Empress of India
Jan 1 Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India
Battle of Wolf Mountain
Jan 8 Crazy Horse and his Sioux warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain (Montana Territory).
Electoral Commission
Jan 25 Congress establishes the Electoral Commission to determine the disputed presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden
- Jan 30 Storm flood ravages Dutch coastal provinces
- Feb 4 Ludwig Minkus' ballet "La Bayadère", choreographed by Marius Petipa premieres at Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia
- Feb 7 1st Guernsey Cattle Club organizes (NYC)
- Feb 12 1st news dispatch by telephone, between Boston & Salem, Massachusetts
- Feb 12 US railroad builders strike against wage reduction
- Feb 20 1st cantilever bridge in US completed, Harrodsburg, Kentucky
- Mar 2 US Electoral Commission declares Rutherford B. Hayes (R) winner of the presidential election with an electoral vote of 185-184 against Samuel J. Tilden (D)
- Mar 3 Rutherford B. Hayes takes the oath of office privately as official inauguration day falls on a Sunday
Swan Lake
Mar 4 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet "Swan Lake" has its world premiere, performed by the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow
- Mar 4 Tchaikovski's incomplete ballet "Zwanenmeer" premieres in Moscow
- Mar 5 Rutherford B. Hayes publicly inaugurated as 19th President of the United States
- Mar 12 Great Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape colony, Southern Africa.
Greenwood Patents Earmuffs
Mar 13 American Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs after inventing them at age 15
- Mar 15 Australian batsman Charles Bannerman completes first Test century in cricket history in 1st Test v England in Melbourne; retires hurt on 165 the following day
- Mar 15 Cricket's inaugural Test match commences as Australia plays England at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; Australia wins by 45 runs in 4 days
- Mar 17 Australia's English born all-rounder Billy Midwinter completes Test cricket's first 5-wicket haul, 5-78 in the first ever Test match v England in Melbourne
Frederick Douglass D.C. Marshal
Mar 18 US President Rutherford B. Hayes appoints Frederick Douglass marshal of Washington, D.C.
- Mar 19 Australia beat England by 45 runs in very first Test match
- Mar 23 39th Grand National: Fred Hobson aboard 15/1 shot Austerlitz wins by 4 lengths from Congress
- Mar 24 Ciro Pinsuti's final opera "Mattia Corvino" first performance at the Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, Italy
- Mar 24 English FA Cup Final, Kennington Oval, London: Wanderers beat Oxford University, 2–1 (a.e.t.); Wanderers' 4th title
- Mar 24 University boat race between Oxford & Cambridge ends in a dead heat
- Mar 31 British High Commissioner Sir Bartle Frere arrives in Capetown
- Mar 31 The family with samurai antecedents who responded to the Saigo army in Ōita Nakatsu rebels.
- Apr 2 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn
Flash! Bang! It's the Human Cannonball!
Apr 2 1st human cannonball act performed by 14-year-old Rossa Matilda Richter known as Zazel at the Royal Aquarium in London
17th British Open
Apr 6 17th British Open Men's Golf, Musselburgh Links: Jamie Anderson wins his first of 3 consecutive Championships; beats fellow Scot Bob Pringle by 2 shots
- Apr 10 Federal troops withdrawn from Columbia, SC
- Apr 12 British annex Transvaal, South Africa
- Apr 12 Catcher's mask 1st used in a baseball game
- Apr 15 World's first home telephone is installed in Somerville, Massachusetts at the house of Charles Williams Jr. [1]
- Apr 19 Opera "Les Cloches de Cornerville" is produced (Paris)
- Apr 24 Last federal occupying troops withdraw from the South (New Orleans)
- Apr 24 Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire
Le Roi de Lahore
Apr 27 Jules Massenet's opera "Le Roi de Lahore" (The King of Lahore) premieres at the Palais Garnier, Paris, France
- Apr 27 Rutherford B. Hayes removes Federal troops from Louisiana, Reconstruction ends
Sitting Bull Heads for Canada
May 5 Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles
- May 7 Cincinnati Enquirer first uses term "bullpen" to indicate baseball field foul territory where late-coming spectators were herded like cattle
- May 8 1st Westminster Dog Show held
- May 9 Mihail Kogălniceanu reads, in the Chamber of Deputies, the Declaration of Independence of Romania. This day becomes the Independence Day of Romania.
- May 10 US President Rutherford B. Hayes has 1st White House telephone installed, in the telegraph room
- May 12 Ottawa Rough Riders 1st outside competition vs Britannia
- May 13 Caesar Franck's symphonic poem "Lesson Eolides" premieres
- May 16 May 16, 1877 political crisis in France.
- May 17 Edwin T Holmes installs 1st telephone switchboard burglar alarm
- May 22 3rd Kentucky Derby: Billy Walker aboard Baden-Baden wins in 2:38
- May 24 5th Preakness: C Holloway aboard Cloverbrook wins in 2:45.5
- Jun 1 Society of American Artists forms
- Jun 1 US troops authorized to pursue bandits into Mexico
- Jun 9 11th Belmont: C Holloway aboard Cloverbrook wins in 2:46
1st African American Graduates West Point
Jun 14 Henry Ossian Flipper becomes 1st African American to graduate from West Point Military Academy [1]
$48 Million Prize Money: Anyone For Tennis?
Jul 9 First ever Wimbledon tennis championship begins - first official lawn tennis tournament - men's singles only
- Jul 10 The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain
- Jul 11 Kate Edger becomes New Zealand’s first woman graduate and first woman in the British Empire to earn a Bachelor of Arts
- Jul 14 General strike brings US railroad to a standstill
- Jul 19 1st Wimbledon Men's Tennis: 27-year-old English rackets player Spencer Gore wins inaugural event; beats William Marshall 6-1, 6-2, 6-4
- Jul 19 Russo-Turkish War: First Russian assault on Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria) fails; 3,000 Russian and 2,000 Turk casualties
- Jul 20 Great Railroad Strike: Labor issues turn violent as state militia confronts much larger crowd of rail workers and supporters - rocks met with bullets in Baltimore, Maryland; 10 killed and federal troops called in to restore order [1]
- Jul 21 -27] US army breaks railroad strike
- Jul 23 1st telephone and telegraph line in Hawaii completed
- Jul 23 1st US municipal railroad, Cincinnati Southern, begins operations
- Jul 24 1st time federal troops are used to combat strikers
- Jul 31 Russo-Turkish War: Second Russian assault on Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria) fails; 7,300 Russian and over 2,000 Turk casualties
- Aug 2 San Francisco Public Library opens with 5,000 volumes
Stanley Reaches Boma
Aug 9 Henry Morton Stanley's party reaches Boma, Congo, after 999 days, losing half of its 228 members
- Aug 10 Battle of the Big Hole: US Army led by Colonel John Gibbon fights the Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph and Looking Glass in Montana, both sides suffer heavy casualties causing the Nez Perce to continue their long fighting retreat
- Aug 11 American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Mars's moon Deimos
Thomas Edison's Phonograph
Aug 12 To his amazement, Thomas Edison records himself reciting "Mary had a little lamb" on his just completed cylinder phonograph, a device that recorded sound onto tinfoil cylinders [1]
- Aug 17 American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers Mars' moon Phobos
- Aug 22 800 Nez Perce Native Americans fleeing the US army attempting to reach Canada, retreat into Yellowstone National Park
- Aug 24 American outlaw John Wesley Hardin, wanted for murder, is arrested by Texas Rangers on a train in Pensacola, Florida
- Sep 5 Southern blacks led by Pap Singleton settle in Kansas
- Sep 11 Rijkslandbouwhoge school opens in Wageningen
- Sep 11 Russo-Turkish War: Third Russian assault on Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria), aided by Romanian forces mostly fails, although the Romanians take Grivitsa; up to 20,000 Russian and 6,000 Turk casualties
- Sep 20 Chase National Bank opens in NYC (later merges into Chase Manhattan)
Virchow's Anti-Darwinian Speech
Sep 22 Rudolf Virchow delivers an anti-Darwinian speech to the Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians in Munich, where he speaks against the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools
- Sep 23 Hurricane strikes Curacao & Bonaire kills 200
- Sep 24 Battle of Shiroyama, decisive victory of the Imperial Japanese Army over the Satsuma Rebellion
- Sep 27 John Mercer Langston named minister of Haiti
- Sep 30 1st US amateur swim meet (NY Athletic Club)
- Oct 5 Chief Joseph and his people surrender to the US Army, ending the Nez Perce War in the Western United States
- Oct 9 American Humane Association organizes (Cleveland)
- Oct 15 First session of the US 45th Congress (1877-79) convenes in Washington D.C.
Schubert's Symphony No. 2
Oct 20 Franz Schubert's 2nd Symphony in B premieres in London, England by Crystal Palace Orchestra, conducted by Alfred Manns
- Oct 22 The Blantyre mining disaster in Scotland kills 207 miners. Those widows and orphans who were unable to support themselves were evicted by the mine owners and likely sent to the Poor House.
- Oct 24 Russo-Turkish War: Russian and Romanian forces encircle Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria), choking off supplies
- Nov 1 Dutch government of Heemskerk-Van Lynden resigns
- Nov 9 American Chemical Society chartered in NY
- Nov 17 Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia
The Sorcerer
Nov 17 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera "The Sorcerer" premieres at the Opera Comique, London
- Nov 24 English author Anna Sewell sells her manuscript "Black Beauty" to Norwich publisher for £40, the novel is published soon after
Edison's Phonograph
Nov 29 US inventor Thomas Edison demonstrates his hand-cranked phonograph for the first time
Music Premiere
Dec 2 Camille Saint-Saëns' opera "Samson et Dalila" premieres in Weimar
- Dec 6 Thomas Edison enters the offices of Scientific American and turns the crank on his cylinder phonograph, astonishing those present with the recording, "Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?" [1]
- Dec 6 Washington Post publishes 1st edition
- Dec 9 Russo-Turkish War: Turkish troops attempt to break Russian and Romanian encirclement of Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria), fails
- Dec 10 Russo-Turkish War: Turkish commander Osman Pasha surrenders the city of Plevna, Ottoman Empire (now Pleven, Bulgaria) to Romanian Col. Mihail Cerchez
Symphony No. 3
Dec 16 Anton Bruckner reluctantly steps in to conduct the premiere of his "Symphony No. 3", dedicated to Richard Wagner; it is a critical disaster and undergoes many revisions [1]
Brahms' 2nd Symphony
Dec 30 Johannes Brahms' 2nd Symphony in D, premieres in Vienna
Authors
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