- Jan 1 The Reichsbank, central bank of the German Empire, opens in Berlin
- Jan 15 "Die Afrikaanse Patriot", the first newspaper in Afrikaans, is published in Paarl
- Jan 31 The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations
- Feb 2 Baseball's National League forms at the Grand Central Hotel, NYC with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia and St Louis
- Feb 3 Albert Spalding invests $800 to start sporting goods company, manufacturing first official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball and football
- Feb 7 US President Grant's private secretary Orville acquitted in Whiskey Ring
Telephone Invention Dispute? That Rings a Bell
Feb 14 Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents, the Supreme Court eventually rules Bell the rightful inventor
Event of Interest
Feb 14 Henry John Heinz founds F & J Heinz with his brother John Heinz and cousin Frederick Heinz
Peer Gynt
Feb 24 Henrik Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt" premieres in Oslo
Alexander Graham Bell Patents Telephone
Mar 7 Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone in the US
- Mar 7 Battle at Gura: Ethiopian emperor Yohannes beats Egyptians
Bell's 1st Telephone Call
Mar 10 First telephone call; Alexander Graham Bell says "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you" to his assistant Thomas Watson
- Mar 11 English FA Cup Final, Kennington Oval, London: Wanderers and Old Etonians draw, 1-1; Wanderers win replay, 3-0 for 3rd title
- Mar 16 Nelly Saunders & Rose Harland fight 1st female boxing match (NY)
- Mar 17 British high jump champion Marshall Jones Brooks clears 1.83m at Oxford, England for unofficial world record; thought to be first leap over 6'
- Mar 17 General Crook destroy Cheyennes & Oglala-Sioux Indian camps
- Mar 18 English FA Cup Final Replay, Kennington Oval, London: Wanderers beat Old Etonians, 3-0 after initial 1-1 draw; Wanderers 3rd title
- Mar 24 38th Grand National: Joe Cannon aboard 25/1 chance Regal wins by a neck from Congress
Agostino Depretis Prime Minister
Mar 25 Agostino Depretis becomes Prime Minister of Italy for the first time as head of a left-leaning government
- Mar 25 Glasgow 1st soccer match Scotland defeat Wales (4-0)
- Apr 8 Amiliare Ponchielli's opera "La Gioconda" premieres in Milan
- Apr 11 Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks organizes in New York City
- Apr 11 Sir Charles Gordon ends religious tolerance in Sudan
- Apr 12 Canada's parliament passes the Indian Act to administer status and lands of First Nations People - primarily to assimilate them [1]
- Apr 18 Daniel O'Leary completes a 500 mile walk in 139 hrs 32 min
- Apr 22 1st official National League baseball game is played; Boston Red Caps beat Philadelphia Athletics, 6-5 at the Jefferson Street Grounds, Philadelphia
- Apr 22 Philadelphia native Tim McGinley of the Boston Red Caps scores baseball National League's 1st run, in Philadelphia
Swan Lake Completed
Apr 22 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky completes his ballet "Swan Lake"
- Apr 25 Chicago Cubs 1st NL game, beats Louisville 4-0 (1st NL shutout)
- May 2 Ross Barnes hit 1st home run in National League
- May 2 The April Uprising breaks out in Bulgaria
- May 10 Centennial Fair opens in Philadelphia
- May 13 Amersfoort-Zutphen railway in the Netherlands opens
- May 15 2nd Kentucky Derby: Bobby Swim aboard Vagrant wins in 2:38.25
Hires Root Beer
May 16 Pharmacist Charles E. Hires presents "Hires Root Beer" at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [1] [2]
Custer Leaves Fort Lincoln
May 17 7th US Cavalry under General George Armstrong Custer leaves Fort Lincoln
- May 25 1st tie in NL history (Athletics & Louisville, 2-2 in 14)
- May 25 4th Preakness: G. Barbee aboard Shirley wins in 2:44.75
- May 26 HMS Challenger returns from 128,000-km oceanographic exploration
- May 30 Ottoman sultan Abd-ul-Aziz is deposed and succeeded by his nephew Murat V.
- Jun 2 Hristo Botev, a Bulgarian poet and national revolutionary, is killed in Stara Planina
- Jun 3 Lacrosse introduced in Britain and Canada
- Jun 4 An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, California, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after having left New York City.
- Jun 5 Bananas become popular in US, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia
- Jun 10 10th Belmont: William Donohue aboard Algerine wins in 2:40.5
Rutherford B. Hayes Nominated
Jun 11 Republicans pick Rutherford B. Hayes as US presidential candidate
- Jun 14 1st player to hit for cycle (George Hall, Philadelphia Athletics)
- Jun 14 California Street Cable Car Railroad Co gets its franchise
- Jun 15 Sara Spencer (R) is 1st woman to address a US presidential convention
- Jun 15 Tsunamis after earthquake floods NE coast of Japan, kills 28,000
- Jun 17 1st to hit 2 HRs; & score 5 runs in 9 inn NL game (George Hall, A's)
- Jun 17 Battle of Rosebud/Battle Where Girl Saved Her Brother
Battle of the Little Bighorn
Jun 25 Battle of the Little Bighorn: US 7th Cavalry under Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull in what has become famously known as "Custer's Last Stand"
- Jun 27 1st NLer to get 6 hits in 9 inn game (Dave Force, Philadelphia Athletics)
- Jun 27 Democratic Party elects Samuel Tilden as US presidential candidate
- Jun 30 Serbia declares war on Turkey
- Jul 3 Montenegro declares war on Turkey
- Jul 4 1st public exhibition of electric light in San Francisco
- Jul 4 Batholdi visits Bedloe Island, future home of his Statue of Liberty
- Jul 7 Hamburg massacre: white farmers attack a black militia in Hamburg, South Carolina with 7 killed
- Jul 13 29th US Postmaster General: James N Tyner of Indiana takes office
- Jul 14 British battleship HMS Thunderer boiler explodes during full-power sea trial near Portsmouth, England; 45 sailors killed and 40 injured
- Jul 15 Baseball's first official no-hitter: George Bradley of the St Louis Brown Stockings no-hits the Hartford Dark Blues, 2-0
- Jul 20 1st US intercollegiate track meet held, Saratoga, NY; Princeton wins
- Jul 31 US Coast Guard officers' training school established (New Bedford Massachusetts)
- Aug 1 Colorado becomes 38th state of the Union
- Aug 8 Dan O'Leacy completes 500 mile walk in 139h32m
Electric Pen
Aug 8 Thomas Edison is granted the patent for Autographic Printing (US Patent 180,857)
Ring Cycle Opens Bayreuth
Aug 13 The Bayreuth Festspielhaus opens with the first complete performance of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle
- Aug 14 Prairie View State University forms
- Aug 15 US law removes Indians from Black Hills after gold find
- Aug 16 Richard Wagner's opera "Siegfried" premieres at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring cycle
- Aug 17 Richard Wagner's opera "Götterdämmerung" premieres in Bayreuth
- Aug 24 Riot abolishes fairs in Amsterdam, 2 killed
- Aug 31 Ottoman sultan Murat V is deposed and succeeded by his brother Abd-ul-Hamid II
- Sep 6 Race riot in Charleston, South Carolina
- Sep 6 Southern Pacific railroad line from Los Angeles to San Francisco is completed in California
Northfield Raid
Sep 7 Frank James and his gang are involved in a disastrous raid in Northfield, Minnesota, results in the death or capture of multiple gang members (Cole/Bob/Jim Younger arrested)
International African Association
Sep 12 Belgian King Leopold II opens the Brussels Geographic Conference with 40 invited mostly geographic experts. Votes to establish the International African Association.
- Sep 14 Belgian King Leopold II closes the Brussels Geographic Conference, establishes the International African Association, forerunner of Leopold's privately controlled Congo Free State
Stanley Leaves Rwanda
Sep 14 Henry Morton Stanley's expedition leaves Rwanda
- Sep 17 Race riots in South Carolina
- Sep 19 1st carpet sweeper patented (Melville Bissell of Grand Rapids, Mich)
- Sep 19 Talks begin to set up a football club in Ottawa
- Sep 20 Ottawa Football Club forms
- Sep 23 Ottawa Rough Riders play their 1st game
- Sep 26 1st Belgian parachute jump (Glorieux)
- Oct 2 British Open Men's Golf, St Andrews: Bob Martin wins when fellow Scot Davie Strath refuses to take part in a playoff after pair finish on 176
- Oct 6 American Library Association organized in Philadelphia
- Oct 9 1st 2-way telephone conversation, 1st over outdoor wires
- Oct 16 Race riot at Cainhoy SC (5 whites & 1 black killed)
- Oct 17 Henry Morton Stanley reaches Lualaba River, headstream of the Congo River, goes on to travel down it proving it is not the source of the Nile
- Oct 23 New Orleans Mint reopens as an assay office
- Oct 26 South Carolina Governor Chamberlain sends a company of federal troops to quell racial disturbances in Cainhoy
- Oct 31 Great Backerganj Cyclone of 1876 ravages British India (Modern-day Bangladesh), over 200,000 killed
- Nov 1 King Willem III of the Netherlands opens North Sea Canal (Amsterdam-IJmuiden)
- Nov 1 New Zealand's provincial government system is dissolved.
Brahms Symphony No. 1
Nov 4 Johannes Brahms' 1st Symphony in C premieres in Karlsruhe, Grand Duchy of Baden
- Nov 5 Henry Morton Stanley's expedition leaves Nyangwe
- Nov 7 Edward Bouchet is 1st African American to receive a Ph.D from a US college (Yale)
- Nov 7 Meharry Medical College forms at Central Tennessee College
- Nov 7 President Rutherford B. Hayes and challenger Samuel J. Tilden claim presidential victory as Tilden (D) wins popular vote but Electoral College votes are disputed with Hayes (R)
- Nov 17 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's patriotic Slavonic March makes its premiere in Moscow to a warm reception
- Nov 21 Skirmish between HM Stanley's expedition & natives
- Nov 23 Columbia, Harvard & Princeton form Intercollegiate Football Association
- Nov 25 Indian Wars: In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River.
Mask of Agamemnon
Nov 30 Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann finds the gold Mask of Agamemnon at Mycenae (modern Greece) "the Mona Lisa of prehistory"
- Dec 5 Daniel Stillson (Mass) patents 1st practical pipe wrench
- Dec 5 Fire at Brooklyn Theater kills 295, trampled or burned to death
- Dec 6 1st crematorium in US begins operation, Washington, Pennsylvania
- Dec 6 US Electoral College casts their votes in the disputed election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden; two sets of conflicting results are returned to Congress the next day
- Dec 7 NY Mutuals & Philadelphia A's expelled from NL for not completing sked
- Dec 8 Suriname begins compulsory education for 7-12 years
- Dec 23 Turkey's 1st constitution proclaimed, transferring more power to elected representatives
- Dec 29 11 passenger cars crash in a ravine near Ashtabula, Ohio, 92 die
Admirals
Aviators
Gangsters
Generals
Industrialists
Suffragists