Technology & Infrastructure in the 19th century

649 sourced entries, 1801 CE to 1899 CE, oldest first. Also see Technology & Infrastructure across every century or everything else in the 19th century.

• 1801December 24 – Cornish engineers Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian demonstrate "Puffing Devil", their steam-powered road locomotive, in Camborne. The trial is successful but Trevithick realizes the limitations of steam power in a road-running vehicle and turns his attention to rail, introducing the world's first steam railway locomotive in 1804.source
• 1802March 16 – The United States Army Corps of Engineers is re-established, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York is established under its management, opening on July 4.source
• 1802June 1 – The United States Patent and Trademark Office is established within the Department of State.source
• 1802July 19 – Éleuthère Irénée du Pont founds E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, the modern DuPont chemical company, as a gunpowder manufactory near Wilmington, Delaware.source
• 1802July 31 – William Wordsworth, leaving London for Dover and Calais with his sister Dorothy, witnesses the early morning scene which he captures in his sonnet "Composed upon Westminster Bridge".source
• 1803January 4 – William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat", in Scotland.source
• 1803July 26 – The wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon is opened, being the first public railway line in England.source
• 1804February 21 – Cornishman Richard Trevithick's newly built Penydarren steam locomotive operates on the Merthyr Tramroad, between Penydarren in Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon in South Wales, following several trials since February 13, the world's first locomotive to work on rails.source
• 1804May 21 – Père Lachaise Cemetery a 118 acre km2 cemetery in Paris, France, is opened.source
• 1804Shimizu-gumi, predecessor of Shimizu Corporation, a major construction company in Japan, is founded in Kanda region, Edo (modern-day Tokyo).source
• 1805November 26 – The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is opened in Wales; it is 1007 ft m long and 126 ft m tall.source
• 1805James Squire becomes the first brewer in Australia to cultivate hops.source
• 1805The Old Man of the Mountain, a natural rock formation in the U.S. state of New Hampshire, is first mentioned by two workmen, Francis Whitcomb and Luke Brooks.source
• 1807March 25 – The Swansea and Mumbles Railway in South Wales, at this time known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger-carrying railway in the world.source
• 1807July 20 – Nicéphore Niépce is awarded a patent by Emperor Napoleon for the Pyréolophore, the world's first internal combustion engine, after it successfully powers a boat upstream on the river Saône in France.source
• 1807August 17 – The North River Steamboat, Robert Fulton's first American steamboat, leaves New York City for Albany on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.source
• 1809February 11 – Robert Fulton patents the steamboat in the United States.source
• 1809May 5 – Mary Kies is the first American woman to be awarded a patent (for a technique of weaving straw hats with silk and thread).source
• 1809November 21 – First stone laid of first 'guided bus' passenger wagonway Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad.source
• 1810May 10 – Rev. Henry Duncan opens the world's first commercial savings bank, in Ruthwell, Scotland.source
• 1811March 22 – The Commissioners' Plan for Manhattan is presented.source
• 1811October 11 – Inventor John Stevens' boat, the Juliana, begins operation as the first steam-powered ferry service, between New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey.source
• 1812The Woodford Reserve Bourbon whiskey distillery, established in 1780 along Glenn's Creek in Woodford County, Kentucky, passes to the control of Oscar Pepper.source
• 1814July 25 – George Stephenson tests his first locomotive Blücher successfully in England.source
• 1814The world's first complex machine mass-produced from interchangeable parts, Eli Terry's wooden pillar-and-scroll clock, comes off the production line in Plymouth, Connecticut.source
• 1815February 6 – New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to John Stevens.source
• 1816Robert Stirling patents his Stirling engine, at this time known as "Stirling's air engine", in the United Kingdom.source
• 1816E. Remington and Sons, the firearm and later typewriter manufacturing company, is founded in the United States.source
• 1817April 15 – The American School for the Deaf opens in Hartford, Connecticut.source
• 1817June 12 – German inventor Karl Drais drives his dandy horse ("Draisine" or Laufmaschine), the earliest form of bicycle, in Mannheim.source
• 1817July 4 – At Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins in the U.S. to link the Hudson River to Lake Erie, with the long-range goal of making the first navigable waterway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes, and reducing the amount of time and costs for transporting goods westward past the Appalachian mountains.source
• 1817November 3 – The Bank of Montreal opens in Montreal.source
• 1818January 12 – The Dandy horse (Laufmaschine bicycle) is patented by Karl Drais in Mannheim.source
• 1818February 3 – Jeremiah Chubb is granted a British patent for the Chubb detector lock.source
• 1818June 18 – At least 34 people are killed in Switzerland, when the melting of a glacier releases the natural dam of Lac de Mauvoisin, sending the waters of the lake and the Dranse River into the valley of Bagnes.source
• 1819August 25 – Salon of 1819 opens in Paris. Amongst the exhibits is The Raft of the Medusa.source
• 1819The city of Fernandina de Jagua (later Cienfuegos) is founded in Cuba.source
• 1820July 26 – Union Chain Bridge opens across the River Tweed, between England and Scotland. Its span of 449 ft (137 m) is the world's longest for a vehicular bridge at this time.source
• 1820August 1 — The Regent's Canal through to the London Docks is opened.source
• 1820Construction work is completed on the Citadelle Laferrière in Haiti, the largest fortification in the Americas, built on the orders of Henri Christophe to defend the country against potential French reoccupation.source
• 1821The town of Al-Ubayyid, Sudan is established.source
• 1822July 3 – Charles Babbage publishes a proposal for a difference engine, a forerunner of the modern computer, for calculating logarithms and trigonometric functions. Construction of an operational version will proceed under British Government sponsorship (1823–1832), but it will never be completed.source
• 1822The fifth and last prohibition of coffee in Sweden is lifted.source
• 1824July 25 – The Montparnasse Cemetery opens in Paris, France.source
• 1824October 10 – The Edinburgh Town Council founds the Edinburgh Municipal Fire Brigade, the first fire brigade in Britain, under the leadership of James Braidwood.source
• 1824October 21 – Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement, receiving BP 5,022 for An Improvement in the Mode of Producing an Artificial Stone.source
• 1824November 30 – The first sod is turned in Ontario for the first of four Welland Canals. The canal opens for a trial run five years later to the day, on November 30, 1829.source
• 1825September 27 – The world's first modern railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opens in England.source
• 1825October 26 – The Erie Canal opens, providing passage from Albany, New York to Buffalo and Lake Erie.source
• 1825Hans Christian Ørsted reduces aluminium chloride to produce metallic aluminium.source
• 1825The first horse-drawn omnibuses established in London.source
• 1825The Fort Vancouver trading post is established on the lower Columbia River by the Hudson's Bay Company.source
• 1825The United States Postal Service starts a dead letter office.source
• 1826January 30 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, built by engineer Thomas Telford as the first major suspension bridge in world history, is opened between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales.source
• 1826April 1 – In the U.S., Samuel Morey patents an internal combustion engine.source
• 1826May 5 – The Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed by George Stephenson and Joseph Locke, destined to open as the world's first purpose-built passenger railway operated by steam locomotives in 1830, receives authorisation by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.source
• 1826September 21 – Construction of the Rideau Canal begins in Canada.source
• 1826October 1 – The Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway opens in Scotland.source
• 1826October 7 – The first train operates over the Granite Railway in Massachusetts.source
• 1827February 28 – The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is incorporated, becoming the first railroad in the United States offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.source
• 1827May 25 – Romanian inventor Petrache Poenaru receives a French patent for the invention of the first fountain pen.source
• 1827September 20 – A petition for a land grant for 215 acres on the north bank of Rio Grande, just across from Paso del Norte (modern-day Ciudad Juárez), is approved; the first residence is built on what is modern-day El Paso, Texas.source
• 1828Ányos Jedlik creates the world's first electric motor.source
• 1829April 21– Popular German conductor Felix Mendelssohn begins his first of 10 visits to Britain, touring the island until November 28. This includes the first London performance of his concert overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, and his trip to Fingal's Cave.source
• 1829May 6 – The patent for an instrument called the accordion is applied for by Cyrill Demian (officially approved on May 23).source
• 1829June 19 – Robert Peel establishes the Metropolitan Police Service in London, the first modern police force. The first officers, known by the nickname "bobbies", go on patrol on September 29.source
• 1829July 4 – George Shillibeer begins operating the first bus service in London.source
• 1829July 23 – In the United States, William Burt obtains the first patent for a form of typewriter, the typographer.source
• 1829August 10 – Finsteraarhorn, the highest summit of the Bernese Alps, is first ascended.source
• 1829October 14 – Stephenson's Rocket wins the Rainhill trials to determine the practicality of steam locomotives to operate the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in England.source
• 1829October 16 – The first modern hotel in the United States, Tremont House (Boston), opens.source
• 1829November 30 – The original Welland Canal opens for a trial run, with a ceremony at Port Dalhousie, Upper Canada.source
• 1830July 17 – Barthélemy Thimonnier is granted a French patent (#7454) for a sewing machine: it chain stitches at 200/minute.source
• 1830August 31 – Edwin Beard Budding is granted an English patent for the invention of the lawn mower.source
• 1830September 15 – The opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first intercity passenger railway operated solely by steam locomotives, takes place in England, UK.source
• 1830October 20 – Thomas Cochrane is granted a patent for the first airlock.source
• 1831October 28 – Michael Faraday constructs an early form of dynamo.source
• 1832May 30 – The Rideau Canal in eastern Ontario (Canada) is opened.source
• 1832June 9 – The Strasburg Rail Road is incorporated by the Pennsylvania State Legislature, making it the oldest continuously operating railroad in the Western Hemisphere.source
• 1832October 4 – Prince Otto of Bavaria, the second oldest son of King Ludwig I, is selected by Europe's major powers to become Othon, the first King of Greece, after the Hellenic nation's reacquisition of independence.source
• 1832The Cumberland and Oxford Canal connects the largest lakes of southern Maine with the seaport of Portland, Maine.source
• 1832The first commutator DC electric motor, capable of turning machinery, is demonstrated by William Sturgeon in London.source
• 1833May 6 – In Germany, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber obtain permission to build an electromagnetic telegraph in Göttingen.source
• 1833June 5 – Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, both pioneers in developing a computer, are introduced to each other by Mary Somerville.source
• 1834January – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is chartered in Wilmington, North Carolina.source
• 1834June 21 – American inventor and businessman Cyrus McCormick is granted a patent for his mechanical reaper.source
• 1834August 1 – Construction work begins on the Wilberforce Monument in Kingston upon Hull, England.source
• 1834Charles Babbage begins the conceptual design of the Analytical Engine, a mechanical forerunner of the modern computer. It will not be built in his lifetime.source
• 1834Thomas Davenport, inventor of the first American DC electrical motor, installs his motor in a small model car, creating one of the first electric cars.source
• 1834Statue of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is erected in his birthplace of Geneva.source
• 1835May 5 – The first railway in continental Europe is opened between Brussels and Mechelen in Belgium.source
• 1835June 1 – Kingston Penitentiary opens in Kingston, Ontario.source
• 1835November 12 – Construction is completed on the Wilberforce Monument in Kingston Upon Hull.source
• 1835December 7 – The Bavarian Ludwig Railway opens between Nuremberg and Fürth, with a train hauled by the English-built Der Adler ("The Eagle"), the first railway in Germany.source
• 1835December 21 – The Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is chartered in Raleigh, North Carolina.source
• 1835The Cachar Levy, forerunner of the Assam Rifles, is founded in India.source
• 1835Charles-Louis Havas creates Havas, the first news agency in the world (which later spawns Agence France-Presse).source
• 1836February 8 – London and Greenwich Railway opens its first section, the first railway in London, England.source
• 1836February 25 – Samuel Colt receives a United States patent for the Colt revolver, the first revolving barrel multishot firearms.source
• 1836July 13 – The first numbered (after filing 9,957 unnumbered patents) is granted to John Ruggles, for improvements to railroad steam locomotive tires.source
• 1836July 21 – The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad opens between St. John and La Prairie, Quebec, the first steam-worked passenger railroad in British North America.source
• 1836September 1 – Rebuilding begins at the Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem.source
• 1836October 24 – The earliest United States patent for a phosphorus friction match is granted to Alonzo Dwight Phillips, of Springfield, Massachusetts.source
• 1836October 25 – Construction begins on the Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad in North Carolina. Due to a lack of support in Raleigh, the route is revised to run from Wilmington to the Petersburg Railroad in Weldon.source
• 1836December 15 – The United States Patent Office burns in Washington, D.C.source
• 1837May – W. F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patent an electrical telegraph system.source
• 1837September 28 – Samuel Morse files a caveat for a patent for the telegraph.source
• 1837October 30 – The Tsarskoye Selo Railway, the first in the Russian Empire, opens between Saint Petersburg Tsarskoselsky station and Tsarskoye Selo (modern-day Pushkin), engineered by Franz Anton von Gerstner.source
• 1837The first electric locomotive built is a miniature battery locomotive constructed by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and powered by galvanic cells (batteries).source
• 1837Atlanta is fixed as the terminal of the Western and Atlantic Railroad; it is originally named Marthasville.source
• 1838January 11 – At Morristown, New Jersey, Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale give the first public demonstration of Morse's new invention, the telegraph.source
• 1838April 8–23 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's paddle steamer (1838) makes the transatlantic crossing to New York from Avonmouth, England, in 15 days, inaugurating a regular steamship service.source
• 1838November 16 – Austria: Moravia opens the final section of Emperor Ferdinand Northern Railway (Rajhrad–Brno) for exhibition (preliminary) use.source
• 1839February 24 – William Otis receives a U.S. patent for the steam shovel.source
• 1839March 9 – Prussia imposes the Child Labor Law of 1839, becoming the first nation in the world to place restrictions on child labor.source
• 1839March 23 – The Boston Morning Post first records the use of "O.K." (oll korrect).source
• 1839April 9 – The world's first commercial electric telegraph line comes into operation, alongside the Great Western Railway line in England, from London Paddington station to West Drayton.source
• 1839June 22 – Louis Daguerre receives a patent for his camera (commercially available by September at the price of 400 francs).source
• 1839October 3 – A railway between Naples and Portici (7.4 km mi) in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is inaugurated by King Ferdinand II of Bourbon as the first line in the Italian Peninsula.source
• 1839In the United States, the first state law permitting women to own property is passed in Jackson, Mississippi.source
• 1839Chattanooga, Tennessee, is incorporated as a town.source
• 1840January 10 – Uniform Penny Post is introduced in the United Kingdom.source
• 1840March 9 – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is completed, from Wilmington, North Carolina to Weldon, North Carolina. At 161.5 mi km, it is the world's longest railroad.source
• 1840April – The Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is completed from Raleigh to near Weldon, North Carolina.source
• 1840May 1 – Britain issues the Penny Black, the world's first postage stamp; it becomes valid for the pre-payment of postage from May 6.source
• 1840July 4 – The Cunard Line's 700-ton wooden paddlewheel steamer departs from Liverpool, bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the first steam transatlantic passenger mail service.source
• 1840July 21 – August Borsig's steam locomotive, the first built in Germany, competes against a Stephenson-built locomotive on the Berlin–Jüterbog railroad; the Borsig locomotive wins by 10 minutes.source
• 1840December 21 – Stockport Viaduct is completed in North West England. It is one of the largest brick structures in Europe.source
• 1840Kajima, a construction company based in Japan, is founded in Edo (modern-day Tokyo).source
• 1841July 5 – Thomas Cook arranges his first railway excursion in England.source
• 1842March 31 – The Middleton Junction and Oldham Branch Railway line is opened up to Werneth in North West England.source
• 1842June 13 – Queen Victoria becomes the first reigning British monarch to travel by train, on the Great Western Railway between Slough and London Paddington station.source
• 1842June – James Nasmyth patents the steam hammer in the United Kingdom.source
• 1842October 5 – Josef Groll brews the first pilsner light lager beer in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia (the modern-day Czech Republic).source
• 1842Pickelhaube helmet introduced in the Prussian Army.source
• 1843March 13 – Catawba County, North Carolina is created, and its first court is held in Mathias Barringer Jr.'s house.source
• 1843March 15 – Victoria, British Columbia, is founded by the Hudson's Bay Company as a trading post and fort.source
• 1843March 25 – Marc Isambard Brunel's Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel under the River Thames and the world's first bored underwater tunnel, is opened in London for pedestrians.source
• 1843May 22 – The first major wagon train headed for the American Northwest sets out with 1,000 pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.source
• 1843June 21 – Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Gold-Bug" begins serialization in American newspapers.source
• 1843July 19 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's is launched from Bristol; it will be the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.source
• 1843September – Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea's notes on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.source
• 1843December – The world's first Christmas cards, commissioned by Sir Henry Cole in London from the artist John Callcott Horsley, are sent.source
• 1843The steam powered rotary printing press is invented, by Richard March Hoe in the United States.source
• 1844March 12 – The Columbus and Xenia Railroad, the first railroad planned to be built in Ohio, is chartered.source
• 1844May 1 – The Hong Kong Police Force, the world's second and Asia's first modern, police force is established.source
• 1844May 24 – The first electrical telegram is sent by Samuel Morse from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to the B&O Railroad "outer depot" in Baltimore, saying "What hath God wrought".source
• 1844June 15 – Charles Goodyear receives a United States patent for vulcanization, a process to strengthen rubber.source
• 1845March 17 – Stephen Perry patents the rubber band, in the United Kingdom.source
• 1845May 2 – Yarmouth suspension bridge in Great Yarmouth, England, collapses leaving around 80 dead, mostly children.source
• 1845July 26–August 10 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iron steamship Great Britain makes the transatlantic crossing from Liverpool to New York, the first screw propelled vessel to make the passage.source
• 1846January 13 – The Milan–Venice railway's 3.2 km mi bridge, over the Venetian Lagoon between Mestre and Venice in Italy, opens, the world's longest since 1151.source
• 1846June 15 – Launceston Church Grammar School opens for the first time in Tasmania.source
• 1846June 28 – The saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax.source
• 1846September 3 – Electric Telegraph Company founded in Britain.source
• 1846September 10 – Elias Howe is awarded the first United States patent for a sewing machine, using a lockstitch design.source
• 1847January 4 – Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the U.S. government.source
• 1847June 26 – The first passenger railway wholly within modern-day Denmark opens, from Copenhagen to Roskilde.source
• 1847July 1 – The United States issues its first postage stamps.source
• 1847October 12 – German inventors and industrialists Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske found Siemens & Halske to develop the electrical telegraph.source
• 1847November 10 – The first brew of Carlsberg beer is finished in Copenhagen.source
• 1847The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the railroad town of Goldsborough, and the Wayne county seat is moved to the new town.source
• 1848January 31 – In the United States:source
• 1848April 10 – The Illinois and Michigan Canal is completed.source
• 1848July 11 – Waterloo railway station in London opens.source
• 1848September 13 – Vermont railroad worker Phineas Gage survives a 3-foot-plus iron rod being driven through his head.source
• 1848October 28 – In Catalonia, Spain, the Barcelona–Mataró railroad route (the first to be constructed in the Iberian Peninsula) is inaugurated.source
• 1848Richard Wagner begins writing the libretto that will become Der Ring des Nibelungen ("The Ring of the Nibelung").source
• 1848Construction of the Washington Monument begins in Washington, D.C.source
• 1849January 1 – France begins issue of the Ceres series, the nation's first postage stamps.source
• 1849January 27 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the North Carolina Railroad, to complete a rail line from Goldsboro through Raleigh, and Salisbury to Charlotte.source
• 1849March 3 – The United States Department of the Interior is established, incorporating the Census Office, United States General Land Office, Office of Indian Affairs and Patent and Trademark Office.source
• 1849July 15 – The first airstrike in history: Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice.source
• 1849September 1 – The first segment of the Pennsylvania Railroad, from Lewistown to Harrisburg, opens for service.source
• 1850March 5 – The Britannia Bridge opens over the Menai Strait in Wales.source
• 1850April 19 – The Clayton–Bulwer Treaty is signed by the United States and Great Britain, allowing both countries to share Nicaragua, and not claim complete control over the proposed Nicaragua Canal.source
• 1850June 1 – The postage stamp issues of Austria begin with a series of imperforate typographed stamps, featuring the coat of arms.source
• 1850September 18 – Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.source
• 1850The American system of watch manufacturing is started in Roxbury, Massachusetts, by the Waltham Watch Company.source
• 1851April 8 – Western Union is founded, as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company.source
• 1851May 1 – The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London is opened by Queen Victoria.source
• 1851August 12 – Isaac Singer is granted a United States patent for his improved sewing machine.source
• 1851November 1 – Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway officially opens in Russia.source
• 1851November 13 – The first protected submarine telegraph cable is laid, across the English Channel.source
• 1851December 22 – The first railway begins operation in India, hauling canal construction material in Roorkee.source
• 1852February 11 – The first British public toilet for women opens in Bedford Street, London.source
• 1852February 16 – The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company, precursor of the automobile manufacturer, is established in South Bend, Indiana.source
• 1852March 2 – The first American experimental steam fire engine is tested.source
• 1852September 24 – French engineer Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip, from Paris to Trappes.source
• 1852November 23 – The first roadside pillar boxes in the British Isles are brought into public use in Saint Helier, on Jersey in the Channel Islands, at the suggestion of English novelist Anthony Trollope, at this time an official of the British General Post Office.source
• 1852December – The Western Railroad is chartered to build a railroad from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to the coal fields of Egypt, North Carolina.source
• 1852The semaphore line in France is superseded by the telegraph.source
• 1852Smith & Wesson is founded as a firearms manufacturer in the United States.source
• 1852In Hawaii, sugar planters bring over the first Chinese laborers on 3- or 5-year contracts, giving them 3 dollars per month plus room and board for working a 12-hour day, 6 days a week.source
• 1852The grooved rail is developed by Alphonse Loubat.source
• 1853February 12 – The city of Puerto Montt is founded in the Reloncaví Sound, Chile.source
• 1853April 16 – Indian Railways: The first passenger railway in India opens from Bombay to Thana, Maharashtra, 22 mi km.source
• 1853May 12–October 31 – The Great Industrial Exhibition is held in Dublin, Ireland.source
• 1853May 23 – The first plat for Seattle, Washington, is laid out.source
• 1853June 30 – Georges-Eugène Haussmann is selected as préfect of the Seine (department) to begin the re-planning of Paris.source
• 1853July 1 – The Swiss watch company Tissot is founded.source
• 1853August 24 – Potato chips are first prepared, by George Crum at Saratoga Springs, New York, according to popular accounts.source
• 1853October 1 – C. Bechstein's piano factory is founded, one of three established in a "golden year" in the history of the piano (Julius Blüthner and Steinway & Sons being the others).source
• 1853December 30 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys approximately 77,000 km2 sqmi of land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.source
• 1853Isambard Kingdom Brunel accepts John Scott Russell's tender for construction of the passenger steamer.source
• 1853Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest sports stadium in the Southern Hemisphere, officially opens.source
• 1853The world's first public aquarium opens, as a feature of the London Zoo.source
• 1854January 20 – The North Carolina General Assembly in the United States charters the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad, to run from Goldsboro through New Bern, to the newly created seaport of Morehead City, near Beaufort.source
• 1854February 11 – Major streets are lit by coal gas for the first time by the San Francisco Gas Company; 86 such lamps are turned on this evening in San Francisco, California.source
• 1854February 14 – Texas is linked by telegraph with the rest of the United States, when a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas is completed.source
• 1854March 1 – German psychologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears; 2 years later his remains are found in the canal near Charlottenburg.source
• 1854March 3 – Australia's first telegraph line, linking Melbourne and Williamstown, Victoria, opens.source
• 1854June 10 – The first class of the United States Naval Academy graduates at Annapolis, Maryland.source
• 1854June – The Grand Excursion takes prominent Eastern United States inhabitants from Chicago to Rock Island, Illinois, by railroad, then up the Mississippi River to Saint Paul, Minnesota, by steamboat.source
• 1854July 4 – James Ambrose Cutting takes out the first of his three United States patents for improvements to the wet plate collodion process (Ambrotype photography).source
• 1854July 7 – The Bombay Spinning and Weaving Company is established as the first cotton mill in India by Cowasjee Nanabhoy Davar and associates.source
• 1854October 1 – The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, by Aaron Lufkin Dennison, relocates to Waltham, to become the Waltham Watch Company, pioneer in the American system of watch manufacturing.source
• 1854November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal Company is formed.source
• 1854The Boston Public Library opens to the public.source
• 1854The future Waterbury Clock Company (Incorporated on March 27, 1857) is founded as a department within the Benedict and Burnham Manufacturing Company in Waterbury, Connecticut, the predecessor of Timex Group USA in timepiece manufacturing.source
• 1854A Russian fort is established at the modern-day site of Almaty.source
• 1855January 1 – Ottawa, Ontario, is incorporated as a city.'source
• 1855January 23 – The first bridge over the Mississippi River opens in modern-day Minneapolis, a predecessor of the Father Louis Hennepin Bridge.source
• 1855January 27 – The Panama Railway becomes the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.source
• 1855February 15 – The North Carolina General Assembly incorporates the Western North Carolina Railroad, to build a rail line from Salisbury to the western part of the state.source
• 1855June 15 – Stamp duty revenue tax is removed from British newspapers, creating free mass media thereafter in the United Kingdom.source
• 1855June 29 – The Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publication in London.source
• 1855October 17 – Henry Bessemer files his patent in the United Kingdom for the Bessemer process of steelmaking.source
• 1855Samuel Colt incorporates his business as the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company and opens a new factory, the Colt Armory, in Hartford, Connecticut.source
• 1856January 29 – The 223-mile North Carolina Railroad is completed from Goldsboro through Raleigh and Salisbury to Charlotte.source
• 1856April 21 – Building workers agitate for the eight-hour day in Melbourne, Australia.source
• 1856July 17 – The Great Train Wreck (the worst railroad calamity in the world to date) occurs near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.source
• 1856September 7 – The Saimaa Canal was inaugurated.source
• 1856Kate Warne, the first female private detective, begins to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.source
• 1856Mauveine, the first synthetic organic dye, is discovered by William Henry Perkin, while attempting to synthesize quinine. This eventually leads to the birth of the chemical industry.source
• 1857January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating.source
• 1857September – The Panic of 1857 begins: Speculation in U.S. railroad shares, and the collapse on August 24 of the New York City branch of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, following widespread embezzlement, trigger a financial crisis which will extend to Europe.source
• 1857December 20 – Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria issues a decree, Es ist Mein Wille, which leads to the demolition of the city walls of Vienna, allowing the construction of the Ringstraße.source
• 1857U.S. composer James Lord Pierpont composes "Jingle Bells", originally entitled "The One Horse Open Sleigh".source
• 1857Bustling tourist attraction Sunny Lane in Falmouth, United Kingdom, is built.source
• 1857Bucharest becomes the world's first city to have its streets illuminated by kerosene lamps.source
• 1857Kuala Lumpur, the future capital of Malaysia, is founded as a tin mining settlement.source
• 1858March 30 – Hymen Lipman patents a pencil with an attached eraser in the United States.source
• 1858June 17 – The Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad opens, operating 95 miles from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to New Bern, North Carolina.source
• 1858July 12 – The Advertiser, a daily newspaper still in circulation, begins publication in Adelaide, Australia.source
• 1858August 5 – Cyrus West Field and others complete the first transatlantic telegraph cable, after several unsuccessful attempts. The service ends on September 1, due to weak current.source
• 1858August 16 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable, by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria. However, a weak signal forces a shutdown of the service in a few weeks.source
• 1858September 11 – Dom, the third-highest summit in the Alps, is first ascended.source
• 1858December 29 – The Northern Railway Company is established in Madrid, Spain, with a purpose to construct the Northern Railway.source
• 1858Pike's Peak Gold Rush: Fifty-Niners stream into the Rocky Mountains of the western United States.source
• 1859March 3 – Construction begins on the first railway in northern India as tracks are laid between the modern-day locations of Allahabad and Kanpur.source
• 1859April 25 – Ground is broken for the Suez Canal, in Egypt.source
• 1859May 4 – The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge, linking the counties of Devon and Cornwall in England.source
• 1859July 11 – The chimes of Big Ben ring for the first time in London.source
• 1859August 28–September 2 – The solar storm of 1859, the largest geomagnetic solar storm on record, causes the Northern lights to be visible as far south as Montería, Colombia and knocks out telegraph communication (this is also called the Carrington event).source
• 1859November 1 – The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse is lighted for the first time (its first-order Fresnel lens can be seen for 19 miles).source
• 1859Alfred, Lord Tennyson publishes the first set of Idylls of the King.source
• 1859Tidskrift för hemmet, the first women's magazine in the Nordic countries, begins publication in Sweden.source
• 1860December 29 – The world's first ocean-going (all) iron-hulled and armoured battleship, the (British) HMS Warrior, is launched.source
• 1860The Russian Empire has c. 1250 mi km of railroads.source
• 1861January 1 – The first steam-powered carousel is recorded, in Bolton, England.source
• 1861May 17 – A 7-day working men's package holiday to Paris, organised by Thomas Cook, sets out from London Bridge station.source
• 1861October 24 – Western Union completes the first transcontinental telegraph line across the United States.source
• 1861The first industrial meat packing plant in Uruguay is established, at Fray Bentos.source
• 1862January 30 – American Civil War: The first U.S. ironclad warship, , is launched in Brooklyn.source
• 1862February 2 – The first railway is opened in New Zealand, by the Dun Mountain Copper Mining Company.source
• 1862March 17 – The first railway line in Finland, between the cities of Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, is officially opened.source
• 1862April 12 – Great Locomotive Chase (Andrews' Raid) – Union volunteers steal Confederate steam railroad locomotive The General (which will still exist in the 21st century) in an attempt to sabotage the rail network.source
• 1862May 24 – Westminster Bridge is opened across the Thames in London. This new iron bridge, designed by Thomas Page, replaces the previous stone one.source
• 1862July 1 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Pacific Railroad Acts, authorizing construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad.source
• 1862July 18 – Dent Blanche, one of the highest summits in the Alps, is first ascended.source
• 1862August 21 – The Vienna Stadtpark opens its gates.source
• 1862November 4 – Richard Jordan Gatling patents the Gatling gun in the United States.source
• 1862Japanese construction company Satō Kōgyō is founded in Toyama as Satō-gumi.source
• 1863January 10 – The first section of the London Underground Railway (Paddington to Farringdon Street) opens officially. This is the world’s first ever underground railway.source
• 1863January 21 – Adam Opel founds Opel in Germany, originally for the manufacture of sewing machines.source
• 1863February 10 – Alanson Crane of Virginia patents a fire extinguisher.source
• 1863March 14 – Queen Victoria issues Letters Patent granting Goulburn city status, making it Australia's first inland city.source
• 1863April 16 – The first ever submarine to be propelled by mechanized (rather than human) power, Plongeur, of the French Navy, propelled by compressed air, is launched in Rochefort, Charente-Maritime.source
• 1863July 1 – The Kingston loop line of the London and South Western Railway opens.source
• 1863July 6 – Queen Victoria issues Letters Patent, annexing to South Australia the part of the colony of New South Wales that will later become the Northern Territory.source
• 1863September – The Western Railroad from Fayetteville, North Carolina, to the coal fields of Egypt, North Carolina, is completed.source
• 1863October 5 – The Brooklyn, Bath and Coney Island Rail Road starts operations in Brooklyn, New York, making it the oldest right-of-way on the New York City Subway, the largest rapid transit system in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.source
• 1863December 1 – The first steam-operated passenger railway in New Zealand opens at Christchurch in South Island.source
• 1863December 15 – Romania opens its first mountain railway (from Anina to Oravița).source
• 1864August 1 – The Elgin Watch Company is founded in Elgin, Illinois.source
• 1864December 8 – The Clifton Suspension Bridge across the River Avon (Bristol) in England, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and completed as a memorial to him, opens to traffic.source
• 1865February 21 – John Deere receives a United States patent for ploughs.source
• 1865March – Hamm's Brewery opens in St. Paul, Minnesota.source
• 1865April 6 – German chemicals producer Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik (BASF) is founded in Mannheim.source
• 1865April 21 – German chemicals producer BASF moves its headquarters and factories from Mannheim, to the Hemshof District of Ludwigshafen.source
• 1865May 17 – The International Telegraph Union is founded.source
• 1865July 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.source
• 1865July 5 – The U.S. Secret Service is founded.source
• 1865July 23 – The departs on a voyage to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable.source
• 1865July 31 – The first narrow gauge mainline railway in the world opens at Grandchester, Australia.source
• 1866July 27 – The successfully completes laying the transatlantic telegraph cable between Valentia Island, Ireland, and Heart's Content, Newfoundland, permanently restoring a communications link.source
• 1866November 7 – The Ruse–Varna railway line (the first railway in Bulgaria) officially opens.source
• 1866The Minneapolis Milling Company, predecessor of General Mills, builds its own mills.source
• 1867January 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.source
• 1867May 7 – Alfred Nobel patents dynamite in the United Kingdom.source
• 1867June 15 – The Atlantic Cable Quartz Lode gold mine is named in Montana.source
• 1867Pierre Michaux invents the front wheel-driven velocipede, the first mass-produced bicycle.source
• 18671867–1873 – Chinese, Scandinavian and Irish immigrants lay 30000 mi km of railroad tracks in the United States.source
• 1867At Fountain Point, Michigan, an artesian water spring, begins to gush continuously.source
• 1867Clarke 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.source
• 1868March 27 – The Lake Ontario Shore Railroad Company is organized in Oswego, New York.source
• 1868May 31 – The first popular bicycle race is held at Parc de Saint-Cloud, Paris.source
• 1868June 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.source
• 1868July 1 – The cable-operated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in Manhattan becomes the first elevated railway in the United States.source
• 1868October 28 – Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, the electric vote recorder.source
• 1868December 4 – Thomas Humber invented the safety bicycle.source
• 1868December 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.source
• 1868Herrenhäuser Brewery is established in Hanover, Germany.source
• 1868Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.source
• 1869May 10 – The first transcontinental railroad in North America is completed at Promontory, Utah, by the driving of the "golden spike".source
• 1869May 22 – Sainsbury's first store, in Drury Lane, London, is opened.source
• 1869June 15 – John Wesley Hyatt patents celluloid in Albany, New York.source
• 1869July 15 – Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès files a patent for margarine in France.source
• 1869November 17 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony.source
• 1869The Timișoara horse-drawn railway, opened in 1869.source
• 1870January 1 – Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed.source
• 1870January 3 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins in New York City.source
• 1870February 26 – In New York City, the first pneumatic subway, Beach Pneumatic Transit, is opened.source
• 1870June 8 – The final splice on the first telegraph submarine cable between Great Britain and India is made.source
• 1870June 23 –The first message by electric telegraph using the Great Britain to India submarine cable is sent from London.source
• 1870August 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.source
• 1870November 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".source
• 1870December 31 – The 12.8 km mi Fréjus Rail Tunnel through the Alps is completed.source
• 1870David Kenyon invents the fireman's pole in Chicago.source
• 1870Graeter's ice cream is originated in Cincinnati, Ohio.source
• 1871March 21 – Otto von Bismarck becomes the first Chancellor of the German Empire.source
• 1871March 27 – The first Rugby Union International results in a 1–0 win, by Scotland over England.source
• 1871March 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.source
• 1871May 4 – The first supposedly Major League Baseball game is played in America.source
• 1871May 8 – The first Major League Baseball home run is hit by Ezra Sutton, of the Cleveland Forest Citys.source
• 1871May 21 – The first rack railway in Europe, the Vitznau–Rigi Railway on Mount Rigi in Switzerland, is opened.source
• 1871July 22 – The foundation stone of the first Tay Bridge is laid; the bridge collapses as a train crosses in a storm eight years later.source
• 1871October 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.source
• 1871November 7 – The London–Australia telegraph cable is brought ashore at Darwin.source
• 1871December 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.source
• 1871c. 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.source
• 1872March 5 – George Westinghouse receives a United States patent for the "failsafe" automatic railway air brake.source
• 1872August 22 – The Australian Overland Telegraph Line is completed, providing a telegraphic link between Australia and the rest of the world for the first time.source
• 1872December 1 – Responsible government is granted to Cape Colony (South Africa). Sir John Molteno, first Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope, forms the first Cape Cabinet which immediately plans to establish Cape Government Railways and take over the operation of all private railways in the Colony.source
• 1872Under Japan's Meiji Restoration:source
• 1873May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive United States patent 139121, for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. begins manufacturing the famous Levi's brand of jeans, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.source
• 1873May – Henry Rose exhibits barbed wire at an Illinois county fair, which is taken up by Joseph Glidden and Jacob Haish, who invent a machine to mass-produce it.source
• 1873August 4 – American Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the Seventh Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clashes for the first time with the Sioux, near the Tongue River (only 1 man on each side is killed).source
• 1873December – Major Walter Clopton Wingfield designs and patents a racquet sport, which he calls sphairistike (Greek σφάίρίστική, "skill at playing at ball"), soon known simply as Stické and an ancestor of lawn tennis, for the amusement of his guests at a garden party on his estate of Nantclwyd, in Llanelidan, Wales.source
• 1873In Mexico, the Veracruz–Mexico City railroad is completed.source
• 1873Coors Brewing Company begins making beer in Golden, Colorado.source
• 1873Demonstration of an electric tram operated on Miller's line at Sestroretsk near Saint Petersburg in the Russian Empire by inventor Fyodor Pirotsky.source
• 1874February 21 – The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first issue in California.source
• 1874February 23 – Walter Clopton Wingfield patents in Britain a game called "sphairistike", more commonly called lawn tennis.source
• 1874July 1 – The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, with cylindrical platen and QWERTY keyboard, is first marketed in the United States.source
• 1874July 1 – The Bank of Spain issues the first peseta banknotes.source
• 1874July 24 – Mathew Evans and Henry Woodward patent the first incandescent lamp, with an electric light bulb.source
• 1874November 10 – John Ernst Worrell Keely demonstrates his "induction resonance motion motor", a perpetual motion machine, which eventually turns out to be a fraud.source
• 1874The Agra Canal opens in India.source
• 1875January 1 – The Midland Railway of England abolishes the Second Class passenger category, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British railway companies follow Midland's lead during the rest of the year (Third Class is renamed Second Class in 1956).source
• 1875March 3 – The first indoor ice hockey game is played at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.source
• 1875May 17 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.source
• 1875July 11 – Tanaka Manufacturing, a telecommunications factory in Ginza, Tokyo, a predecessor of Toshiba, a Japanese electromechanics giant, is founded.source
• 1875August 25 – Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel.source
• 1875November 26 – The Times newspaper in London reveals that Isma'il Pasha has sold Egypt's 44% share in the Suez Canal to Britain, in a deal secured by Benjamin Disraeli, without the prior sanction of the British Parliament.source
• 1876February 14 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a U.S. patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.source
• 1876March 7 – Alexander Graham Bell is granted a United States patent for the telephone.source
• 1876March 10 – Alexander Graham Bell makes the first successful telephone call, saying "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you".source
• 1876April 1 – Lars Magnus Ericsson starts a small mechanical workshop in Stockholm, Sweden (from April 27 partnering with Carl Johan Andersson), dealing with telegraphy equipment, which grows into the worldwide company Ericsson.source
• 1876May 1 – The Settle–Carlisle Railway in England is opened to passenger traffic (it opened to goods traffic in 1875).source
• 1876May 17 – Nicolaus Otto files his patent for the four-stroke cycle internal combustion engine.source
• 1876June 4 – The Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco via the first transcontinental railroad, 83 hours and 39 minutes after having left New York City.source
• 1876August 8 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.source
• 1876October 4 – Texas A&M University opens for classes.source
• 1876Lyford House, by Richardson Bay, Tiburon, California, is constructed.source
• 1876Charles Wells opens his brewery, based in Bedford, England.source
• 1876Construction of Spandau Prison in Berlin is completed.source
• 1876Emile Berliner invents an improved form of microphone which will be adopted for Alexander Graham Bell's telephone.source
• 1877March 4 – Emile Berliner patents the microphone in the United States.source
• 1877March 15 – English cricket team in Australia and New Zealand in 1876–77: The first Test cricket match is held between England and Australia.source
• 1877June 20 – Alexander Graham Bell installs the world's first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.source
• 1878The world's First Telephone Exchange begins commercial operation in New Haven, Connecticut.source
• 1878February 19 – The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison.source
• 1878June 1 – The General Postal Union is renamed the Universal Postal Union (UPU).source
• 1878September 12 – Cleopatra's Needle is erected beside the Thames in London, having arrived in England on January 21.source
• 1878December 7 – The United States territory of New Mexico is linked to the rest of the nation by railroad for the first time, as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway inaugurates a newly completed line through the Raton Pass.source
• 1878Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club, the team that will become Manchester United.source
• 1878Small town La Farge, Wisconsin, along the Kickapoo River.source
• 1878E. Remington and Sons, in the United States, introduce their No. 2 typewriter, the first with a shift key, enabling production of lower as well as upper case characters.source
• 1878Lester Allan Pelton produces the first operational Pelton wheel.source
• 1878Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard, as predecessor of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a motorbike, helicopters, rolling stock and shipbuilding concern in Japan.source
• 1879February 3 – Mosley Street in Newcastle upon Tyne (England) becomes the world's first public highway to be lit by the electric incandescent light bulb invented by Joseph Swan.source
• 1879April – Postman Ferdinand Cheval begins to build his Palais Idéal at Hauterives in France.source
• 1879May 30 – New York City's Gilmore's Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.source
• 1879June 6 – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Rotomahana, on the River Clyde in Scotland. On October 2 they launch the first transatlantic steamer of the same material, the SS Buenos Ayrean; on December 1 she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow, bound for South America.source
• 1879September 19 – The Blackpool Illuminations in England are switched on for the first time.source
• 1879October 22 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests his first practical electric light bulb (it lasts hours before burning out).source
• 1879November 4 – Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his invention of the incandescent light bulb (U.S. Patent 223,898 will be granted on January 27, 1880).source
• 1879November 10 – The Bell Telephone Company and Western Union reach an agreement in the United States, in which the former agrees to stay out of telegraphy and the latter to keep out of the telephone business.source
• 1879December 28 – Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee, Scotland, collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 75.source
• 1880January 27 – Thomas Edison is granted a patent for the incandescent light bulb. Edison filed for a US patent for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected ... to platina contact wires." Although the patent described several ways of creating the carbon filament, including using "cotton and linen thread, wood splints, papers coiled in various ways," Edison and his team later discovered that a carbonized bamboo filament could last more than 1200 hours.source
• 1880February 2 – The first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, Indiana.source
• 1880May 2 – After having her lights installed by Edison's personnel, the SS Columbia is lit up for the first time at the foot of Wall Street, in New York City.source
• 1880May 13 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.source
• 1880June 1 – Tinius Olsen is awarded a United States Patent, for the Little Giant Testing Machine.source
• 1880June – The SS Columbia sets off on her maiden voyage around Cape Horn to Portland, Oregon, carrying 13 locomotives and 200 railcars.source
• 1880July 14 – Dorchester Penitentiary opens in Canada.source
• 1880November 4 – The first cash register is patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.source
• 1881January 25 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.source
• 1881February 16 – The Canadian Pacific Railway is incorporated.source
• 1881March 1 – The Cunard Line's , the first large steel transatlantic liner, is launched at Clydebank in Scotland.source
• 1881May 16 – The world's first regular electric tram service is started near Berlin, by Siemens & Halske.source
• 1881June 20 – The current Cincinnati Reds baseball team plays its first game.source
• 1881September 26 – Godalming becomes the first town in England to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).source
• 1881October 10 – Richard D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theatre opens in London, the world's first public building to be fully lit by electricity, using Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulbs.source
• 1881Rafaela, Argentina, is formed.source
• 1882January 12 – Holborn Viaduct power station in the City of London, the world's first coal-fired public electricity generating station, begins operation.source
• 1882April 29 – The Elektromote, the world's first trolleybus, begins operation in Berlin.source
• 1882May 1 – The Berlin Philharmonic orchestra is founded in Germany, as Frühere Bilsesche Kapelle.source
• 1882July 11–13 – Anglo-Egyptian War: The British Mediterranean Fleet carries out the Bombardment of Alexandria, its forces capturing the city of Alexandria, Egypt, and securing the Suez Canal.source
• 1882September 4 – Thomas Edison flips the switch to the first commercial electrical power plant in the United States, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan. This is considered by many as the day that begins the electrical age.source
• 1882September 5 – The first United States Labor Day parade is held in New York City.source
• 1882October 10 – The Bank of Japan opens in Tokyo City.source
• 1882October 16 – The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad ("Nickel Plate Road") runs its first trains over the entire system between Buffalo, New York, and Chicago. Nine days later the Seney Syndicate sells the road to William Henry Vanderbilt, for US$7.2 million.source
• 1882The British Chartered Institute of Patent Agents (the modern-day Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys) is founded.source
• 1882Redruth Mining School opens in Cornwall.source
• 1882Nikola Tesla claims this is when he conceives the rotating magnetic field principle, which he later uses to invent his induction motor.source
• 1883January 19 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service in Roselle, New Jersey, United States, installed by Thomas Edison.source
• 1883February 15 – Tokyo Electrical Lightning Grid, predecessor of Tokyo Electrical Power (TEPCO), one of the largest electrical grids in Asia and the world, is founded in Japan.source
• 1883February 23 – Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.source
• 1883March 20 – The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property is held.source
• 1883April 5 – Oxygen is liquefied for the first time.source
• 1883May 24 – Brooklyn Bridge is opened to traffic in New York City, after 13 years of construction.source
• 1883June 28 – In Milan, Italy, the first central European electricity power station is inaugurated.source
• 1883July 4 – The world's first rodeo is held in Pecos, Texas.source
• 1883September 29 – A consortium of flour mill operators in Minneapolis forms the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie and Atlantic Railway, as a means to get their product to the Great Lakes ports, avoiding the high tariffs of Chicago.source
• 1883October 22 – The Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram in Vienna (Austria) is the first electric tram powered by overhead wire.source
• 1883November 18 – U.S. and Canadian railroads institute 5 standard continental time zones, ending the confusion of thousands of local times.source
• 1883ASEA is founded by Ludvig Fredholm in Sweden, predecessor of the global electronic equipment and engineering business ABB.source
• 1883Construction of Speicherstadt as a free zone in the Port of Hamburg begins.source
• 1883Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in Marylandsource
• 1883During construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883, blasting and excavation reveal high concentrations of nickel–copper ore at Murray Mine, on the edge of the Sudbury Basin, located near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.source
• 1884March – John Joseph Montgomery conducts the first manned glider flights in the United States near Otay, California.source
• 1884May 1 – The eight-hour workday is first proclaimed by the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions in the United States. This date, called May Day or Labour Day, becomes a holiday recognized in almost every industrialized country.source
• 1884May 16 – Angelo Moriondo of Turin is granted a patent for an espresso machine.source
• 1884June 13 – LaMarcus Adna Thompson opens the "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway" at Coney Island, New York City.source
• 1884July 3 – The Dow Jones Transportation Average, consisting of eleven transportation-related companies (nine railroads and two non-rail companies, Western Union and Pacific Mail), is created in the United States. The index is the oldest stock index to remain in use.source
• 1884July 7 – Nagasaki Shipyard, predecessor of the Japanese aircraft and shipbuilding business Mitsubishi, is founded on the island of Kyushu.source
• 1884August 5 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty is laid on Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor.source
• 1884November 2 – Timișoara, Romania, is the first town in Europe with streets illuminated by electric light.source
• 1884Thomas Parker builds a practical production electric car in Wolverhampton (England) using his own specially designed high-capacity rechargeable batteries.source
• 1884Mexican General Manuel Mondragón designs an early form of the Mondragón rifle, the world's first automatic rifle.source
• 1885January 20 – American inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson patents a roller coaster.source
• 1885February 16 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The index stands at a level of 62.76, and represents the dollar average of 14 stocks: 12 railroads and two leading American industries.source
• 1885March 3 – A subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Company, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), is incorporated in New York.source
• 1885April 3 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent, for his single-cylinder, water-cooled engine design.source
• 1885May 20 – The first public train departs Swanage railway station, on the newly built Swanage Railway in England.source
• 1885July 14 – Sarah E. Goode is the first African-American woman to apply for and receive a patent, for the invention of the hideaway bed.source
• 1885July 15 – The Reservation at Niagara Falls opens, enabling access to all for free. Thomas V. Welch is the first Superintendent of the Park.source
• 1885July 20 – The Football Association recognises professional players in England.source
• 1885August 29 – Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for the Daimler Reitwagen, regarded as the first motorcycle, which he has produced with Wilhelm Maybach.source
• 1885October 10 – The largest ever explosion for a non-military purpose is set off in the East River of New York City as part of a scheme for the removal of Hell Gate rocks by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.source
• 1885November 7 – Canadian Pacific Railway: At Craigellachie, British Columbia, the last spike is driven on a railway extending across Canada. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald considers the project to be vital to Canada, due to the exponentially greater potential for military mobility.source
• 1885December 1 – Dr Pepper is served for the first time (as acknowledged by the U.S. Patent Office; the exact date of Dr. Pepper's invention is unknown).source
• 1885Michigan Technological University (originally Michigan Mining School) opens its doors for the first time, in the future Houghton County Fire Hall.source
• 1885Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen in Mannheim (Germany), regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following year).source
• 1885Bicycle Playing Cards are first produced in the United States.source
• 1885John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle in Coventry (England), regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.source
• 1886January 29 – Karl Benz patents the first successful gasoline-driven automobile, the Benz Patent-Motorwagen (built in 1885).source
• 1886February 14 – The first trainload of oranges leaves Los Angeles via the United States transcontinental railroad.source
• 1886March 16 – A law establishing the Kiel Canal is adopted in the German Empire.source
• 1886March 20 – William Stanley Jr. demonstrates the first commercial alternating current generator and transformer system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.source
• 1886March 29 – Wilhelm Steinitz becomes the first recognized World Chess Champion.source
• 1886March – Gottlieb Daimler assembles his first automobile, in Germany.source
• 1886May 4 – Emile Berliner starts work that leads to the invention of the gramophone.source
• 1886May 10 – Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that corporations have the same rights as living persons.source
• 1886May 29 – John Pemberton begins to advertise Coca-Cola (in The Atlanta Journal).source
• 1886June 12 – King Ludwig II of Bavaria is detained as part of a deposition, drowning the following day under mysterious circumstances. Because his brother Otto lacks mental capacity, their uncle Luitpold (until 1912) serves as regent. Six weeks later, Ludwig's unfinished Neuschwanstein Castle is opened to the public.source
• 1886June 13 – A large log jam forms on the St. Croix River near Taylors Falls, Minnesotasource
• 1886July 3 – Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen.source
• 1886July 9 – American inventor Charles Martin Hall files a patent for his inexpensive method of refining aluminium (discovered on February 23); independently and near-simultaneously discovered in France by Paul Héroult it becomes known as the Hall–Héroult process.source
• 1886July 23 – Steve Brodie is reported to have made a jump from the Brooklyn Bridge, a claim subsequently disputed.source
• 1886September 21 – American physicist William Stanley Jr. patents the first practical alternating current transformer device, the induction coil.source
• 1886October 28 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France, in New York Harbor. The ensuing spontaneous celebration in New York City leads to the first ticker tape parade.source
• 1886November 14 – German inventor Friedrich Soennecken first develops the hole puncher, a type of office tool capable of punching small holes in paper.source
• 1886November 15 – The Werkstätte für Feinmechanik und Elektrotechnik (Workshop for Fine Mechanics and Electronics) is founded in Baden-Württemberg, Germany by Robert Bosch. The company will later become the home appliance and power tool brand, Robert Bosch GmbH.source
• 1887January 28 – Construction work begins on the foundations of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France.source
• 1887February 5 – The 1887 Hartford Railroad Disaster leaves thirty-seven dead in Vermont.source
• 1887February 24 – The first international telephone line in Europe is opened to the public between Brussels and Paris.source
• 1887March 3 – Anne Sullivan begins teaching Helen Keller.source
• 1887March 13 – Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs in the United States.source
• 1887June 8 – Herman Hollerith receives a U.S. patent for his punched card calculator.source
• 1887July 1 – Construction of the iron structure of the Eiffel Tower starts in Paris, France.source
• 1887July 19 – Dorr Eugene Felt receives the first U.S. patent for his comptometer.source
• 1887July – James Blyth operates the first working wind turbine at Marykirk, Scotland.source
• 1887November 8 – Emile Berliner is granted a U.S. patent for the Berliner Gramophone.source
• 1887Heyl & Patterson Inc., a pioneer in coal unloading equipment, is founded by Edmund W. Heyl and William J. Patterson in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.source
• 1887Publication in Barcelona of Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete, the first work of fiction to feature a time machine.source
• 1887The first battery rail car is used on the Royal Bavarian State Railways.source
• 1888February 27 – In West Orange, New Jersey, Thomas Edison meets with Eadweard Muybridge, who proposes a scheme for sound film.source
• 1888March 1 - Queensland's Western Railway Line reaches Charleville.source
• 1888April 3 – The Brighton Beach Hotel in Coney Island (New York) is moved 520 ft m, using six steam locomotives, by civil engineer B. C. Miller, to save it from ocean storms.source
• 1888April 21 – The Texas State Capitol building, completed at a cost of $3 million, opens to the public in Austin.source
• 1888May 30 – Hong Kong's Peak Tram begins operation.source
• 1888August 1 – Carl Benz is issued with the world's first driving licence by the Grand Duchy of Baden.source
• 1888August 5 – Bertha Benz arrives in Pforzheim having driven 40 mi km from Mannheim in a car manufactured by her husband Carl Benz, thus completing the first "long-distance" drive in the history of the automobile.source
• 1888August 10 – Dr Friedrich Hermann Wölfert’s motorised airship successfully completes the world’s first engine-driven flight, from Cannstatt to Kornwestheim in Germany.source
• 1888August 24 –The first trams in Tallinn (Reval), horsecars, begin operation.source
• 1888September 4 – In the United States, George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent for his camera, which uses roll film.source
• 1888September 6 – Australian cricketer Charles Turner becomes the first bowler to take 250 wickets in an English season – a feat since accomplished only by Tom Richardson (twice), J. T. Hearne, Wilfred Rhodes (twice) and Tich Freeman (six times).source
• 1888September 27 – Stanley Park is officially opened by Vancouver (B.C.) mayor David Oppenheimer.source
• 1888October 9 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public in Washington, D.C.source
• 1888October 14 – Louis Le Prince films the first motion picture: Roundhay Garden Scene in Roundhay, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, two seconds and 18 frames in length (followed by his movie Leeds Bridge and Accordion Player).source
• 1888November 8 – Joseph Assheton Fincher files a patent in the United Kingdom for the parlour game which he calls "Tiddledy-Winks".source
• 1888December 7 – John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre in the United Kingdom.source
• 1888In Poland, silver manufacturer Schiffers & Co. is founded in Warsaw.source
• 1889January 8 – Herman Hollerith receives a patent for his electric tabulating machine in the United States.source
• 1889March 12 – Almon B. Strowger, an undertaker in Topeka, Kansas, files a patent in the United States for an automatic telephone exchange using the Strowger switch.source
• 1889April – British chemists Frederick Abel and James Dewar file their first patent for the smokeless propellant cordite.source
• 1889May 6 – The Exposition Universelle opens in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower as its entrance arch. The Galerie des machines, at 111 m ft, spans the longest interior space in the world at this time. The Exposition, which marks the centenary of the French Revolution, runs until October 31.source
• 1889June 3 – The first long distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 mi km between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.source
• 1889June 11 – A Neapolitan baker named Raffaele Esposito invents the Pizza Margherita, named after the queen consort of Italy Margherita of Savoy. This is the forerunner of the modern pizza.source
• 1889August 6 – The Savoy Hotel in London opens.source
• 1889August 30 – The Royal Mail Mount Pleasant Sorting Office officially opens in London.source
• 1889October 6 – The Moulin Rouge cabaret opens in Paris.source
• 1889November 2 – English Association football team Wimbledon F.C. plays their first match.source
• 1889November 23 – The first jukebox goes into operation, at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.source
• 1889December 28 – The first interurban tram-train to emerge in the United States is the Newark and Granville Street Railway in Ohio.source
• 1889An early method of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission, as developed by the Swiss engineer René Thury, is implemented commercially in Italy by the Acquedotto de Ferrari-Galliera Company. This system transmits 630 kW at 14 kV DC over a distance of 120 km mi.source
• 1889Yellow fever interrupts the building of the Panama Canal.source
• 1889The Capilano Suspension Bridge (the longest suspension foot-bridge in the world) is opened in British Columbia.source
• 1890March 4 – The Forth Bridge, the longest bridge in Great Britain, on the Firth of Forth in Scotland, is opened to rail traffic.source
• 1890March 17 – The first railway in Transvaal, the Randtram, opens between Boksburg and Braamfontein in Johannesburg.source
• 1890October 9 – The first brief flight of Clément Ader's steam-powered fixed-wing aircraft Ader Éole takes place in Satory, France. It flies uncontrolled approximately 50 m ft at a height of 20 cm in, the first take-off of a powered airplane solely under its own power.source
• 1890November 4 – The first deep level London Underground (Tube) Railway, the City and South London Railway, opens officially.source
• 1890December 10 – The New York World Building is completed in New York City, the tallest building in the United States for 10 years at a height of 110 meters.source
• 1890Japanese tractor and iron pipe brand, Kubota founded in Osaka, Japan.source
• 1890Brown trout are introduced into the upper Firehole River, in Yellowstone National Park.source
• 1890Emerson Electric, an American electronics industry giant, is founded in Missouri.source
• 1890Blackwall Buildings, Whitechapel, noted philanthropic housing, is built in the East End of London.source
• 1890The United States city of Boise, Idaho, drills the first geothermal well.source
• 1891January 5 – A fight between railway strikers and police breaks out at Motherwell, Scotland.source
• 1891January 15 – Scottish railway strikers attempt to wreck a train near Greenock, Scotland.source
• 1891March 18 – The London–Paris telephone system officially opens.source
• 1891April 1 – The London–Paris telephone system is opened to the general public.source
• 1891May 1 – The first Fascio dei lavoratori (Workers League) is founded by Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida in Catania, Sicily.source
• 1891May 31 N.S. (May 19 O.S.) – In the Kuperovskaya district of Vladivostok, a grand ceremonial inauguration of construction work on the Trans-Siberian Railway is carried out by the Tsesarevich Nikolay Alexandrovich, and a religious service held.source
• 1891June 21 – The first long-distance transmission of alternating current is made, from the Ames power plant near Telluride, Colorado, by Lucien and Paul Nunn.source
• 1891June – The clipper ship Cromdale is completed. She is the last fully rigged ship built for the Australian wool trade.source
• 1891August 5 – The first American Express traveler's cheque is cashed.source
• 1891September 22 – The first hydropower plant of Finland is commissioned along the Tammerkoski rapids in Tampere, Pirkanmaa.source
• 1891September 28 – Club Atlético Peñarol is founded in Montevideo, under the name of the CURCC (Central Uruguay Railway Cricket Club).source
• 1891November 28 – The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is organized in St. Louis, Missouri.source
• 1891Philips founded in Eindhoven, Netherlands, for the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products.source
• 1891Michelin patents the removable pneumatic bicycle tire.source
• 1891Production of the Swiss Army Knife by Victorinox begins.source
• 1892February 27 – Rudolf Diesel applies for a patent in Germany, on his compression ignition engine (the Diesel engine).source
• 1892March 15 – Jesse W. Reno patents the first escalator, installed at Coney Island as a pleasure ride.source
• 1892March 31 – The world's first fingerprinting bureau is formally opened by the Buenos Aires Chief of Police; it has been operating unofficially since the previous year.source
• 1892May 20 – The last broad gauge train runs from Paddington on the Great Western Railway of England.source
• 1892June 6 – The Chicago "L" begins operation for the first time with the opening of the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad.source
• 1892August 9 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.source
• 1893January 2 – Webb C. Ball introduces railroad chronometers, which become the general railroad timepiece standards in North America.source
• 1893January 15 – The Telefon Hírmondó service starts with around 60 subscribers, in Budapest.source
• 1893February 23 – Rudolf Diesel receives a patent for the diesel engine.source
• 1893March 6 – The Liverpool Overhead Railway opens with 2-car electric multiple units, the first to operate in the world.source
• 1893June 20 – The Wengernalpbahn railway in Wengen, Switzerland (Canton of Bern) is opened.source
• 18936 August – The Corinth Canal is completed in Greece.source
• 1893August 14 – The world's first driving licenses are introduced in France under the Paris Police Ordinance.source
• 1893September 21 – Brothers Charles and Frank Duryea drive the first gasoline-powered motorcar in America, on public roads in Springfield, Massachusetts.source
• 1893October 10 – The first car number plates appear in Paris, France.source
• 1893Mark Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson begins serialization in The Century Magazine (U.S.)source
• 1893The first recumbent bicycle, the Fautenil Vélociped, is made in France.source
• 1893Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, is incorporated as a town.source
• 1894January 7 – William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for motion picture film in the United States.source
• 1894January 9 – New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard, in Lexington, Massachusetts.source
• 1894March 12 – Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time.source
• 1894May 14 – Blackpool Tower is opened in Blackpool, in north-west England, as a visitor attraction.source
• 1894May 21 – The Manchester Ship Canal and Docks are officially opened by Queen Victoria, linking the previously landlocked industrial city of Manchester, in north-west England, to the Irish Sea.source
• 1894June 30 – Tower Bridge in London opens for traffic.source
• 1894July 22 – The Paris–Rouen Competition for Horseless Carriages, the first automobile competition, is held.source
• 1894October 30 – Domenico Menegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.source
• 1895March 18 – The world's first gasoline bus route is started in Germany, between Siegen and Netphen.source
• 1895March 22 – Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière make what is probably the first presentation of a projected celluloid film moving picture, the 46-second Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory, to members of the Société d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in Paris.source
• 1895March 30 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany.source
• 1895April 27 – The unique, historic and picturesque Spiral Bridge is constructed to carry U.S. 61 over the Mississippi River at Hastings, Minnesota. It is demolished in 1951.source
• 1895May 18 – The first motor race in Italy is held, on a course from Turin to Asti and back, a total of 93 km mi. Five entrants start the event; only three complete it. It is won by Simone Federman in a four-seat Daimler Omnibus, at an average speed of 15.5 km/h mph.source
• 1895June 21 – The Kiel Canal, connecting the North Sea to the Baltic across the base of the Jutland peninsula in Germany, is officially opened.source
• 1895September 3 – The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).source
• 1895September 24–October 3 – the Automobile Club de France sponsors the longest race to date, a 1710 km mi event, from Bordeaux to Agen and back. Because it is held in ten stages, it can be considered the first rally. The first three places are taken by two Panhards and a three-wheeler De Dion-Bouton.source
• 1895November 5 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.source
• 1895December 15 – The railways of the Cape of Good Hope, Colony of Natal, the Orange Free State, the South African Republic and southern Mozambique are all linked at Union Junction near Alberton.source
• 1895December 18 – The Laurin & Klement automobile brand, predecessor of Škoda Auto, is founded as a bicycle manufacturer in central Bohemia (modern-day Czech Republic).source
• 1895The world's first portable handheld electric drill is developed, by brothers Wilhelm and Carl Fein in Germany.source
• 1895The Duck Reach Power Station opens in Tasmania (the first publicly owned hydroelectric plant in the Southern Hemisphere).source
• 1895The name 'HP Sauce' is first registered in the United Kingdom for a brown sauce.source
• 1896June 4 – The Ford Quadricycle, the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford, is completed, eventually leading Ford to build the empire that "put America on wheels".source
• 1896June 18 – The New York Telephone Company is formed, succeeding the Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph Company, to control telephone service within New York City.source
• 1896August 14 – The Uganda Railway Act, 1896, is approved in the United Kingdom, for construction of a railway in Africa from Mombasa to Lake Victoria.source
• 1896October 1 – Gottlieb Daimler builds the first gasoline truck.source
• 1896December 14 – The Glasgow Subway, the third-oldest underground metro system in the world, opens.source
• 1896A school of mines opens in Kimberley and will form the core of the University of the Witwatersrand.source
• 1897January 22 – In this date's issue of the journal Engineering, the word computer is first used to refer to a mechanical calculation device.source
• 1897April 19 – The first Boston Marathon is held in the United States, with fifteen men competing, and is won by John McDermott.source
• 1897May 11 – A patent is awarded for the invention of the first automotive muffler, with the granting by the U.S. Patent Office of application number 582,485 to Milton Reeves and his brother Marshall T. Reeves, of the Reeves Pulley Company of Columbus, Indiana.source
• 1897May 22 – The Blackwall Tunnel, at this time the longest underwater road tunnel in the world, is opened for traffic beneath the River Thames in the East End of London by the Prince of Wales.source
• 1897August 21 – The Olds Motor Vehicle Co. is founded in Lansing, Michigan, by Ransom E. Olds.source
• 1897August 31 – Thomas Edison is granted a patent for the Kinetoscope, a precursor of the movie projector.source
• 1897September 1 – The Tremont Street subway is opened in Boston, Massachusetts.source
• 1897Dos Equis beer is first brewed in Mexico, in anticipation of the new century. "Dos equis" is Spanish for "two x", a reference to the 20th Century (XX in Roman numerals)source
• 1897The first electric bicycle is invented.source
• 1898March 24 – Robert Allison of Port Carbon, Pennsylvania, becomes the first person to buy an American-built automobile, when he buys a Winton automobile that has been advertised in Scientific American.source
• 1898March 26 – The Sabie Game Reserve in South Africa is created, as the first officially designated game reserve.source
• 1898April 25 – In Essen, German company Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk RWE is founded.source
• 1898April 29 – The Paris Auto Show, the first large-scale commercial vehicle exhibition show, is held in Tuileries Garden.source
• 1898August 20 – The Gornergrat railway opens, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat in Switzerland.source
• 1898October 11 – The Kubok Obschestva Velosipednoy Ezdy (Bicycle Riders Society Cup) first Grand Prix in Russia is staged with seven cars near Saint Petersburg, on a route from Alexandrovskaya to Strelna and back again for a total distance of 25 mi, and is won by Pavel Belyaev.source
• 1898October 15 – In Canada, the "9 O'Clock Gun" is fired for the first time at Stanley Park in Vancouver, and goes on to become a daily tradition to serve as a time signal for ships in port and for local residents to set their timepieces at exactly 9:00 p.m. local time.source
• 1898October 16 – The American ferryboat Berkeley, the only means prior to 1937 for motor vehicles to travel directly across San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland, is launched. Its role will be superseded in 1937 by the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge.source
• 1898October 24 – Chinese soldiers attack a party of British engineers at the Marco Polo Bridge on the Beijing to Hankou railway.source
• 1898October 24 – Augustus Herring, hired by civil engineer Octave Chanute to design and help test heavier-than-air flying machines, reportedly makes a flight near St. Joseph, Michigan, traveling slightly above the ground for a level distance of more than 70 ft in 10 seconds.source
• 1898December 15 – The French Chamber of Deputies votes to extend a loan of 200,000,000 francs for the construction of railroads in French Indochina.source
• 1898December 18 – Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat sets the first official land speed record in an automobile, averaging over in France.source
• 1898December 25 – Penny postage goes into effect throughout the British Empire, setting the cost of mailing a letter to most British colonies at one pence. Rates remain the same for mail to Australia, New Zealand and the Cape Colony.source
• 1899January 21 – Opel Motors opens for business in Germany.source
• 1899January 26 – German inventor Karl Ferdinand Braun, who will later share the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Guglielmo Marconi, receives a British patent for his wireless radio invention "Telegraphy without directly connected wire".source
• 1899February 12 – The cornerstone for the Aswan Dam is set down in Egypt.source
• 1899March 3 – Guglielmo Marconi conducts radio beacon experiments on Salisbury Plain and notices that radio waves are being reflected back to the transmitter by objects they encounter, one of the early steps in the development of radar.source
• 1899March 6 – In Berlin, Felix Hoffmann patents Aspirin and Bayer registers its name as a trademark.source
• 1899March 11 – Waldemar Jungner files the patent application for the first alkaline battery and receives a Swedish patent.source
• 1899March 11 – The world's first wireless distress signal is sent by wireless telegraphy (in Morse code) to the East Goodwin light vessel when German cargo-carrying barquentine Elbe runs aground in fog in the English Channel.source
• 1899March 21 – The Eden Theatre in La Ciotat, a commune in France near Marseille, lays a claim to being the first cinema as brothers Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière present their short film, L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat ("The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station") to 250 surprised spectators.source
• 1899March 27 – Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmits a radio signal across the English Channel.source
• 1899April 29 – In the U.S., several hundred miners capture a railroad train at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, arm themselves with guns and dynamite, and advance on the town of Wardner, Idaho, destroying property of mining ccompanies that employ non-unon labor.source
• 1899May 1 – Britain's Prime Minister announces in the House of Commons that the government has not been able to reach an agreement with Cecil Rhodes on plans for a Cape Town to Cairo railroad across Africa.source
• 1899May 4 – German inventor John Matthias Stroh applies for the patent for his new invention, the "Stroh violin". A British patent is granted on March 24, 1900.source
• 1899June 27 – A patent for a form of paperclip is applied for by Norwegian inventor Johan Vaaler but it is never put into production.source
• 1899June 30 – 'Mile-a-Minute Murphy' earns his nickname after he becomes the first man to ride a bicycle for 1 mi km in under a minute, on Long Island. Murphy pedals his bike one mile in 57.8 seconds for an average speed of 62.28 miles per hour.source
• 1899July 8 – The Lorelei Fountain is unveiled in The Bronx in New York City.source
• 1899July 11 – In Turin, Giovanni Agnelli and eight investors form the Italian automobile manufacturer F.I.A.T., producers of the Fiat motor vehicles.source
• 1899July 20 – Park Row Building in New York City is completed. It is the world's tallest building until 1908.source
• 1899August 5 – Automotive mechanic Henry Ford incorporates the Detroit Automobile Company. While the company failed, it establishes Detroit, Michigan, as the site for U.S. car manufacturing and provided a model for the Ford Motor Company.source
• 1899September 19 – The patent for the first water meter is granted to Edwin Ford.source
• 1899September 28 – Austrian auto designer Ferdinand Porsche attracts worldwide attention when his first car, the Porsche P1, wins the Berlin Road Race 18 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.source
• 1899October 19 – Boer troops commanded by Johannes Kock capture the railway station in Elandslaagte and cut the telegraph line between the British Army headquarters at Ladysmith and its station at Dundee.source
• 1899November 8 – The Bronx Zoological Park opens in New York City.source
• 1899November 14 – The first aerial crossing of the Mediterranean Sea is made by Louis Capazza and Alphonse Fondère in Capazza's balloon.source
• 1899November 15 – The American Line's becomes the first ocean liner to report her imminent arrival by wireless telegraphy.source