their domains to the Emperor Meiji, leading to creation of a fully centralized government in the country.source
  • April 17 – The State of Morelos is created in Mexico.source
  • May 4 – Liberian term of office referendum, 1869Liberiasource
  • May – In elections in France, the opposition, consisting of republicans, monarchists and liberals, polls almost 45% of the vote.source
  • 5 June – the equestrian statue of Frederick VII in the central square in Køge is inaugurated.Denmarksource
  • August 9 – August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht found the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP).source
  • November 13 – The Newfoundland Colony rejects confederation with Canada in election. The Anti-Confederates winning 21–9.source
  • December 10 – Women's suffrage: The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, the first such law in the world.source
  • The capital of the Isle of Man moves from Castletown to Douglas.source
  • 1869 Newfoundland general electionCanadasource
  • Treaty with Hawaii (Hawaiian Kingdom Treaty)Russiasource
  • Henry Austin Bruce becomes MP for Renfrewshire.Walessource

Conflict & Security

  • January 3 – Abdur Rahman Khan is defeated at Tinah Khan, and exiled from Afghanistan.source
  • 13 February: A war party of Ngāti Maniapoto led by Wetere Te Rerenga kills all three men, a woman and three children, and also the Wesleyan missionary John Whiteley who arrives shortly afterwards, at the isolated Pukearuhe Redoubt. This is the final act of the Taranaki wars.New Zealandsource
  • February 26 – Mahbub Ali Khan, 2½, begins a 42-year reign as Nizam of Hyderabad.source
  • 2 March – After several days hiding in bushland near Bunbury, Western Australia, Irish political prisoner John Boyle O'Reilly escapes to America on the whaler Gazelle.Australiasource
  • March 24 – Tītokowaru's War ends with the surrender of the last Māori troops at large, in the South Taranaki District of New Zealand's North Island.source
  • 12 April – Metalworkers' strike at Cockerill in Seraing violently repressed (inspiring Karl Marx to write The Belgian Massacres).Belgiumsource
  • May 4–10 – Naval Battle of Hakodate: The Imperial Japanese Navy defeats adherents of the Tokugawa shogunate.source
  • May 18 – One day after surrendering at the land Battle of Hakodate (begun 4 December 1868), Enomoto Takeaki turns over Goryōkaku to Japanese forces, signaling the collapse of the Republic of Ezo.source
  • June 26 – President Enomoto Takeaki of the Republic of Ezo surrenders, turning Ezo's main fortress of Goryōkaku over to Satsuma staff officer Kuroda Kiyotaka on June 27.Japansource
  • June 27 – The fortress of Goryōkaku is turned over to Imperial Japanese forces, bringing an end to the Republic of Ezo, the Battle of Hakodate and the Boshin War, the military phase of the Meiji Restoration.source
  • August – Anti-Irish riots at Pontlottyn in the Rhymney Valley result in one death.Walessource
  • October 11 – The Red River Rebellion breaks out against British forces in Canada.source
  • 16 November – Charles Wilhelm Thesen arrives in Cape Town. After bad weather delays his onward journey, he decides to stay in South Africa.Norwaysource
  • November 19 – The Hudson's Bay Company surrenders its claim to Rupert's Land in Canada, under its letters patent, back to the British Crown.source
  • November 19 – The Deed of Surrender recognizes the purchase of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson's Bay Company: the lands are placed under the direct control of the Crown, but do not yet formally belong to Canada.Canadasource
  • 19 November – the Hudson's Bay Company surrenders its claim to Rupert's Land in Canada under its letters patent back to the British Crown.United Kingdomsource
  • December 31 – Paraguayan War: Triple Alliance forces take Asunción.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • February 5 – Prospectors in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, discover the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, known as the "Welcome Stranger".source
  • 8 May – The bushranger Captain Moonlite holds up a bank in Mount Egerton, Victoria.Australiasource
  • May 24 – John Wesley Powell departs Green River, Wyoming, with a company of nine other men, on a trip down the Green and Colorado Rivers.source
  • 15 June – The Second German North Polar Expedition departs from BremerhavenGermanysource
  • 14 August – Charles Wilhelm Thesen leaves Norway in his 117-ton schooner Albatros, loaded with timber to sell in New Zealand.Norwaysource
  • French missionary and naturalist Père Armand David receives the skin of a giant panda from a hunter, the first time this species becomes known to a Westerner; he also first describes a specimen of the "pocket handkerchief tree", which will be named in his honor as Davidia involucrata.source
  • Timothy Eaton opens his first store in TorontoCanadasource
  • An international archeology congress visits the Sølager archeological site at Gundested.Denmarksource
  • The New Zealand Ensign is introduced for use on government ships. It does not become the official national flag until 1902. The flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand is also in common use.New Zealandsource
  • An Episcopal chapel from St Andrews is moved stone by stone in fishing boats to Buckhaven and re-erected there.Scotlandsource
  • John Hughes of Merthyr Tydfil buys land near the Sea of Azov, where he develops an ironworks and founds the city of Yuzovka (later Donetsk).Walessource

Religion & Belief

  • 30 January – the new magazine Vanity Fair publishes the first of a long series of colour lithographic caricatures of public figures, initially by Carlo Pellegrini, portraying Benjamin Disraeli.United Kingdomsource
  • July 20 – The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain, goes on sale after printing by the American Publishing Company. It becomes Twain's bestselling work during his lifetime.source
  • July 26 – The Irish Church Act 1869 is given royal assent by Queen Victoria, disestablishing the Church of Ireland effective January 1, 1871.source
  • July 26 – royal assent is given to the Irish Church Act 1869, disestablishing the Church of Ireland with effect from 1871 and abolishing payment of tithe, the legislation having passed through the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and House of Lords.Irelandsource
  • October 8 – New York Foundling Asylum incorporated.United Statessource
  • December 8 – The First Vatican Council opens in Rome.source
  • Thomas Henry Huxley coins the word "Agnostic".source
  • Miðdalskirkja was constructed in Mosfellsprestakalli.Icelandsource
  • Closure of St Mary's Seminary, Auckland.New Zealandsource
  • Resignation and departure from New Zealand of Jean Baptiste Pompallier, First Catholic Bishop in New Zealand.New Zealandsource
  • The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer first takes up residence at St Mary's Monastery, Kinnoull, Perth (built 1866–8), the first Roman Catholic monastery established in Scotland since the Reformation.Scotlandsource
  • Joseph Leycester Lyne (Father Ignatius of Jesus) acquires land at Capel-y-ffin and begins construction of an Anglican Benedictine community, Llanthony Abbey.Walessource

Economy & Finance

  • 2 May - Folies Bergère opens in Paris as the Folies Trévise.Francesource
  • 1 June – the telephone company Det Store Nordiske Telegrafselskab A/S, present-day GN Store Nord A/S, is founded as the result of merging three recently established telephone companies.Denmarksource
  • September 24 – Black Friday: The James Fisk–Jay Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.source
  • September 24 – Black Friday: The Fisk-Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.United Statessource
  • October 9 – Sir Francis Hincks becomes Minister of FinanceCanadasource
  • Campbell Soup Company is founded in New Jersey, United States.source
  • The investment bank Goldman Sachs is founded in New York.source
  • The Co-operative Central Board (later Co-operatives UK) is founded in Manchester, England.source
  • Heinz, as predecessor of Kraft Heinz, a worldwide food processing and cheese brand, founded in Pennsylvania, United States.source
  • Rud. Rasmussen, a wooden furniture manufacturing company, is founded.Denmarksource
  • New Zealand Cup winner: MainsailNew Zealandsource
  • The Caledonian Brewery is established in Shandon, Edinburgh, by George Lorimer and Robert Clark.Scotlandsource
  • The H. J. Heinz Company is founded as Heinz Noble & Company in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania.United Statessource

Technology & Infrastructure

  • February – The Imperial faction took delivery (February 1869) of the French-built ironclad Kotetsu, the first ironclad warship of the Imperial Japanese Navy.Japansource
  • May 10 – The first transcontinental railroad in North America is completed at Promontory, Utah, by the driving of the "golden spike".source
  • May 10 – The "golden spike" is driven marking the completion of the First transcontinental railroad in Promontory, Utah.United Statessource
  • May 22 – Sainsbury's first store, in Drury Lane, London, is opened.source
  • 31 May – Horse-drawn omnibuses introduced in Brussels.Belgiumsource
  • June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents celluloid in Albany, New York.source
  • July 15 – Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès files a patent for margarine in France.source
  • 20 August – Kunsthalle Hamburg opened.Germanysource
  • August: The first bicycle built in Auckland is ridden for the first time. Bicycles are also built and ridden in Christchurch and Dunedin in this year.New Zealandsource
  • September 4 – The first rails of the Namaqualand Railway is laid.South Africasource
  • 18 October – The Lithgow Zig Zag Railway was opened.Australiasource
  • November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.source
  • The Timișoara horse-drawn railway, opened in 1869.source
  • East India Irrigation and Canal Act (British statute)Indiasource

Science & Discovery

  • 9 January – The British clipper ship Thermopylae arrives in Melbourne, having sailed from London in the record time of 64 days.Australiasource
  • March 1 – (O. S. February 17) – Dmitri Mendeleev finishes his design of the first periodic table and sends it for publishing.source
  • March 18 (O. S. March 6) – Dmitri Mendeleev makes a formal presentation of his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.source
  • September 20 – Ezo was given its present name, Hokkaido (北海道 Hokkaidō, literally "Northern Sea Region").Japansource
  • 22 November – the clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched in Dumbarton, one of the last clippers built and the only one to survive in the UK.Scotlandsource
  • 22 November – clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched in Dumbarton, Scotland; she is one of the last clippers built, and the only one to survive in the UK.United Kingdomsource
  • November 23 – In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched (it is one of the last clippers built, and the only one to survive in the United Kingdom).source
  • Friedrich Miescher purifies nuclein, which was then identified as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).source
  • Marcus Jastrow arrives in the United States to become rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.United Statessource
  • J. H. Clark – History of MonmouthshireWalessource

Health & Medicine

  • February 2 – Lord Lisgar replaces Viscount Monck of Ballytrammon as Governor GeneralCanadasource
  • March 1 – The North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin.source
  • 24 March – A fatal case of cholera is reported in Sydney.Australiasource
  • July 20 – Children's Hospital Boston is founded by Dr. Francis Henry Brown and other Harvard Medical School graduates, as a 20-bed facility in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • October 11 – Gamma Sigma becomes the first high school fraternity in North America at Brockport Normal School, Brockport, New York.source
  • October – The 'Edinburgh Seven', led by Sophia Jex-Blake, start to attend lectures at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, the first women in the United Kingdom to do so (although they will not be allowed to take degrees).source
  • James Gordon Bennett Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. David Livingstone.source
  • Epidemic of typhoid fever in Brussels.Belgiumsource
  • Maria Susan Rye began bringing groups of children from poorhouses and orphanages to Canada from England.Canadasource
  • 1869 to 1870 – Smallpox epidemic strikes Canadian Plains tribes, including Blackfeet, Piegan, and Blood.Canadasource
  • James Gordon Bennett, Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. Livingstone.United Statessource
  • Timothy Richards Lewis goes to India to study cholera.Walessource

Crime & Justice

  • January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.source
  • 9 August – Debtors Act 1869 abolishes indefinite imprisonment for civil debt in England and Wales with effect from 1870.United Kingdomsource
  • September 15 – Brooklyn Fire Department organized as a professional brigade.United Statessource
  • October 9 – Ōmura Masujirō and several associates are attacked at an inn in Kyoto. Wounded in several places, he barely escaped with his life by hiding in a bath full of dirty water. The wound on his leg would not heal Ōmura died of his wounds on December 7.Japansource
  • December 7 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.source
  • December 7 – Outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.United Statessource
  • Arabella Mansfield became the first woman in the United States awarded a license to practice law, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa.source
  • Capital punishment in Iceland: The death penalty was abolished for minor offences.Icelandsource
  • The Royal Ulster Yacht Club of Bangor, County Down, receives its royal warrant.Irelandsource
  • New Zealand Derby winner: ManukaNew Zealandsource
  • David Watkin Jones (Dafydd Morgannwg) – Yr Ysgol FarddolWalessource

Disasters & Accidents

  • 19 May – Two days after John Young, the English manager of the Leeswood Green colliery, announces a pay cut, he is attacked by some of his workers.Walessource
  • 2 June – seven men are tried at Mold for attacking a colliery manager following a pay cut. A riot breaks out as those convicted are being transported to the railway station; soldiers fire on the crowd, killing four people.United Kingdomsource
  • 10 June – an underground explosion at Ferndale Colliery in the Rhondda kills 53.United Kingdomsource
  • July 10 – Gävle, Sweden, is destroyed in a city fire; 8,000 people become homeless.source
  • 10 July – Gävle is largely destroyed in a fire; 80% of its 10,000 residents are left homeless.Swedensource
  • September 12–13 – P&O's SS Carnatic runs aground and sinks in the Red Sea; 31 drown.source

Climate & Environment

  • 5 June: 1869 Christchurch earthquakeNew Zealandsource
  • 24 June – Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869 passed, preventing killing of designated species during the breeding season, the first act to offer any protection to wild birds in the UK.United Kingdomsource
  • John Owen of Tyn-llwyn is evicted from his farm for voting Tory.Walessource

Culture & Society

  • January 5 – Scotland's second oldest professional football team, Kilmarnock F.C., is founded.source
  • January 11 – Marriage of Emperor Meiji to Ichijo Haruko, thenceforth the Empress Shōken.Japansource
  • January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.source
  • February 20 – Ranavalona II, the Merina Queen of Madagascar, is baptized.source
  • February 25 – The Iron and Steel Institute is formed in London.source
  • 5 March – The New South Wales government declares that Saint Patrick's Day, St. Andrew's Day and St George's Day are no longer public holidays.Australiasource
  • April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York.source
  • May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.source
  • May 15 – Women's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.source
  • May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.source
  • June 1 – The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional team.source
  • June 2 – Sherwood College is founded in Nainital, India.source
  • June 30–July 2 – The first Estonian Song Festival takes place in Tartu.source
  • August 27 – The University of Oxford wins the first international boat race held on the River Thames, against Harvard University.source
  • September 5 – The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (southern Germany).source
  • 5 September – The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria.Germanysource
  • September 11 – Work on the Wallace Monument is completed in Stirling, Scotland.source
  • October 16 – England's first residential university-level women's college, the College for Women (predecessor of Girton College, Cambridge), is founded at Hitchin, by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon.source
  • November 3 – Hamilton Tigers Canadian football team is foundedCanadasource
  • November 4 – The first issue of the scientific journal Nature is published in London, edited by Norman Lockyer.source
  • November 6 – The first game of American football between two American colleges is played. Rutgers University defeats Princeton University 6–4, in a forerunner to American football and College football.source
  • November 6 – College of New Jersey (Princeton) defeat the Rutgers Queensmen (Rutgers) 6 to 4 in New Brunswick, N.J. in what is widely considered the first ever American football game with Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, becoming known as "The Birthplace of College Football"United Statessource
  • December 10 – The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.source
  • December – Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace is published in complete book form, in Russia.source
  • St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago is founded, and construction on the school's main building began. It is one of only five buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The building was designed by the Canadian architect Toussaint Menard in the Second Empire architecture style.source
  • The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts is founded in Great Britain.source
  • New Zealand's first university, the University of Otago, is founded.source
  • La Martinière Girls' School is founded in Lucknow.Indiasource
  • The True Whig Party is founded in Clay-Ashland.Liberiasource
  • The University of Otago is established, being New Zealand's first University.New Zealandsource

Births

Deaths

  • January 1 – James B. Longacre, fourth Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint (born 1794)source
  • 8 February – Karl Gildemeister, German architect (born 1820)Germanysource
  • February 15 – Ghalib, Indian poet (born 1797)source
  • March 8 – Hector Berlioz, French composer (born 1803)source
  • June 16 – Charles Sturt, Australian explorer (born 1795)source
  • June 20 – Hijikata Toshizō, Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi, and military leader (born 1835)Japansource
  • 14 July - Isidora Zegers (born 1803)Chilesource
  • July 22 – John A. Roebling, American bridge engineer (born 1806)source
  • August 21 – Casto Méndez Núñez, Spanish admiral (born 1824)source
  • August 31 – Irish scientist Mary Ward is killed by a steam car.source
  • September 12 – Peter Mark Roget, British lexicographer (born 1779)source
  • 30 September – Francisco Luís Gomes, physician, writer, historian, economist, political scientist and MP (born 1829)Portugalsource
  • October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 64, 14th President of the United States (born 1804)source
  • October 23 – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (born 1799)source
  • October 31 – Charles A. Wickliffe, American politician, 14th Governor of Kentucky (born 1788)source
  • November 10 – John E. Wool, general officer in the United States Army, who served during the War of 1812, Mexican–American War, and the American Civil War (born 1784)source
  • December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer, pianist (born 1829)source
  • December 24 – Edwin Stanton, American lawyer, judge and politician (born 1814)source