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The 1870s

1,879 sourced entries across 10 years, inside the 19th century. Each year below opens its own page; the lines under it are that year’s highest-ranked entries.

1870 CE192 entries

  • June 23 –The first message by electric telegraph using the Great Britain to India submarine cable is sent from London.
  • July 15 – Reconstruction: Georgia becomes the last former Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union, and the C.S.A. is dissolved.
  • September 20 – Capture of Rome; With Bersaglieri soldiers entering Rome at Porta Pia, the unification of Italy is completed, ending the last remnant of the Papal States and Papal temporal power.

1871 CE200 entries

  • June 10 – Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 U.S. Marines in a naval attack on the Han River forts in Korea.
  • October 24 – Chinese massacre of 1871: In Los Angeles' Chinatown, 19 Chinese immigrants are killed by a mob of 500 men.
  • December 10 – German chancellor Otto von Bismarck tries to ban Catholics from the political stage by introducing harsh laws concerning the separation of church and state.

1872 CE189 entries

  • February 17 – Filipino priests José Burgos, Mariano Gomez and Jacinto Zamora, collectively known as Gomburza, are executed in Bagumbayan Fields, Manila, Philippines by the authorities of New Spain, on charges of subversion arising from the 1872 Cavite mutiny.
  • May 22 – Reconstruction: President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Amnesty Act of 1872 into law restoring full civil rights to all but about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
  • 24 May – Convention with The Netherlands for building water defences on the Zwin signed in Bruges.

1873 CE190 entries

  • 16 September – German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity for Franco-Prussian War.
  • 16 September – German troops leave France upon completion of payment of indemnity for the Franco-Prussian War.
  • December – Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designs and patents a racquet sport, which he calls sphairistike (Greek σφάίρίστική, "skill at playing at ball"), soon known simply as Stické and an ancestor of lawn tennis, for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales.

1874 CE175 entries

  • January 20 – The Pangkor Treaty (also known as the Pangkor Engagement), by which the British extend their control over first the Sultanate of Perak, and later the other independent Malay States, is signed.
  • March 25 – The Republic of Ecuador is consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, carried out by President Gabriel García Moreno and supported, blessed and specified by Pope Pius IX.
  • November 2 – The first issue of Japanese-language newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is published in Tokyo, Japan.

1875 CE183 entries

  • July 11 – Tanaka Manufacturing, a telecommunications factory in Ginza, Tokyo, a predecessor of Toshiba, a Japanese electromechanics giant, is founded.
  • November 9 – American Indian Wars: In Washington, D.C., Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins issues a report stating that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States (the Battle of the Little Bighorn is fought in Montana the next year).
  • November 9 – Indian Wars: In Washington, D.C., Indian Inspector E. C. Watkins issues a report stating that hundreds of Sioux and Cheyenne associated with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States (the Battle of the Little Bighorn is fought in Montana the next year).

1876 CE204 entries

  • June 4 – The Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California via the First Transcontinental Railroad, 83 hours and 39 minutes after having left New York City.
  • November 25 – American Indian Wars: Dull Knife Fight – In retaliation for the dramatic American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops under General Ranald S. Mackenzie sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River (Montana). The soldiers destroy all of the villagers' winter food and clothing, and then slash their ponies' throats.
  • November 25 – Indian Wars: In retaliation for the dramatic American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops under General Ranald S. Mackenzie sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River. The soldiers destroy all of the villagers' winter food and clothing, and then slash their ponies' throats.

1877 CE166 entries

  • April 12 – The University of Tokyo is officially established in Japan.
  • April 24 – Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878): Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
  • 21 July – the Cabinet decides to declare war on Russia if it occupies Constantinople in the Russo-Turkish War.

1878 CE195 entries

  • January 5 – Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Shipka Pass IV – Russian and Bulgarian forces defeat the Ottoman Empire.
  • March 3 (February 19 O.S.) – Treaty of San Stefano signed between the Russian and Ottoman Empires following Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) provides for establishment of an autonomous Principality of Bulgaria (although not as large as originally envisaged). Russia however regards the treaty as a preliminary one only, refusing on March 25 a British proposal to lay it before a European congress, and matters are finally settled in July's Treaty of Berlin.
  • 7 August – the Christian Mission, co-founded by (the now) General William and Catherine Booth in London in 1865, has its name changed to The Salvation Army.

1879 CE185 entries

  • February 15 – Women's rights: President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • June 4 – Yasukuni Shrine is officially renamed from Tokyo Shokonsha Shrine in Japan.
  • September – Henry George self-publishes his major work Progress and Poverty.