date: October 11

text: October 11 – Morant Bay rebellion: Paul Bogle leads hundreds of black men and women in a march in Jamaica; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the British governor Edward John Eyre with 400 executed.


date: November 6

section: Conflict & Security

text: November 6 – American Civil War: The CSS Shenandoah, last remnant of the Confederate States of America and its military, surrenders in Liverpool after fleeing westward from the Pacific.

source_section: Events › November


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Captain Henry Wirz, Confederate superintendent of Andersonville Prison (Camp Sumter) is hanged, becoming the second of two combatants, and only serving regular soldier, to be executed for war crimes committed during the American Civil War.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – Chincha Islands War: Action of 17 November 1865 – A Spanish gunboat is captured by the Chilean tugboat Independencia off Tomé, in the Bay of Concepción, Chile.


date: November 26

text: November 26 – Chincha Islands War: Battle of Papudo – The Spanish ship Covadonga is captured by the Chileans and the Peruvians, north of Valparaíso, Chile.


date: May 17

section: Exploration & Expansion

text: May 17 – French missionary Father Armand David first observes Père David's deer in Peking, China.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 28

text: May 28 – The Mimosa sets sail with emigrants from Wales for Patagonia.


date: June 25

text: June 25 – James Hudson Taylor founds the China Inland Mission at Brighton, England.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 14

text: July 14 – First ascent of the Matterhorn: The summit of the Matterhorn in the Alps is reached for the first time, by a party of 7 led by the Englishman Edward Whymper; 4 die in a fall during the descent.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Welsh settlers arrive in Argentina at Chubut Valley.


date: July 2

section: Religion & Belief

text: July 2 – The Christian Mission, later renamed The Salvation Army, is founded in Whitechapel, London, by William and Catherine Booth.


date: January 4

section: Economy & Finance

text: January 4 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City.

source_section: Events › January


date: May 12

text: May 12 – Electric equipment and mobile brand Nokia founded in Tampere, Finland.


text: The National Temperance Society and Publishing House is founded by James Black in the U.S.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: February 21

section: Technology & Infrastructure

text: February 21 – John Deere receives a United States patent for ploughs.

source_section: Events › February


date: March

text: March – Hamm's Brewery opens in St. Paul, Minnesota.

source_section: Events › March


date: April 6

text: April 6 – German chemicals producer Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik (BASF) is founded in Mannheim.

source_section: Events › April


date: April 21

text: April 21 – German chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim, to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.


text: May 17 – The International Telegraph Union is founded.


date: July 5

text: July 5 – The first speed limit is introduced in Britain: 2 mi/h km/h in town and 4 mi/h km/h in the country.


text: July 5 – The U.S. Secret Service is founded.


date: July 23

text: July 23 – The departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.


date: July 31

text: July 31 – The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.


date: February 8

section: Science & Discovery

text: February 8 & March 8 – Gregor Mendel reads his paper on Experiments on Plant Hybridization at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia, subsequently taken to be the origin of the theory of Mendelian inheritance.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Jumbo, a young male African elephant, arrives at London Zoo and becomes a popular attraction.


date: June

text: June–August – English polymath Francis Galton first describes eugenics.


date: April 26

section: Crime & Justice

text: April 26 – Union cavalry corner John Wilkes Booth in a Virginia barn, and cavalryman Boston Corbett fatally shoots the assassin.


date: May

text: In North Bend, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati), the first train robbery in the country takes place.


date: July 21

text: July 21 – Wild Bill Hickok – Davis Tutt shootout: In the market square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok shoots "Little Dave" Davis Tutt dead over a poker debt, in what is regarded as the first true western fast draw showdown.


date: September 26

text: September 26 – Champ Ferguson becomes the first person (and one of only two) to be convicted of war crimes for actions taken during the American Civil War, found guilty by a U.S. Army tribunal on 23 charges, arising from the murder of 53 people. He is hanged on October 20, two days after the conviction of Henry Wirz for war crimes.

source_section: Events › September


date: December 24

text: December 24 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form the Ku Klux Klan in the American South, to resist Reconstruction and intimidate carpetbaggers and scalawags, as well as to repress the freedpeople.

source_section: Events › December


date: February

section: Disasters & Accidents

text: February – American Civil War: Columbia, South Carolina burns, as Confederate forces flee from advancing Union forces.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – The steamboat Sultana, carrying 2,300 passengers, explodes and sinks in the Mississippi River, killing 1,800, mostly Union survivors of the Andersonville Prison.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – The steamer Brother Jonathan sinks off the California coast, killing 225 passengers and crew.


date: August 25

text: August 25 – The Shergotty meteorite Mars meteorite falls in Sherghati, Gaya, Bihar in India.

source_section: Events › August


date: October 26

text: October 26 – The paddlewheel steamer sinks off the Georgia coast, with a cargo of $400,000 in coins.

source_section: Events › October


text: A forest fire near Silverton, Oregon, destroys about one million acres (4,000 km 2 ) of timber.


date: March 25

section: Climate & Environment

text: March 25 – The Claywater Meteorite explodes just before reaching ground level in Vernon County, Wisconsin; fragments having a combined mass of 1.5 kg lb are recovered.


date: March 4

section: Culture & Society

text: March 4 – Washington College and Jefferson College are merged to form Washington & Jefferson College in the United States.


text: April 27 – Governor of New York Reuben Fenton signs a bill formally creating Cornell University.


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Grand Review of the Armies: Union Army troops parade down Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.) to celebrate the end of the American Civil War.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde debuts at the Munich Court Theatre.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Lewis Carroll publishes his children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in England (first trade editions in December).


date: July 27

text: July 27 – Businessman Asa Packer establishes Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – Union Business College (now Peirce College) is founded in Philadelphia.


date: December 21

text: December 21 – The Kappa Alpha Order is founded at Washington College, Lexington, Virginia.


text: Nottingham Forest Football Club, an association football based in West Bridgford, Nottingham, England, is founded.


date: January 28

section: Births

text: January 28 – Lala Lajpat Rai ("The Lion of Punjab"), a leader of the Indian independence movement (d. 1928)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Henri Desgrange, French cycling enthusiast, founder of the Tour de France (d. 1940)


date: April 1

text: April 1 – Richard Adolf Zsigmondy, Austrian-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1929)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: April 9

text: April 9 – Charles Proteus Steinmetz, German-American engineer, electrician (d. 1923)


date: April

text: April – Richard Rushall, British sea captain and businessman (d. 1953)


date: May 25

text: May 25 – Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)

source_section: Births › May–June


text: May 25 – John Mott, American YMCA leader, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1955)


date: June 13

text: June 13 – W. B. Yeats, Irish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1939)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Alfred Hugenberg, German businessman, politician (d. 1951)


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe, Irish-born British publisher; founder of the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror (d.1922)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: July 23

text: July 23 – Edward Terry Sanford, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1930)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Philipp Scheidemann, 11th Chancellor of Germany (d. 1939)


date: September 13

text: September 13 – William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, British field marshal (d. 1951)

source_section: Births › September–October


date: December 30

text: December 30 – Rudyard Kipling, Indian-born English writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)

source_section: Births › November–December


date: January 19

section: Deaths

text: January 19 – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, French philosopher, anarchist (b. 1809)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: February 6

text: February 6 – Isabella Beeton, British cook, household management expert (b. 1836)


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Anna Pavlovna of Russia, queen consort of the Netherlands (b. 1795)


date: April 2

text: April 2 – A. P. Hill, American Confederate general (b. 1825)


date: April 28

text: April 28 – Sir Samuel Cunard, Canadian businessman, founder of the Cunard Line (b. 1787)


date: May 10

text: May 10 – William Armstrong, American lawyer, civil servant, politician, and businessperson (b. 1782)


date: August 13

text: August 13 – Ignaz Semmelweis, Hungarian physician (b. 1818)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: September 2

text: September 2 – William Rowan Hamilton, Irish mathematician (b. 1805)


date: September 25

text: September 25 – Andrés de Santa Cruz, Peruvian military officer, seventh President of Peru and President of Bolivia (b. 1792)


date: October 16

text: October 16 – Andrés Bello, Venezuelan poet, lawmaker, teacher, philosopher and sociologist (b. 1781)


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1784)


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Paul Bogle, Jamaican activist, Baptist deacon and leader of the Morant Bay rebellion. (executed) (b. 1820)


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Henry Wirz, Swiss-born American Confederate military officer, prisoner-of-war camp commander (executed) (b. 1823)


date: November 12

text: November 12 – Elizabeth Gaskell, British novelist, biographer (b. 1810)


date: March 13

section: Geopolitics & Diplomacy

text: March 13 – The United States Congress overwhelmingly passes the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the first federal legislation to protect the rights of African-Americans; U.S. President Andrew Johnson vetoes the bill on March 27, and Congress overrides the veto on April 9.


date: April 8

text: April 8 – The kingdoms of Italy and Prussia form an alliance against the Austrian Empire.


date: May 16

text: May 16 – The United States Congress approves the minting of a nickel 5-cent coin (nickel), eliminating its predecessor, the half dime.

source_section: Events › May


date: June 8

text: June 8 – The Parliament of Canada meets for the first time in Ottawa.

source_section: Events › June


date: June 22

text: June 22 – In Sweden, the Riksdag of the Estates votes to replace itself by an elected two-chamber Riksdag.


date: July 10

text: July 10 – Reconstruction Treaty with Choctaw & Chickasaw, completing the abolition of slavery in the United States; see also Choctaw freedmen.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 13

text: July 13 (July 1 Old Style) – The first Constitution of Romania is issued.


date: July 24

text: July 24 – Reconstruction: Tennessee becomes the first U.S. state to be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – The United States Congress passes legislation authorizing the four-star rank of General of the Army (later reestablished as a five-star rank); Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant becomes the first to have this rank.


date: August 23

text: August 23 – The Treaty of Prague formally ends the Austro-Prussian War. The German Federation is abolished (with the Duchy of Limburg and Luxemburg controlled by the Netherlands), the Habsburgs vow not to interfere in any reorganisation of Germany under Prussian leadership and cede Veneto.


date: September 20

text: September 20 – The Kingdom of Prussia formally annexes the Kingdom of Hanover and King George V of Hanover goes into exile.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – The Treaty of Vienna ends the war between Austria and Italy; it formalizes the annexation of Venetia by Italy.


date: October 22

text: October 22 – The office of State President of the South African Republic is created by constitutional amendment approved at a session of the Volksraad.


date: January 6

text: January 6 – Ottoman troops clash with supporters of Maronite leader Youssef Bey Karam, at St. Doumit in Lebanon; the Ottomans are defeated.

source_section: Events › January


date: February 7

text: February 7 – Battle of Abtao: A Spanish naval squadron fights a combined Peruvian-Chilean fleet, at the island of Abtao, in the Chiloé Archipelago of southern Chile.

source_section: Events › February


date: April 4

text: April 4 – Alexander II of Russia narrowly escapes an assassination attempt in the city of St Petersburg.

source_section: Events › April


date: May 1

text: May 1–3 – The Memphis massacre: a rebellion with a series of violent racial events.


date: May 2

text: May 2 – Battle of Callao: Peruvian defenders fight the Spanish fleet.


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Student Ferdinand Cohen-Blind makes a failed attempt to assassinate Otto von Bismarck in Unter den Linden in Berlin.


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Battle of Tuyutí: 32,000 soldiers of the Triple Alliance defeat 24,000 Paraguayan soldiers few miles north of the Paraná, Argentina, in the Paraguayan War, with 16,000 casualties.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Fenian forces skirmish with Canadian militia at the battles of Ridgeway and Fort Erie.


date: June 14

text: June 14 – The Austro-Prussian War ("Seven Weeks War") begins when the Austrians and most of the medium-size German states declare war on Prussia.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – The Kingdom of Italy declares war on Austria.


date: June 27

text: June 27–29 – Battle of Langensalza: The Prussians defeat the Hanoverian army.


date: July 3

text: July 3 – Battle of Königgrätz: the Prussian army under King Wilhelm and Helmuth von Moltke defeats the Austrian army of Ludwig von Benedek, leading to a decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – Austro-Prussian War: Naval Battle of Lissa – The Austrian fleet under Wilhelm von Tegetthoff defeats the Italian fleet of Carlo di Persano.


date: July 22

text: July 22 – Austro-Prussian War: Battle of Blumenau – Austrians defend Bratislava against the Prussian army, concluding the fighting in the war.


date: September 22

text: September 22 – Paraguay successfully defends Curupayty against the Triple Alliance in the Paraguayan War, killing more than 5,000 while sustaining just about 50 casualties.

source_section: Events › September


text: Federalist revolts occur in Argentina.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: February 26

text: February 26 – The Calaveras Skull is discovered in California. Purported to be evidence of humans in North America during the Pliocene epoch, it turns out to be a hoax.


date: October 14

text: October 14 – French troops under the command of Rear Admiral Pierre-Gustave Roze land at Ganghwa Island, Korea, as part of a punitive expedition against that kingdom for the execution of French Jesuit priests. It is the first military contact between Korea and a Western force.

source_section: Events › October


text: Erasmus Jacobs discovers the 21.25 carat g Eureka Diamond near Hopetown on the banks of the Orange River in the Cape of Good Hope.


date: June 11

text: June 11 – The Agra High Court is established (later shifted to the Allahabad High Court).


date: May 10

text: May 10 – London bank Overend, Gurney and Company collapses, precipitating Panic of 1866.


text: Magirus, as predecessor of a major worldwide commercial vehicles manufacturing brand, Iveco, is founded in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.


text: Foundation of the predecessors of Nestlé S.A., the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – The successfully completes laying the transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island, Ireland, and Heart's Content, Newfoundland, permanently restoring a communications link.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The Ruse–Varna railway line (the first railway in Bulgaria) officially opens.

source_section: Events › November


text: The Minneapolis Milling Company, predecessor of General Mills, builds its own mills.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – A total lunar eclipse occurs.

source_section: Events › March


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Calculations indicate Pluto (not known at this time) reaches its only aphelion (furthest point from the Sun) between 1618 and August 2113.


text: Marcus Jastrow arrives in the United States to become rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.


text: Alfred Nobel invents dynamite in Germany.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – The first daylight bank robbery in United States history during peacetime takes place in Liberty, Missouri. This is considered to be the first robbery committed by Jesse James and his gang, although James's role is disputed.


date: January 12

text: January 12 – British auxiliary steamer sinks in a storm in the Bay of Biscay, on passage from the Thames to Australia, with the loss of 244 people, and only 19 survivors.


date: December 12

text: December 12– Oaks explosion: The worst mining disaster in England kills 383 miners and rescuers.

source_section: Events › December


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Volcanic eruption in the Santorini caldera begins.


text: The Famine of 1866–68 begins in Finland.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The last issue of the abolitionist magazine The Liberator is published.


text: January 1 – Fisk University, a historically black university, is established in Nashville, Tennessee.


text: January 12 – The Royal Aeronautical Society is formed as The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain in London, the world's oldest such society.


date: January 18

text: January 18 – Wesley College, Melbourne, is established.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is founded in New York City by Henry Bergh.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – First production of the comic opera Cox and Box by F. C. Burnand and Arthur Sullivan at Moray Lodge, Kensington


date: May 30

text: May 30 – Bedrich Smetana's comic opera The Bartered Bride premiered in Prague.


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Princess Helena, third daughter of Queen Victoria, marries Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – The Metric Act of 1866 becomes law and legalizes the standardization of weights and measures in the United States.


date: September

text: September – The Great Tea Race of 1866 ends in London, narrowly won by the clipper ship Taeping.


date: December 18

text: December 18 – The College of Wooster is founded in Ohio.


text: The recommendations of the state Girls' School Committee of 1866 result in a series of progressive reforms in women's rights in Sweden.


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Horatio Dresser, American New Thought religious leader and writer (d. 1954)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: January 29

text: January 29 – Romain Rolland, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1944)


date: February 9

text: February 9 – George Ade, American writer, newspaper columnist and playwright (d. 1944)


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Wakatsuki Reijirō, 25th and 28th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1949)


date: April 3

text: April 3 – J. B. M. Hertzog, Boer General and 3rd Prime Minister of South Africa (d. 1942)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Charles F. Haanel, American New Thought author and businessman (d. 1949)


date: June 26

text: June 26 – George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, English financier of Egyptian excavations (d. 1923)


text: July 28 – Beatrix Potter, English children's author (Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck) (d. 1943)

source_section: Births › July–September


date: August 14

text: August 14 – Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Russian novelist, poet and religious thinker (d. 1941)


date: September 21

text: September 21 – Charles Nicolle, French bacteriologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1936)


text: September 21 – H. G. Wells, English writer (d. 1946)


date: September 25

text: September 25 – Thomas Hunt Morgan, American geneticist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1945)


date: December 11

text: December 11 – Ada Baker, Australian soprano, singing teacher and vaudeville star (d. 1949)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: December 16

text: December 16 (December 4 O.S.) – Wassily Kandinsky, Russian-born painter (d. 1944)


date: January

text: January (date unknown) – Thomas Baldwin Marsh, American religious leader (b. 1799)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Alexander Campbell, Irish/U.S. founder of the Disciples of Christ (b. 1788)


date: March 6

text: March 6 – William Whewell, English scientist, philosopher and historian of science (b. 1794)


date: March 9

text: March 9 – Jakob Joseph Matthys, Swiss Catholic priest (b. 1802)


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, Queen of France (b. 1782)


date: April 1

text: April 1 – Elizabeth Jesser Reid, English social reformer, founder of Bedford College (b. 1789)


date: April 4

text: April 4 – William Dick, founder of Edinburgh Veterinary College (b. 1793)


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Johann Sedlatzek, German flautist (b. 1789)


date: April 12

text: April 12 – Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood, English Member of Parliament and developer (b. 1801)


date: June 7

text: June 7 – Chief Sealth, Native American for whom Seattle is named (b. c. 1786)


date: June 17

text: June 17 – Lewis Cass, American military officer, politician, and statesman (b. 1782)


date: August 1

text: August 1 – John Ross, long-serving principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, of natural causes, in Washington D. C. (born 1790 in Cherokee Nation East).

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Per Gustaf Svinhufvud af Qvalstad, treasurer of Tavastia province, manor host, and paternal grandfather of President of Finland P. E. Svinhufvud (b. 1804)


date: October 18

text: October 18 – Manuel Bulnes, Chilean general and politician, President of Chile (b. 1799)


date: January 8

text: January 8 – African-American men are granted the right to vote in the District of Columbia.


date: January 11

text: January 11 – Benito Juárez becomes Mexican president again.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – The United States Congress forbids taxpayer funding of diplomatic envoys to the Holy See (Vatican), begun in 1848, and breaks off relations. Funding resumes, along with relations, in 1984.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state.


date: March 29

text: March 29 – The British North America Act receives royal assent, forming the Dominion of Canada, in an event known as the Confederation. This unites the Province of Canada (Quebec and Ontario), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia on July 1. Ottawa will become the capital.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Alaska Purchase: Alaska is purchased for US$7.2 million from Alexander II of Russia, about 2 cents/acre ($4.19/km 2 ), by United States Secretary of State William H. Seward. Newspapers call this Seward's Folly.


text: April 1 – The Strait Settlement of Singapore, formerly ruled from Calcutta, becomes a Crown colony, under the jurisdiction of the Colonial Office in London.


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Treaty of London: The great powers of Europe reaffirm the neutrality of Luxembourg, ending the Luxembourg Crisis. The Duchy of Limburg is formally re-incorporated into the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Robert William Keate becomes Lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Natal.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – The Austro-Hungarian Compromise (called Ausgleich in German or kiegyezés in Hungarian (The Compromise)) is born through Act 12, which establishes the Austro-Hungarian Empire; on June 8 Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria is crowned King of Hungary.


text: May 29 – Canadian Confederation: Queen Victoria signs the British North America Act, creating the Dominion of Canada, effective July 1.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Canadian Confederation: The British North America Act of 29 March comes into force, creating the Dominion of Canada, the first independent dominion in the British Empire.

source_section: Events › July


text: July 1 – The Constitution of the North German Confederation comes into effect, creating a confederation of states, under the leadership of Prussia and Otto von Bismarck.


date: July 15

text: July 15 – France declares Cambodia's independence from Siam; Cambodia becomes a protectorate of France and Britain.


date: August 7

text: August 7–September 20 – The first Canadian election sees John A. Macdonald's Conservatives elected to government and Macdonald becomes the Dominion's first prime minister.

source_section: Events › August


date: August 15

text: August 15 – Benjamin Disraeli's Second Reform Act enfranchises many men in cities for the first time, and adds 938,000 to an electorate of 1,057,000 in England and Wales.


text: September 30 – The United States takes control of Midway Island.


text: October 18 – Alaska is transferred from Russia to the United States, becoming the Department of Alaska.


date: October 21

text: October 21 – 'Manifest destiny': Medicine Lodge Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders, requiring Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma.


text: The three western provinces of Lower Cochinchina (Vĩnh Long, An Giang, and Hà Tiên) are annexed into the colony of French Cochinchina.


text: The modern rose is born, with the introduction of Rosa 'La France' by Jean-Baptiste André Guillot.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Maronite nationalist leader Youssef Bey Karam leaves Lebanon aboard a French ship for Algeria.

source_section: Events › January


date: February 19

text: February 19 – Battle of Inlon River: The Qing dynasty defeats the Nien rebels in Hubei, China.

source_section: Events › February


date: March 5

text: March 5 – The Fenian Rising breaks out in Ireland.


date: June 19

text: June 19 – A firing squad executes Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico and two of his lieutenants.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 18

text: July 18 – The Battle of Fandane-Thiouthioune: The Serer people defeat the Muslim Marabouts of Senegambia.


date: November 9

text: November 9 – The last shōgun of Japan, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, tenders his resignation to Emperor Meiji.


date: December 13

text: December 13 – The Clerkenwell explosion, the most infamous action carried out by the Fenians in Britain in the 19th century.


date: April 1

text: April 1–November 3 – Exposition Universelle, an international exhibition in Paris. Among the visitors is Abdülaziz, making the first visit of a Sultan of the Ottoman Empire to Western Europe.

source_section: Events › April


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Beginning of British expedition to Abyssinia.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Italian unification: Giuseppe Garibaldi's troops march into the Papal States.

source_section: Events › October


date: March 23

text: March 23 – William III of the Netherlands accepts an offer of 5,000,000 guilders from Napoleon III for the sale of Luxembourg, leading to the Luxembourg Crisis.


text: Margarine Unie, at the time named Antoon Jurgens United, a predecessor of the Unilever, worldwide toiletries, beauty care and beverage brand, is founded in Netherlands.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


text: Delhaize, as predecessor for Ahold Delhaize, a major retail group in Europe, is founded in Belgium.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – The Covington–Cincinnati Suspension Bridge opens between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, in the United States, becoming the longest single-span bridge in the world. It is renamed after its designer, John A. Roebling, in 1983.


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in the United Kingdom.


date: June 15

text: June 15 – The Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode gold mine is named in Montana.


text: Pierre Michaux invents the front wheel-driven velocipede, the first mass-produced bicycle.


text: 1867–1873 – Chinese, Scandinavian and Irish immigrants lay 30000 mi km of railroad tracks in the United States.

source_section: Events › Ongoing


text: At Fountain Point, Michigan, an artesian water spring, begins to gush continuously.


text: Clarke School for the Deaf in Western Massachusetts opens its doors for the first time, becoming the first school for the deaf in the United States to teach its children how to communicate using the oral method.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – The first recorded association football match in Argentina takes place in Buenos Aires.


text: South African diamond fields are discovered.


date: March 16

section: Health & Medicine

text: March 16 – An article by Joseph Lister outlining his use of antiseptic surgery is first published in The Lancet.

source_section: Events › March


date: July

text: July – The Reverend Thomas Baker, a Wesleyan Methodist missionary (born in Playden, East Sussex, England) is cooked and eaten by Navatusila tribespeople at Nabutautau, Fiji, together with eight of his local followers, the only missionary in that country to suffer cannibalism.


text: The Prohibition National Committee is formed in the United States.


text: Yellow fever kills 3,093 in New Orleans.


text: The board game Parcheesi is introduced in the United States.


date: November 23

text: November 23 – The three 'Manchester Martyrs' are hanged in England for the murder of a policeman whilst attempting to rescue two Irish Republican Brotherhood members from imprisonment on 18 September.

source_section: Events › November


date: January 15

text: January 15 – Regent's Park skating disaster in London: 40 people die when ice on a lake breaks.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – End of penal transportation from Britain as the last convict ship, the Hougoumont, departs from Portsmouth on an 89-day passage to Western Australia. 62 Fenians are among the transportees.


text: The Swedish famine of 1867–1869 begins.


text: Gorse is naturalised in New Zealand, where it soon becomes the worst invasive weed.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – The late Emperor Kōmei's 14-year-old son, Prince Mutsuhito, becomes Emperor Meiji of Japan in a brief ceremony in Kyoto, ending the Late Tokugawa shogunate.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – West Virginia University is established in Morgantown.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – The Covering of the Senne in Brussels begins.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Augusta Institute is founded in Augusta, Georgia, later known as Morehouse College.


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Johann Strauss II's waltz The Blue Danube (An der schönen blauen Donau) is first performed, at a concert of the Vienna Men's Choral Association. Later this year, Strauss will adapt it into its popular purely orchestral version for the Exposition Universelle in Paris.


date: February 22

text: February 22 – The Indiana Daily Student is established at Indiana University in Bloomington.


date: March

text: March – The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is established (opened one year later).


date: April 28

text: April 28 – I.C. Sorosis, the first women's fraternity (sorority) founded upon the men's fraternity model, with Pi Beta Phi as its motto, is founded at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. In 1888, the motto becomes the name of the organization.


date: May 1

text: May 1 – The first political May Day march takes place in Chicago.


date: May 11

text: May 11 – Cox and Box, by Francis Burnand and Arthur Sullivan, is first publicly performed, at the Adelphi Theatre, London.


date: July 9

text: July 9 – Queen's Park F.C., the oldest association football league team in Scotland, is founded.


date: July 17

text: July 17 – In Boston, Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine is established as the first dental school in the United States.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Emperor Meiji of Japan marries Empress Shōken (née Masako Ichijō). The Empress consort is thereafter known as Lady Haruko.

source_section: Events › September


date: September 4

text: September 4 – The Sheffield Wednesday F.C. is founded, at the Adelphi Hotel in Sheffield.


date: September 14

text: September 14 – The first volume of Das Kapital (later translated into English as Capital) is published by Karl Marx.


date: November 2

text: November 2 – The first issue of the women's fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar is published. It is issued weekly, but later monthly.


date: November 21

text: November 21 – American temperance crusader Carrie Nation marries Charles Gloyd.


date: December 2

text: December 2 – In a New York City theater, English author Charles Dickens gives his first public reading in the United States.

source_section: Events › December


text: The Wasps Rugby Football Club is formed in Middlesex, England.


date: February 8

text: February 8 – William Michael Crose, United States Navy Commander and the seventh Naval Governor of American Samoa (d. 1929)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., American theatrical producer (d. 1932)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: April 9

text: April 9 – Chris Watson, 3rd Prime Minister of Australia (d. 1941)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, co-inventor of the airplane with brother Orville (d. 1912)


date: April 23

text: April 23 – Johannes Fibiger, Danish scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1928)


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Władysław Reymont, Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1925)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: June 8

text: June 8 – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect (d. 1959)


date: June 28

text: June 28 – Luigi Pirandello, Italian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1936)


date: August 14

text: August 14 – John Galsworthy, English writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1933)

source_section: Births › July–August


date: September 29

text: September 29 – Walther Rathenau, German statesman, Weimar Republic foreign minister (d. 1922)

source_section: Births › September–October


date: October 2

text: October 2 – James Stevenson-Hamilton, 1st warden of South Africa's Kruger National Park (d. 1957)


date: October 25

text: October 25 – Hiranuma Kiichirō, 35th Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1952)


date: November 7

text: November 7 – Marie Curie, Polish-born scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and physics (d. 1934)

source_section: Births › November–December


date: November 9

text: November 9 – Shrimad Rajchandra, prominent Indian Jain philosopher, scholar, poet & spiritual mentor of Mahatma Gandhi (d. 1901)


date: January 14

text: January 14 – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, French painter (b. 1780)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: January 30

text: January 30 – Emperor Kōmei of Japan dies suddenly, age 36, leaving his son Mutsuhito to succeed him.

source_section: Events › January


date: April 18

text: April 18 – Robert Smirke, British architect (b. 1780)


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Benjamin Hall, 1st Baron Llanover, after whom Big Ben may be named (b. 1802)


date: June 19

text: June 19 – Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico (executed) (b. 1832)


date: July 1

text: July 1 – Thomas Francis Meagher, American Civil War general (b. 1823)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: July 31

text: July 31 – Catharine Maria Sedgwick, American "domestic fiction" novelist (b. 1789)


date: August 21

text: August 21 – Juan Álvarez, interim president of Mexico in 1855 (b. 1790)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Charles Baudelaire, French writer (b. 1821)


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Gunatitanand Swami, Indian paramahamsa of the Hindu Swaminarayan Sampraday sect (b. 1785)


text: October 25 – Abuna Salama III, metropolitan of the Ethiopian Church


date: November 19

text: November 19 – Ren Zhu, Chinese leader of the Nian Rebellion, killed in battle (b. 1830?)


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Sakamoto Ryōma, Japanese samurai, politician and businessman (b. 1836)


date: December 18

text: December 18 – Angola Horror (Buffalo, New York-area train wreck): The fiery death of 49 people leads John D. Rockefeller to develop and sell his Mineral Seal 300 F Fire-Tested Burning Oil, and George Westinghouse to invent the railway air brake, which is mandated in the United States in 1893.


date: January 7

text: January 7 – The Arkansas constitutional convention meets in Little Rock.


date: February 13

text: February 13 – The British War Office sanctions the formation of what becomes the Army Post Office Corps.

source_section: Events › February


date: February 24

text: February 24 – Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: Three days after his action to dismiss United States Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the United States House of Representatives votes 126–47 in favor of a resolution to impeach Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, the first of three Presidents to be impeached by the full House. Johnson is later acquitted by the United States Senate.


date: February

text: Foreign ministers meeting in Hyōgo are persuaded to recognise the restored Emperor Meiji of Japan, with promises that harbours will be open in accordance with international treaties.


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Basutoland is proclaimed a British Protectorate, becoming independent in 1966 as Lesotho.


date: April 7

text: April 7 – The Charter Oath, drawn up by his councilors, is promulgated at the enthronement of the Emperor Meiji of Japan, promising deliberative assemblies and an end to feudalism.

source_section: Events › April


date: April 29

text: April 29 – General William Tecumseh Sherman brokers the Treaty of Fort Laramie, between the federal government of the United States and the Plains Indians.


date: May 29

text: May 29 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the Capital Punishment Amendment Act, thus ending public hanging.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 31

text: May 31 – Thomas Spence declares himself president of the Republic of Manitobah in Canada; he soon alienates the locals.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – The Treaty of Bosque Redondo is signed, allowing the Navajo to return to their lands in Arizona and New Mexico.

source_section: Events › June


date: July 9

text: July 9 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.

source_section: Events › July


date: July 18

text: July 18 – The Navajo people begin their long march home.


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Wyoming becomes a United States territory.


date: July 27

text: July 27 – The United States Expatriation Act ("An Act concerning the Rights of American Citizens in foreign States") is adopted.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted, including the Citizenship Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, legally, if not actually, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and equal protection, and all persons in the United States due process of law.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Grito de Lares: Rebels (some 400–600 led by Ramón Emeterio Betances) in the town of Lares declare Puerto Rico independent; the local militia easily defeats them a week later.


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Croatian–Hungarian Settlement (, , ) is concluded, governing Croatia's political status in the Hungarian-ruled part of Austria-Hungary until 1918.


date: September

text: September – Glorious Revolution: Queen Isabella II of Spain is effectively deposed and sent into exile; she formally abdicates on June 25, 1870.


date: October 1

text: October 1 – Chulalongkorn starts to rule in Siam.

source_section: Events › October


date: October 20

text: October 20 – Pedro Figueredo creates the Cuban national anthem, El Himno de Bayamo.


date: November 3

text: November 3 – 1868 United States presidential election: Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeats Democrat Horatio Seymour.

source_section: Events › November


text: Brisbane Grammar School is founded, providing the opportunity for secondary education for the first time in the colony of Brisbane in Australia.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: January 3

text: January 3 – The 15-year-old Mutsuhito, Emperor Meiji of Japan, declares the Meiji Restoration, his own restoration to full power, under the influence of supporters from the Chōshū and Satsuma Domains, and against the supporters of the Tokugawa shogunate, triggering the Boshin War.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Paraguayan War: Brazilian Army commander Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, enters Asunción, Paraguay's capital. Some days later he declares the war is over. Nevertheless, Francisco Solano López, Paraguay's president, prepares guerrillas to fight in the countryside.


date: January 10

text: January 10 – Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares the emperor's declaration "illegal", and prepares to attack Kyoto.


date: January 27

text: January 27–31 – Battle of Toba–Fushimi: forces of the Tokugawa shogunate and the allied pro-Imperial forces of the Chōshū, Satsuma and Tosa Domains clash near Fushimi, Kyoto, ending in a decisive victory for the Imperial forces (although in the January 28 naval Battle of Awa, the Shogunate is victorious against Satsuma).


date: February 19

text: February 19 – In the Passage of Humaitá, a Brazilian naval force succeeds in dashing past a Paraguayan fortress on the River Paraguay, considered by some the turning point in the Paraguayan War.


date: February

text: The Flying Foam massacre, a massacre of Indigenous Australians around Flying Foam Passage in Western Australia by white colonial settlers begins and lasts until May.


date: April 9

text: April 9–13 – Battle of Magdala: A British-Indian task force under Robert Napier inflicts 700 deaths and a crushing defeat on the army of Emperor Tewodros II; the British and Indians suffer 30 wounded, two of whom subsequently die. Tewodros commits suicide and Magdala is captured, ending the British Expedition to Abyssinia.


text: April 9 – Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia massacres at least 197 of his own people at Magdala. These are prisoners incarcerated, for the most part, for very trivial offenses, and are killed for requesting bread and water.


date: April 11

text: April 11–July – Fall of Edo: The Japanese city surrenders to Emperor Meiji. Shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu submits to the Emperor.


date: May 10

text: May 10–14 – Boshin War – Battle of Utsunomiya Castle, Japan: Forces of the Emperor Meiji resist the retreating troops of the Tokugawa shogunate.


date: May 30

text: May 30 – Memorial Day is observed in the United States for the first time (it was proclaimed on May 5 by General John A. Logan).


date: June 10

text: June 10 – Mihailo Obrenović, Prince of Serbia, is assassinated in Košutnjak, Belgrade.


date: June

text: June – Tītokowaru's War breaks out in the South Taranaki District of New Zealand's North Island between the Ngāti Ruanui Māori tribe and the New Zealand Government.


date: July 4

text: July 4 – Battle of Ueno: Imperial Japanese troops defeat the Shōgitai (elite forces remaining loyal to the shōgun).


date: July 25

text: July 25 – Paraguayan War: The Allies, in an amphibious operation, capture the fortress of Humaitá.


date: August 22

text: August 22 – The Yangzhou riot in China targets a station of the China Inland Mission, and nearly leads to war between Britain and China.

source_section: Events › August


date: September 3

text: September 3 – Emperor Meiji of Japan announces that the name of the city of Edo is to be changed to Tokyo.

source_section: Events › September


date: September 7

text: September 7 – Tītokowaru's War: Māori leader Tītokowaru defeats a New Zealand military force at Te Ngutu o Te Manu, North Island.


date: September 28

text: September 28 – The Opelousas massacre, one of the bloodiest massacres of the Reconstruction era in the United States.


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Carlos Manuel de Céspedes declares a revolt against Spanish rule in Cuba, in an event known as El Grito de Yara or the Ten Years' War, initiating a war that lasts ten years (Cuba ultimately loses the war at a cost of 400,000 lives and widespread destruction).


date: October 23

text: October 23 – The current Japanese era name is changed to the Meiji period. The Edo period ends.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The Battle of Moturoa, New Zealand, ends in a British defeat, due to an underestimate of Tītokowaru and his fortifications. There are heavy casualties for the colonial army and light casualties for the Māori defenders.


date: November 27

text: November 27 – American Indian Wars – Battle of Washita River: In the early morning, United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an attack on a band of Cheyenne living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle, killing 103 Cheyenne.


date: December 6

text: December 6 – Paraguayan War – Battle of Ytororó or Itororó: Field-Marshal Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, leads 13,000 Brazilian troops against a Paraguayan fortified position of 5,000 troops.

source_section: Events › December


date: January 2

text: January 2 – British Expedition to Abyssinia: Robert Napier leads an expedition to free captive British officials and missionaries.


date: January 9

text: January 9 – Penal transportation from Britain to Australia ends, with arrival of the convict ship Hougoumont in Western Australia, after an 89-day voyage from England. There are 62 Fenians among the transportees.


date: March

text: French geologist Louis Lartet discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnon, the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens), at Abri de Crô-Magnon, a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France.

source_section: Events › March


text: Scottish merchant Thomas Blake Glover develops Japan's first coal mine on Hashima Island.


date: July 5

text: July 5 – Preacher William Booth establishes the Christian Mission, predecessor of The Salvation Army, in the East End of London.


date: October 25

text: October 25 – The Uspenski Cathedral, designed by Aleksey Gornostayev, is inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland.


text: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson is established as the Apostolic Vicariate of Arizona in 1868, taking its territory from the former Diocese of Santa Fe. The Diocese of Tucson is canonically erected on May 8, 1897.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is formed, in New York City.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – The first Trades Union Congress is held in Manchester, England.


text: The Dortmunder Actien Brauerei is founded in Germany.


text: Tata Group is founded by Jamsetji Tata as a trading company in India.


date: March 27

text: March 27 – The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.


date: May 31

text: May 31 – The first popular bicycle race is held at Parc de Saint-Cloud, Paris.


date: June 20

text: June 20 – Fort Fred Steele is established to protect what is at this time the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, near modern-day Sinclair, Wyoming.


date: July 1

text: July 1 – The cable-operated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in Manhattan becomes the first elevated railway in the United States.


date: October 28

text: October 28 – Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.


date: December 4

text: December 4 – Thomas Humber invented the safety bicycle.


date: December 9

text: December 9 – The world's first traffic signal lights are installed at the junction of Great George Street and Bridge Street in the London Borough of Westminster.


text: Herrenhäuser Brewery is established in Hanover, Germany.


text: Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.


date: August 18

text: August 18 – The element later named as helium is first detected in the spectrum of the Sun's chromosphere, by French astronomer Jules Janssen, during a total eclipse in Guntur, British India, but is assumed to be sodium.


date: October 20

text: October 20 – English astronomer Norman Lockyer observes and names the D 3 Fraunhofer line in the solar spectrum, and concludes that it is caused by a hitherto unidentified element, which he later names helium.


date: November 2

text: November 2 – Time zone: New Zealand officially adopts a standard time, to be observed nationally.


text: Thomas Henry Huxley discovers what he thinks is primordial matter and names it bathybius haeckelii (he admits his mistake in 1871).


date: October 6

text: October 6 – The City of New York grants Mount Sinai Hospital a 99-year lease for a property on Lexington Avenue and 66th Street, for the sum of $1.00.


text: The population of Japan reaches c. 30 million.


date: February 16

text: February 16 – In New York City, the Jolly Corks organization is renamed the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE).


date: March 12

text: March 12 – Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Edinburgh, is shot in the back in Sydney, Australia, at a fundraising event for the Sydney Sailors Home, by Irishman Henry James O'Farrell. The prince survives and quickly recovers; O'Farrell is executed on April 21, despite attempts by the prince to gain clemency for him.


date: May 16

text: May 16, May 26 – President Andrew Johnson is twice acquitted during his impeachment trial, by one vote in the United States Senate.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Fenian bomber Michael Barrett becomes the last person publicly hanged in the United Kingdom.


date: August 20

text: August 20 – Abergele rail disaster in Wales: An Irish Mail passenger train collides with 4 cargo trucks loaded with paraffin oil (more akin to modern kerosine); 33 are killed (the first major train disaster in Britain).


date: August 13

text: August 13 – The 8.5–9.0 Arica earthquake strikes southern Peru, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), causing 25,000+ deaths and a destructive basin-wide tsunami, that affects Hawaii and New Zealand.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – The first parade to have floats takes place at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.


date: March 23

text: March 23 – The University of California is founded in Oakland, California, when the Organic Act is signed into California law.


date: March

text: The first transnational women's organization, Association internationale des femmes, is founded.


date: April 1

text: April 1 – The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute is established in Hampton, Virginia.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – The University of the South holds its first convocation in Sewanee, Tennessee.


date: December 24

text: December 24 – The Greek Presidential Guard is established as the royal escort by King George I.


text: The Académie Julian, a major art school in Paris, France, that admits women, is established.


text: Maryland School for the Deaf is established.


date: January 31

text: January 31 – Theodore William Richards, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1928)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: February 4

text: February 4 – Constance Markievicz, née Gore-Booth, Irish politician (d. 1927)


text: February 16 – Edward S. Curtis, American photographer, ethnologist, and film director (d. 1952)


date: February 23

text: February 23 – W. E. B. Du Bois, African American civil rights leader (d. 1963)


date: March 22

text: March 22 – Robert Andrews Millikan, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)


date: May 21

text: May 21 – John L. Hines, American general, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army (d. 1968)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: June 5

text: June 5 – James Connolly, Irish-Scots socialist (d. 1916)


date: July 14

text: July 14 – Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy and administrator (d. 1926)

source_section: Births › July–September


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Florence Foster Jenkins, American socialite and amateur operatic soprano (d. 1944)


date: August 10

text: August 10 – Hugo Eckener, German dirigible engineer, Commander of Graf Zeppelin I (d. 1954)


date: October 4

text: October 4 – Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, President of Argentina (d. 1942)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Arnold Sommerfeld, German theoretical physicist (d. 1951)


date: December 9

text: December 9 – Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1934)


date: December 20

text: December 20 – Arturo Alessandri, Chilean statesman, 3-Time President of Chile (d. 1950)


date: February 8

text: February 8 – Lai Wenguang, Chinese leader of the Taiping Rebellion and Nien Rebellion (b. 1827)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: March 28

text: March 28 – James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, British military leader (b. 1797)


date: April 7

text: April 7 – Thomas D'Arcy McGee, Canadian father of confederation (assassinated) (b. 1825)


date: April 13

text: April 13 – Emperor Theodore or Tewodros II of Ethiopia by suicide (b. 1818)


date: April 21

text: April 21 – Henry O'Farrell, Irish-Australian criminal (executed) (b. 1833)


date: May 7

text: May 7 – Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1778)


date: May 11

text: May 11 – John Crawfurd, Scottish physician, colonial administrator, diplomat and author, last British Resident of Singapore (b. 1783)


date: May 23

text: May 23 – Kit Carson, American trapper, scout, and Indian agent (b. 1809)


date: June 1

text: June 1 – James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States (b. 1791)


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Sir John Lillie, British army officer, entrepreneur and inventor (b. 1790)


date: July 26

text: July 26 – Robert Rolfe, 1st Baron Cranworth, English Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1791)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Thaddeus Stevens, American politician (b. 1792)


date: October 17

text: October 17 – Laura Secord, Canadian patriot (b. 1775)


date: November 27

text: November 27 – Chief Black Kettle, Southern Cheyenne Peace Chief, Survivor of Sand Creek massacre (b. 1803)


date: January 27

text: 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_section: Events › January


date: March

text: 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.


date: April 17

text: April 17 – The State of Morelos is created in Mexico.

source_section: Events › April


date: May

text: May – In elections in France, the opposition, consisting of republicans, monarchists and liberals, polls almost 45% of the vote.

source_section: Events › May


date: August 9

text: August 9 – August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht found the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP).


date: November 13

text: November 13 – The Newfoundland Colony rejects confederation with Canada in election. The Anti-Confederates winning 21–9.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – Women's suffrage: The Wyoming territorial legislature gives women the right to vote, the first such law in the world.


text: The capital of the Isle of Man moves from Castletown to Douglas.


date: January 3

text: January 3 – Abdur Rahman Khan is defeated at Tinah Khan, and exiled from Afghanistan.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – Mahbub Ali Khan, 2½, begins a 42-year reign as Nizam of Hyderabad.

source_section: Events › February


date: March 24

text: 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.


date: May 4

text: May 4–10 – Naval Battle of Hakodate: The Imperial Japanese Navy defeats adherents of the Tokugawa shogunate.


date: May 18

text: 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.


date: June 27

text: 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_section: Events › June


date: October 11

text: October 11 – The Red River Rebellion breaks out against British forces in Canada.

source_section: Events › October


date: November 19

text: 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_section: Events › November


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Paraguayan War: Triple Alliance forces take Asunción.


date: February 5

text: February 5 – Prospectors in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, discover the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, known as the "Welcome Stranger".


date: May 24

text: 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.


text: 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_section: Events › Date unknown


date: July 20

text: 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_section: Events › July


date: July 26

text: July 26 – The Irish Church Act 1869 is given royal assent by Queen Victoria, disestablishing the Church of Ireland effective January 1, 1871.


date: December 8

text: December 8 – The First Vatican Council opens in Rome.

source_section: Events › December


text: Thomas Henry Huxley coins the word "Agnostic".


date: September 24

text: September 24 – Black Friday: The James Fisk–Jay Gould Scandal causes a financial panic in the United States.

source_section: Events › September


text: Campbell Soup Company is founded in New Jersey, United States.


text: The investment bank Goldman Sachs is founded in New York.


text: The Co-operative Central Board (later Co-operatives UK) is founded in Manchester, England.


text: Heinz, as predecessor of Kraft Heinz, a worldwide food processing and cheese brand, founded in Pennsylvania, United States.


date: May 10

text: May 10 – The first transcontinental railroad in North America is completed at Promontory, Utah, by the driving of the "golden spike".


date: May 22

text: May 22 – Sainsbury's first store, in Drury Lane, London, is opened.


date: June 15

text: June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents celluloid in Albany, New York.


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès files a patent for margarine in France.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.


text: The Timișoara horse-drawn railway, opened in 1869.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – (O. S. February 17) – Dmitri Mendeleev finishes his design of the first periodic table and sends it for publishing.

source_section: Events › March


date: March 18

text: March 18 (O. S. March 6) – Dmitri Mendeleev makes a formal presentation of his periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.


date: November 23

text: 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).


text: Friedrich Miescher purifies nuclein, which was then identified as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).


text: March 1 – The North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin.


text: 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.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Gamma Sigma becomes the first high school fraternity in North America at Brockport Normal School, Brockport, New York.


date: October

text: 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).


text: James Gordon Bennett Jr. of the New York Herald asks Henry Morton Stanley to find Dr. David Livingstone.


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress.


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Irish scientist Mary Ward is killed by a steam car.

source_section: Events › August


date: December 7

text: December 7 – American outlaw Jesse James commits his first confirmed bank robbery, in Gallatin, Missouri.


text: Arabella Mansfield became the first woman in the United States awarded a license to practice law, at Mount Pleasant, Iowa.


date: July 10

text: July 10 – Gävle, Sweden, is destroyed in a city fire; 8,000 people become homeless.


date: September 12

text: September 12–13 – P&O's runs aground and sinks in the Red Sea; 31 drown.


date: January 5

text: January 5 – Scotland's second oldest professional football team, Kilmarnock F.C., is founded.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – The P.E.O. Sisterhood, a philanthropic educational organization for women, is founded at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa.


date: February 20

text: February 20 – Ranavalona II, the Merina Queen of Madagascar, is baptized.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – The Iron and Steel Institute is formed in London.


date: April 6

text: April 6 – The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York.


date: May 6

text: May 6 – Purdue University is founded in West Lafayette, Indiana.


date: May 15

text: May 15 – Women's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association.


date: May 26

text: May 26 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first fully professional team.


date: June 2

text: June 2 – Sherwood College is founded in Nainital, India.


date: June 30

text: June 30–July 2 – The first Estonian Song Festival takes place in Tartu.


date: August 27

text: August 27 – The University of Oxford wins the first international boat race held on the River Thames, against Harvard University.


date: September 5

text: September 5 – The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (southern Germany).


date: September 11

text: September 11 – Work on the Wallace Monument is completed in Stirling, Scotland.


date: October 16

text: 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.


date: November 4

text: November 4 – The first issue of the scientific journal Nature is published in London, edited by Norman Lockyer.


date: November 6

text: 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.


date: December 10

text: December 10 – The first American chapter of Kappa Sigma is founded at the University of Virginia.


date: December

text: December – Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace is published in complete book form, in Russia.


text: 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.


text: The Ladies National Association for the Repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts is founded in Great Britain.


text: New Zealand's first university, the University of Otago, is founded.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1959)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: February 26

text: February 26 – Nadezhda Krupskaya, Russian Marxist revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin's wife (d. 1939)


date: March 3

text: March 3 – Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal, archbishop (d. 1952)


date: March 12

text: March 12 – George Forbes, New Zealand Prime Minister, first leader of the New Zealand National Party (d. 1947)


date: April 8

text: April 8 – Ignatius Maloyan, Armenian Eastern Catholic archbishop and blessed (d. 1915)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: June 27

text: June 27 – Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1941)


date: July 11

text: July 11 – Pío Valenzuela, Filipino doctor, patriot (d. 1956)

source_section: Births › July–September


date: August 11

text: August 11 – Hale Holden, president of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (d. 1940)


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary), first known (in the United States) asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever (d. 1938)


date: October 2

text: October 2 – Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader, Father of the Nation (d. 1948)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: October 25

text: October 25 – John Heisman, American football coach (d. 1936)


date: November 20

text: November 20 – Herbert Tudor Buckland, British Arts and Crafts architect (d. 1951)


date: November 22

text: November 22 – André Gide, French writer, Nobel laureate (d. 1951)


date: December 16

text: December 16 – Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary, leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace (d. 1952)


date: January 1

text: January 1 – James B. Longacre, fourth Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint (b. 1794)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


date: February 15

text: February 15 – Ghalib, Indian poet (b. 1797)


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Juan Almonte, Mexican general, diplomat and regent (b. 1803)


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Laurent Clerc, French advocate for the American deaf (b. 1785)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: August 21

text: August 21 – Casto Méndez Núñez, Spanish admiral (b. 1824)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Mary Ward, Irish scientist, first car crash victim (b. 1827)


date: September 4

text: September 4 – John Pascoe Fawkner, Australian pioneer, settler and politician, (b. 1792)


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Franklin Pierce, 64, 14th President of the United States (b. 1804)


date: October 13

text: October 13 – Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804)


date: October 23

text: October 23 – Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1799)


date: October 31

text: October 31 – Charles A. Wickliffe, American politician, 14th Governor of Kentucky (b. 1788)


date: November 10

text: 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 (b. 1784)


date: December 18

text: December 18 – Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer, pianist (b. 1829)


date: December 24

text: December 24 – Edwin Stanton, American lawyer, judge and politician (b. 1814)


text: Clodius Albinus defeats the Chatti, a highly organized German tribe that controlled the area that includes the Black Forest.

source_section: Events › By place › Roman Empire


text: Olympianus succeeds Pertinax as bishop of Byzantium (until 198).

source_section: Events › By topic › Religion


text: Septimius Severus marries Julia Domna (age 17), a Syrian princess, at Lugdunum (modern-day Lyon). She is the youngest daughter of high-priest Julius Bassianus – a descendant of the Royal House of Emesa. Her elder sister is Julia Maesa.


text: Gu Shao, Chinese official and politician (d. 218)

source_section: Births


text: Cao Pi, Chinese emperor of the Cao Wei state (d. 226)


text: Chen Shi, Chinese official and politician (b. 104)

source_section: Deaths


text: Maternus, Gaulish rebel leader (approximate date)


date: January 6

text: January 6 – The Musikverein, Vienna, is inaugurated in Austria-Hungary.

source_section: Events › January


date: January 15

text: January 15 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey (A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).


date: January 26

text: January 26 – Reconstruction Era (United States): Virginia rejoins the Union. This year it adopts a new Constitution, drawn up by John Curtiss Underwood, expanding suffrage to all male citizens over 21, including freedmen.


date: February 3

text: February 3 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing African American men the right to vote, is passed.

source_section: Events › February


date: February 12

text: February 12 – Women's suffrage: Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory.


date: February 23

text: February 23 – Military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.


date: February 25

text: February 25 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American to sit in the U.S. Congress.


date: February 28

text: February 28 – The Bulgarian Exarchate is established, by decree of Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire.


date: March 19

text: March 19 – The Ohio Legislature passes the Cannon Act, thereby establishing the Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College, later Ohio State University.


date: March 30

text: March 30 – Reconstruction: Texas is readmitted to the Union.


text: March 30 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving African American men the right to vote, is ratified.


date: March 31

text: March 31 – Thomas Mundy Peterson is the first African American to vote in an election.


date: April 27

text: April 27 – Antonio Guzmán Blanco begins his first term as President of Venezuela.

source_section: Events › April


date: June 22

text: June 22 – The office of the Solicitor General of the United States is set up, to supervise and conduct government litigation in the United States Supreme Court.

source_section: Events › June


text: June 22 – The U.S. Congress creates the United States Department of Justice.


date: July 15

text: July 15 – Reconstruction Era: Georgia becomes the last former Confederate state of America to be readmitted to the Union.

source_section: Events › July


text: July 15 – The British government admits the former Hudson's Bay Company territory of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada.


date: July 30

text: July 30 – The 'Diggers' Republic' is proclaimed at Klipdrift in South Africa by diamond miners, with Stafford Parker as president.


date: October 6

text: October 6 – Rome becomes the capital of unified Italy.

source_section: Events › October


date: November 16

text: November 16 – The Spanish Cortes Generales proclaims Amadeo de Saboya as King Amadeo I of Spain.

source_section: Events › November


date: December 12

text: December 12 – Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina becomes the second black U.S. congressman (following Hiram Rhodes Revels in February).

source_section: Events › December


date: January 23

text: January 23 – Marias Massacre: U.S. soldiers attack a peaceful camp of Piegan Blackfeet Indians, led by chief Heavy Runner.


date: February 9

text: February 9 – The U.S. Army Weather Bureau is created within the Army Signal Corps.


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Battle of Cerro Corá, Paraguay: Marshal Francisco Solano López's last troops are cornered by those of the Triple Alliance. López refuses to surrender and is killed, ending the Paraguayan War.

source_section: Events › March


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Red River Rebellion: Thomas Scott is executed by Louis Riel's provisional government, in modern-day Manitoba, Canada.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – The Canadian province of Manitoba is created, in response to Louis Riel's Red River Rebellion.

source_section: Events › May


date: May 25

text: May 25 The Fenian Brotherhood attacks Eccles hill in Quebec.


date: June 21

text: June 21 – The Tianjin Massacre of 17 foreigners (mostly European Christian priests and nuns) and 40 Chinese people who had converted to Christianity, takes place in China when an angry mob attacks churches established in the city.


date: July 19

text: July 19 – Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.


date: August 8

text: August 8 – The Republic of Ploiești, an uprising against Domnitor Carol of Romania, fails.

source_section: Events › August


date: August 24

text: August 24 – The Red River Rebellion in Canada ends with the arrival of the Wolseley Expedition and the flight of Louis Riel.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan – Prussian forces defeat the French armies and take Emperor Napoleon III and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner at Sedan, France.

source_section: Events › September


date: September 4

text: September 4 – Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed and the Third Republic is declared. Empress Eugénie flees to England with her son.


date: September 19

text: September 19 – Franco-Prussian War: The Siege of Paris (1870–1871) begins. From September 23, balloon mail is sent out of the city.


date: October 2

text: October 2 – A plebiscite held in Rome supports, by 133,681 votes to 1,507, the annexation of the city by Italy.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Léon Gambetta escapes besieged Paris in a hot-air balloon.


date: October 26

text: October 26 – The Chinese leaders of June's Tianjin Massacre of foreigners are executed by China's Imperial government.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Franco-Prussian War: Siege of Metz – Marshal François Achille Bazaine, commanding the French left wing, is forced by starvation to surrender the fortifications of Metz.


text: Just one of the 916 members of the Indian Civil Service is Indian.

source_section: Events › Date unknown


date: February 27

text: February 27 – The Nisshoki 'circle of the sun' flag of Japan is adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships, by proclamation of the Daijō-kan.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – A Chilean prospecting party led by José Díaz Gana discovers the silver ores of Caracoles in the Bolivian portion of Atacama Desert, leading to the last of Chilean silver rushes and a diplomatic dispute over its taxation between Chile and Bolivia.


date: September 18

text: September 18 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn, during the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition to Yellowstone in Wyoming.


date: July 18

text: July 18 – Pastor aeternus: Pope Pius IX declares papal infallibility, in matters of faith and morals.


date: September 20

text: 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.


date: January 10

text: January 10 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.


date: February 10

text: February 10 – Anaheim, California, is incorporated.


date: February 26

text: February 26 – The German Commerzbank is founded in Hamburg.


date: March 10

text: March 10 – Deutsche Bank is founded in Berlin.


date: March

text: March – The Mitsubishi Company is established in Japan as a shipping firm, by Iwasaki Yatarō with Thomas Blake Glover.


date: January 1

text: January 1 – Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed.


date: January 3

text: January 3 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins in New York City.


text: February 26 – In New York City, the first pneumatic subway, Beach Pneumatic Transit, is opened.


date: June 8

text: June 8 – The final splice on the first telegraph submarine cable between Great Britain and India is made.


date: June 23

text: June 23 –The first message by electric telegraph using the Great Britain to India submarine cable is sent from London.


date: August 2

text: August 2 – The Tower Subway beneath the River Thames in London, the world's first underground passenger "tube" railway, officially opens. Although this lasts as a railway operation only until November, it demonstrates the technologically successful first use of the cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling shield, devised by Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead, and of a permanent tunnel lining of cast iron segments.


date: November 1

text: November 1 – In the United States, the newly created Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast: "High winds at Chicago and Milwaukee... and along the Lakes".


date: December 31

text: December 31 – The 12.8 km mi Fréjus Rail Tunnel through the Alps is completed.


text: David Kenyon invents the fireman's pole in Chicago.


text: Graeter's ice cream is originated in Cincinnati, Ohio.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870, passed in British India by Natalia Fish.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – Start of Solar Saros 153. The final eclipse in this series will be in 3114.


date: February 2

text: February 2 – It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant in the U.S. is just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human.


date: February

text: February – Denis Vrain-Lucas is sentenced to 2 years in prison for multiple forgery, in Paris.


date: April 11

text: April 11 – A 7.3 magnitude earthquake shakes the Chinese county of Batang causing a fire that leaves about 5,000 dead.


date: October 20

text: October 20 – A 6.6 earthquake shakes the Canadian province of Quebec, killing 6 people.


text: January 1 – The first edition of The Northern Echo newspaper is published in Priestgate, Darlington, England.


date: February 1

text: February 1 – Goodna State School in Goodna, Queensland, Australia, is founded.


text: February 2 – The Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä), a novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi, is published first time in several thin booklets.


date: February 14

text: February 14 – Schoolteacher Seraph Young Ford becomes the first woman to vote under a women’s equal suffrage law in the USA, casting her ballot in the Salt Lake City municipal election.


date: March 5

text: March 5 – The first ever international Association football match, England v Scotland, takes place under the auspices of the Football Association at The Oval, London.


date: March 24

text: March 24 – Syracuse University is established in New York (state) and officially opens.


date: April 13

text: April 13 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is established.


date: April 29

text: April 29 – The Chicago Base Ball Club, later to be known as the Chicago White Stockings and ultimately the Chicago Cubs, play their first game against the St. Louis Unions of the National Association of Base Ball Players, an amateur league.


date: May 12

text: May 12 – The Port Adelaide Football Club is founded.


date: May 14

text: May 14 – The first rugby match is played in New Zealand, between the Nelson Football Club and Nelson College.


date: June 26

text: June 26 – Richard Wagner's opera Die Walküre is first performed at Munich's National Theatre.


date: June 28

text: June 28 – American President Ulysses S. Grant signs an act making the United States Independence Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year's Day federal holidays in the United States.


date: July 14

text: July 14 – The Ems Dispatch is published, serving as casus belli for a war between Prussia and France.


date: September 6

text: September 6 – Louisa Swain of Laramie, Wyoming, becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally since 1807.


date: December 31

text: December 31 – Sir Henry Barkly is appointed Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa.


date: February 7

text: February 7 – Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist (d. 1937)

source_section: Births › January–March


date: March 20

text: March 20 – Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, German general (d. 1964)


date: March 31

text: March 31 – James M. Cox, Democratic candidate for President of the United States in the election of 1920 (d. 1957)


date: April 4

text: April 4 – George Albert Smith, 8th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1951)

source_section: Births › April–June


date: April 19

text: April 19 – J. Howard Crocker, Canadian educator and sports executive (d. 1959)


date: May 24

text: May 24 – Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (d. 1938)


date: June 13

text: June 13 – Jules Bordet, Belgian immunologist, microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1961)


date: July 29

text: July 29 – George Dixon, Canadian boxer (d. 1909)

source_section: Births › July–September


date: August 12

text: August 12 – Hubert Gough, British general (d. 1963)


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Maria Montessori, Italian educator (d. 1952)


date: September 30

text: September 30 – Jean Baptiste Perrin, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1942)


date: October 10

text: October 10 – Ivan Bunin, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1953)

source_section: Births › October–December


date: December 14

text: December 14 – Dirk Jan de Geer, Prime Minister of the Netherlands (d. 1960)


text: December 31 (alleged) – Mbah Gotho, Indonesian man, alleged oldest human (d. 2017)


date: January 20

text: January 20 – Sir George Seymour, British admiral of the fleet (b. 1787)

source_section: Deaths › January–June


text: February 7 – Sylvain Salnave, Haitian general, 9th President of Haiti (b. 1827)


date: March 1

text: March 1 – Francisco Solano López, 2nd President of Paraguay (killed in action) (b. 1827)


date: March 4

text: March 4 – Thomas Scott, Canadian Orangeman, surveyor of the Red River Rebellion (shot by Louis Riel and the Métis) (b. c. 1842)


date: March 28

text: March 28 – George Henry Thomas, American general (b. 1816)


date: April 11

text: April 11 – Justo José de Urquiza, General, First constitutional President of Argentina (assassinated) (b. 1801)


date: April 16

text: April 16 – Domnița Rallou Caragea, Greek princess, independence activist (b. 1799)


date: May 6

text: May 6 – Sir James Young Simpson, Scottish physician, researcher (b. 1811)


date: June 9

text: June 9 – English novelist Charles Dickens dies at Gads Hill Place in Kent, leaving his last book, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.


date: September 23

text: September 23 – Prosper Mérimée, French writer (b. 1803)

source_section: Deaths › July–December


date: November 23

text: November 23 – Giuseppina Bozzacchi, Milanese-born ballerina (b. 1853) (result of deprivation during Siege of Paris)


date: December 5

text: December 5 – Alexandre Dumas, père, French author (b. 1802)


text: December 5 – David G. Burnet, early politician within the Republic of Texas (b. 1788)


date: December 27

text: December 27 – Juan Prim, Spanish general and prime minister (assassinated) (b. 1814)


date: January 1

text: January 1 - The Constitution of the German Confederation comes into effect. It abolishes all restrictions on Jewish marriage, choice of occupation, place of residence, and property ownership, but exclusion from government employment and discrimination in social relations remain in effect.

source_section: Events › January–March


date: January 18

text: January 18 – Proclamation of the German Empire: The member states of the North German Confederation and the south German states unite into a single nation state, known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.


date: February 8

text: February 8 – 1871 French legislative election elects the first legislature of the French Third Republic; monarchists (Legitimists and Orleanists) favourable to peace with the German Empire gain a large majority. The National Assembly meets in Bordeaux.


date: March 22

text: March 22 – In North Carolina, William Holden becomes the first governor of a U.S. state to be removed from office by impeachment.


date: March 26

text: March 26 – The Paris Commune is formally established in France.


date: April 20

text: April 20 – U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signs the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

source_section: Events › April–June


date: May 10

text: May 10 – The Treaty of Frankfurt is signed, confirming the frontiers between Germany and France. The provinces of Alsace and Lorraine are transferred from France to Germany.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – British Columbia joins the confederation of Canada.

source_section: Events › July–September


date: August 31

text: August 31 – Adolphe Thiers becomes President of the French Republic.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – British forces march into the Klipdrift Republic and annex the territory as Griqualand West Colony.

source_section: Events › October–December


text: October 27 – Henri, Count of Chambord, refuses to be crowned "King Henry V of France" until France abandons its tricolor, and returns to the old Bourbon flag.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – The National Rifle Association of America is granted a charter by the state of New York.


text: An 83.50 carat g diamond is discovered, resulting in a diamond rush, and the town of New Rush springs up; Colonial Commissioners arrive there on November 17.


date: January 3

text: January 3 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Bapaume – Prussians win a strategic victory.


date: January 21

text: January 21 – Battle of Dijon: Giuseppe Garibaldi's group of French and Italian volunteer troops, in support of the French Third Republic, win a battle against the Prussians.


date: March 16

text: March 16 – Mokrani Revolt breaks out in French Algeria against colonial rule.


date: March 18

text: March 18 – Origin of the Paris Commune: Troops of the regular French Army, sent by Adolphe Thiers, Chef du pouvoir executive de la République française, to seize cannons stored on the hill of Montmartre, fraternise with civilians and the National Guard, and two army generals are killed. Regular troops are evacuated to Versailles.


text: March 22 – The United States Army issues an order for the abandonment of Fort Kearny, Nebraska.


date: May 27

text: May 27 – French government troops massacre 147 Communards from Belleville, at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.


date: May 28

text: May 28 – Paris Commune falls to French government forces.


date: June 1

text: June 1 – Bombardment of the Selee River Forts: Koreans attack two United States Navy warships.


date: September 3

text: September 3 – New York City residents, tired of the corruption of the Tammany Hall political machine and "Boss" William M. Tweed, its "Grand Sachem", meet to form the 'Committee of Seventy' to reform local politics.


date: October 26

text: October 26 – Liberian President Edward James Roye is deposed in a coup d'état.


date: June 10

text: June 10 – United States expedition to Korea: Captain McLane Tilton leads 109 members of the United States Marine Corps in a punitive naval attack on the Han River forts on Ganghwa Island in Korea, resulting in 250 Koreans dying and diplomatic failure to "open up" Korea.


date: July 28

text: July 28 – The Annie becomes the first boat ever launched on Yellowstone Lake, in the Yellowstone National Park region.


date: August 7

text: August 7 – Banco de Concepcion, predecessor of Itaú Unibanco, a major financial services provider in South America, is founded in Chile.


date: October 11

text: October 11 – Heinrich Schliemann begins the excavation of Troy in the Ottoman Empire.


date: November 10

text: November 10 – Henry Morton Stanley, Welsh-born correspondent for the New York Herald, locates missing Scottish explorer and missionary Dr. David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, and greets him by saying, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" (according to his later account).


date: March 22

text: March 22 – The Marseille Commune is established in southern France.


date: December 10

text: 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.


text: The Shinto shrine of Izumo-taisha in Japan is designated as an Imperial shrine.


date: April

text: April – The Stockholms Handelsbank is founded.


date: June 27

text: June 27 – The Meiji government officially adopts the yen as Japan's modern unit of currency. Coins which have been made in advance with the date 1870 are released into circulation.


date: June 29

text: June 29 – Trade unions are legalized in the United Kingdom by the Trade Union Act 1871.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – Continental AG is founded as Continental-Caoutchouc und Gutta-Percha Compagnie in Hanover, Germany.


date: December 19

text: December 19 – The city of Birmingham, Alabama, is incorporated with the merger of three existing towns.


date: March 21

text: March 21 – Otto von Bismarck becomes the first Chancellor of the German Empire.


date: March 27

text: March 27 – The first Rugby Union International results in a 1–0 win, by Scotland over England.


date: March 29

text: March 29 – The Royal Albert Hall in London is opened by Queen Victoria; it incorporates a grand organ by Henry Willis & Sons, the world's largest at this time.


date: May 4

text: May 4 – The first supposedly Major League Baseball game is played in America.


date: May 8

text: May 8 – The first Major League Baseball home run is hit by Ezra Sutton, of the Cleveland Forest Citys.


date: May 21

text: May 21 – The first rack railway in Europe, the Vitznau–Rigi Railway on Mount Rigi in Switzerland, is opened.


date: July 22

text: July 22 – The foundation stone of the first Tay Bridge is laid; the bridge collapses as a train crosses in a storm eight years later.


date: October 20

text: October 20 – The Royal Regiment of Artillery forms the first regular Canadian army units, when they create two batteries of garrison artillery, which later become the Royal Canadian Artillery.


date: November 7

text: November 7 – The London–Australia telegraph cable is brought ashore at Darwin.


date: December 15

text: December 15 – The Deseret Telegraph Company office in Pipe Spring begins service with a message keyed by Ella Stewart. It is the first telegraph sent from Arizona Territory.


text: c. November – The South Improvement Company is formed in Pennsylvania by John D. Rockefeller and a group of major United States railroad interests, in an early effort to organize and control the American petroleum industry.


date: February 21

text: February 21 – The District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871 is signed into law by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.


date: September 2

text: September 2 – Whaling disaster of 1871: The Comet, a brig used by whalers, becomes the first of 33 ships to be crushed in the Arctic ice by an early freeze. Remarkably, all 1,219 people on the abandoned ships are rescued without a single loss of life.


date: October 5

text: October 5 – The Società degli Spettroscopisti Italiani (laterSocietà Astronomica Italiana) is established in Rome, the first scientific organisation in the world dedicated to astrophysics.


date: November 17

text: November 17 – George Biddell Airy presents his discovery that astronomical aberration is independent of the local medium.


text: Modern "neoclassical economics" is initiated by publication of William Stanley Jevons's Theory of Political Economy and Carl Menger's Principles of Economics (Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre).


text: March 29 – The first Surgeon General of the United States (John Maynard Woodworth) is appointed.


date: August 29

text: August 29 – The abolition of the han system is carried out in Japan.


date: April 4

text: April 4 – The New Jersey Detective Agency is chartered, and the New Jersey State Detectives are initiated.


date: April 24

text: April 24 – Murder of Jane Clouson, a servant girl, in Eltham, England; her probable murderer is acquitted.


date: May 11

text: May 11 – The first trial in the Tichborne case begins, in the London Court of Common Pleas.


date: October 12

text: October 12 – The Criminal Tribes Act is enacted by the British Raj in India, naming over 160 communities as "Denotified Tribes", allegedly habitually criminal (it will be repealed in 1949, after Indian independence).


date: October 24

text: October 24 – Chinese massacre of 1871: In Los Angeles' Chinatown, 19 Chinese immigrants are killed by a mob of 500 men.


date: October 27

text: October 27 – Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall is arrested for bribery, ending his grip on New York City.


date: November 5

text: November 5 – Wickenburg Massacre: Six men travelling by stagecoach, in the Arizona Territory, are reportedly murdered by Yavapai people.


text: Gold is discovered at Pilgrim's Creek in the Pilgrim's Rest area.


date: October 8

text: October 8 – The Great Chicago Fire breaks out in Chicago, Illinois and burns for 2 days, killing 300 people, destroying 17,500 buildings and leaving 100,000 people homeless.


date: July 21

text: July 21–August 26 – The first ever photographs of Yellowstone National Park region are taken by photographer William Henry Jackson, during the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.


date: August 9

text: August 9 – One of the few known major hurricanes to strike Hawaii causes significant damage on the islands of Hawaii and Maui.


text: October 8 – The Peshtigo fire begins and destroys the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, and kills as many as 2,500 people, becoming the deadliest wildfire in United States history.


date: February 9

text: February 9 – The United States Commission on Fish and Fisheries is founded.


date: February 24

text: February 24 – The Danish Women's Society is founded to promote women's rights in Denmark; on December 15 it adopts the style Dansk Kvindesamfund.


date: March 3

text: March 3 – The first American civil service reform legislation is signed into law by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, creating the United States Civil Service Commission.


date: March 21

text: March 21 – John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne marries Princess Louise, a daughter of Queen Victoria, at Windsor; she is the first legitimate daughter of a British monarch to marry a subject since 1515.


date: April 10

text: April 10 – In Brooklyn, New York, P. T. Barnum opens his three-ring circus, hailing it as "The Greatest Show on Earth".


date: April 11

text: April 11 - Funeral of Prince Alexander John of Wales at St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham


date: June 17

text: June 17– The Parsons Sun newspaper in Parsons, Kansas is founded by Milton W. Reynolds and Leslie J. Perry, though the latter left after the first issue was published.


date: June 18

text: June 18 – The Universities Tests Act 1871 removes restrictions which have previously limited access to Oxford, Cambridge and Durham universities to members of the Church of England.


date: July 13

text: July 13 – The first cat show is held at the Crystal Palace of London.


date: July 20

text: July 20 – C. W. Alcock proposes that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association", giving birth to the FA Cup for Association football in England.


date: September 25

text: September 25 – West Chester University (Pennsylvania) is charted as West Chester Normal School


date: December 24

text: December 24 – The opera Aida opens in Cairo, Egypt.


date: December 25

text: December 25 – Reading F.C. is formed as an Association football club in England.


date: December 26

text: December 26 – Thespis, the first of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, premières in London. It does modestly well, but the two composers will not collaborate again for four years.


text: The Harvard Summer School is founded.


date: January 19

text: January 19 – Frederick Maurice, British Army officer, military correspondent, writer and academic (d. 1951)

source_section: Births › January–February


date: February 28

text: February 28 – Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, British expert on heraldry (d. 1928)


date: April 1

text: April 1 – F. Melius Christiansen, Norwegian-born violinist and choral conductor (d. 1955)

source_section: Births › March–April


date: May 9

text: May 9 – Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, third son of Alexander III, Maria of Russia and brother of Nicholas II (d. 1899)

source_section: Births › May–June


date: May 14

text: May 14 – Walter Stanley Monroe, businessman, politician, and former Prime Minister of Newfoundland (d. 1952)


date: June 5

text: June 5 – Nicolae Iorga, 34th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1940)