- Jan 2 Battle of Boschberg takes place in South Africa as part of the Mapoch War
- Jan 4 Ontario Rugby Football Union (forerunner of CFL) forms
- Jan 6 Ontario Rugby Football Union forms
- Jan 10 Fire at uninsured Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin kills 71. General Tom Thumb of P. T. Barnum fame, escapes unhurt
- Jan 13 Fire in Circus Ferroni in Berditschoft, Poland, kills 430
- Jan 13 Henrik Ibsen's play "En Folkefiende" (An Enemy of the People) premieres in Oslo
- Jan 16 Pendleton Act creates basis of US Civil Service system
- Jan 16 Quebec Rugby Football Union forms
Electric Lighting Begins
Jan 19 The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey
- Jan 20 Billy Barnes takes a hat-trick, England v Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
- Jan 22 England completes 1st innings victory in Tests vs. Australia at Melbourne Cricket Grounds
- Jan 30 England team presented with ashes of a bail after Sydney Test
- Feb 1 French Lt-Colonel Gustave Borgnis-Desbordes reaches Bamako on the Niger
- Feb 7 Lt-colonel Borgnis-Desbordes founds Fort Bamako, Niger
- Feb 8 Louis Waterman begins experiment to invent the fountain pen
- Feb 10 Fire at un-insured New Hall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, kills 71
- Feb 14 1st state labor union legislation; New Jersey legalizes unions
- Feb 16 "Ladies Home Journal" begins publishing in the US
- Feb 17 Arthur Ashwell patents 'vacant/engaged' toilet lock in London, England
- Feb 21 2nd French government of Ferry begins
- Feb 23 Alabama becomes 1st US state to enact an antitrust law
- Feb 23 American Anti-Vivisection Society organized (Philadelphia)
- Feb 27 Oscar Hammerstein patents 1st cigar-rolling machine
- Feb 28 1st US vaudeville theater opens in Boston, Massachusetts
- Mar 3 Congress authorizes the 1st steel vessels in US navy
- Mar 3 In the series decider England beats Scotland, 2 tries to 1 at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh to win the inaugural Home Nations Rugby Championship with an undefeated record
- Mar 16 Susan Hayhurst becomes 1st US woman graduate of a pharmacy college
- Mar 20 Jan Matzeliger receives his 1st patent (number 274,207) for shoe lasting machine which mechanized shoe production
- Mar 20 Unity treaty of Paris signed: protects industrial property
- Mar 24 1st telephone call between NY & Chicago
- Mar 30 45th Grand National: Austrian breeder, owner Count Karel Kinsky rides Zoedone to 10 length win; only 10 starters, the smallest GN field in history; first winning jockey from outside Britain and Ireland
- Mar 31 1st performance of Caesar Franck's symphonic poem for orchestra "Le Chasseur Maudit" (The Accursed Huntsman) at the Salle Érard in Paris
- Mar 31 Utrecht, Belgium begins water pipe system
- Apr 2 Battle at Bamako: French assault on Fabous arm forces attack
- Apr 12 French troops under lt-colonel Borgnis-Desbordes occupy Bamako Senegal
- Apr 13 US prospector Alfred Packer convicted of manslaughter though accused of cannibalism
- Apr 14 Leo Delibes' opera "Lakmé" premieres with the Opéra-Comique at the Salle Favart in Paris, France
Kruger Transvaal president
Apr 16 Paul Kruger chosen as President of Transvaal
- Apr 19 British banker Thomas Agnew and others found the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (LSPCC), based on Agnew's observation of a similar group in NYC; its success leads to a national organization
- Apr 23 John Heemskerk Abrahamszoon forms Dutch government
- Apr 24 28 Surinamers depart to Amsterdam World's Fair
- May 1 Amsterdam World's Fair opens
- May 1 Bob Rogers is acknowledged as the first American pro sports trainer when he is hired by the NY Athletic Club
- May 1 First National League baseball game in Philadelphia since 1876, Providence Greys beat Philadelphia Quakers, 4-3
- May 4 John Gordon Cashmans publishes 1st edition "Vicksburg Evening Post" (Mississippi)
- May 10 First appendectomy performed in North America by Abraham Groves in Canada
- May 15 Italy signs military treaty with Austria-Hungary & Germany
- May 19 William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody opens Buffalo Bill's Wild West show in Omaha, Nebraska
- May 22 Cubs' Billy Sunday's 1st at bat, begins 14 consecutive strikes out
- May 23 9th Kentucky Derby: William Donohue aboard Leonatus wins in 2:43
Brooklyn Bridge Opens
May 24 Brooklyn Bridge opened by President Chester A. Arthur and NY Governor Grover Cleveland
- May 26 11th Preakness: G Barbee aboard Jacobus wins in 2:42.5
Tsar Alexander III
May 27 Alexander III crowned Tsar of Russia in Moscow
- May 30 Stampede caused by a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge was going to collapse kills 12
- May 31 French fleet under Pierre begins siege of Tamatave, Madagascar
- Jun 2 1st night baseball under lights, Fort Wayne Indiana
- Jun 2 Chicago's elevated train system, the "L", opens to traffic [1]
- Jun 9 17th Belmont: Jim McLaughlin aboard George Kinney wins in 2:42.5
1st National Health Insurance
Jun 15 Germany becomes the first country to introduce a national system of social and health insurance passing "The Act on Health Insurance for Blue-collar Workers" under Otto von Bismarck [1]
- Jun 16 1st baseball "Ladies' Day" - NY Gothams beat Cleveland Blues 5-2 at the Polo Grounds in NYC
- Jun 16 The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England kills 183 children
- Jul 1 ANWB forms in Utrecht, the Netherlands
- Jul 3 SS Daphne sinks on Clyde River in Scotland; 195 die
- Jul 4 Buffalo Bill Cody presents 1st wild west show, North Platte, Nebraska
- Jul 16 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: William Renshaw wins third straight Wimbledon title; beats twin brother Ernest Renshaw 2-6, 6-3, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3
- Jul 24 Arabi Pasha declares a holy war in Egypt
Marco Polo Runs Aground
Jul 25 The ship Marco Polo, once the fastest clipper in the world, runs aground on Prince Edward Island. Spectators of the event include Lucy Maud Montgomery. [1]
- Jul 28 Shocks triggered by volcano Epomeo (Isle of Ischia, Italy) destroy 1,200 houses at Casamicciola killing 2,000
- Aug 1 A papyrus offered to British Museum for £10,000 (forgery)
- Aug 1 Amsterdam's Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky gets electric lights
- Aug 1 Inland postal service begins in Great Britain
- Aug 12 The last quagga (zebra subspecies with less slashes) dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam.
- Aug 16 Dutch soccer club FC Dordrecht is established in Dort in the Western Netherlands (KNVB Cup 1914, 32)
- Aug 17 The first public performance of the Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional
- Aug 23 Philadelphia Quakers make 27 errors against Providence Grays in 28-0 shutout defeat at Messer Street Grounds; wild pitches, walks, passed balls count as errors in MLB prior to 1888
US National Men's Championship
Aug 24 US National Championship Men's Tennis, Newport R.I.: Two-time defending champion Richard Sears wins 3rd straight title; beats James Dwight 6-2, 6-0, 9-7
Krakatoa: The World’s Mightiest Explosion
Aug 27 Krakatoa volcano, west of Java in Indonesia, erupts with a force of 200 megatons of TNT and kills approximately 40,000 people
First Carnegie Library
Aug 29 First Carnegie library financed by industrialist Andrew Carnegie opens in Dunfermline, Scotland, the 1st of 2,509 libraries built around the world
- Aug 29 Seismic sea waves created by Krakatoa eruption create a rise in English Channel 32 hrs after explosion
- Sep 6 Chicago White Stockings beat Detroit Wolverines, 26-6 at Lake Front Park, Chicago; smash MLB record 18 runs in 7th inning
- Sep 6 Cub's Burns (extra bases), Williamson & Pfeiffer get 3 hits in 1 inning
- Sep 8 New York Gothams score 13 runs in an inning in a 16-6 win over Philadelphia Quakers at Recreation Park, Philadelphia; MLB record (18) set 2 days earlier
- Sep 8 Northern Pacific RR's last spike driven at Independence Creek, Montana
- Sep 11 American architect James Cutler patents postal mail chute for Elwood Building, Rochester, New York
- Sep 13 Hugh Daily, a one-armed pitcher for Cleveland (Forest City), tosses 1-0 no-hitter against Philadelphia
- Sep 21 First direct US-Brazil telegraph connection
- Sep 24 National black convention meets in Louisville, Kentucky
- Oct 4 First meeting of the Boys' Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Orient Express
Oct 4 The Orient Express departs on its first official journey from Paris to Istanbul
- Oct 11 US and Canadian railroads agree to use of five time-zone system for North America, based on the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Oct 15 US Supreme Court declares Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional
- Oct 20 Max Bruch's "Kol Nidre" 1st performed
- Oct 20 Treaty of Ancon; Peru cedes Tarapaca to Chile
- Oct 22 1st NY Horse Show held (Madison Sq Garden)
NY's Metropolitan Opera House Opens
Oct 22 New York's original Metropolitan Opera House has its grand opening with a performance of Charles Gounod's opera "Faust"
- Oct 30 Austria-Hungary, Germany and Romania sign military treaty
- Nov 3 American Old West: Self-described "Black Bart the poet" gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture
- Nov 3 Race riots kill 4 blacks in Danville Virginia
- Nov 3 US Supreme Court decides federal courts have no jurisdiction over Native American tribal Council (Ex parte Crow Dog)
- Nov 5 Battle at El Obeid Sudan: Mahdi's army destroys Egyptian army
- Nov 5 Edward Harrigan's musical farce "Cordelia's Aspirations" premieres at Theatre Comique, NYC
- Nov 6 NYAC organizes 1st American cross-country championship race
- Nov 8 English freighter Nisero stranded at Atjeh (crew taken hostage)
- Nov 10 Toronto Argonauts defeat Ottawa FC 9-7, for 1st ORFU Championship
Treasure Island
Nov 14 "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson is first published as a book by Cassell & Co.
- Nov 17 British Open Men's Golf, Musselburgh Links: Willie Fernie beats defending champion Bob Ferguson 1-up in 36-hole playoff
- Nov 18 Antonín Dvořák's "Husitska" (Hussite Overture) premieres at the gala opening of the Prague National Theater
- Nov 18 US and Canadian railroads set and synchronize four standard time zones - Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific, replacing over 100 previous time zones
Brahms 3rd Symphony in F
Dec 2 Johannes Brahms' "3rd Symphony in F" premieres with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
- Dec 3 48th US Congress (1883-85) convenes
- Dec 9 New Brunswick adopts Eastern Standard Time (until 1902)
- Dec 16 Tonkin Campaign: The French capture the citadel in Hanoi
- Dec 20 International cantilever railway bridge opens at Niagara Falls between Canada and US
- Dec 22 August Strindberg's "Lycko-Pers Reja" premieres
- Dec 26 The Harbour Grace Affray between Irish Catholics and Protestant Orangemen causes five deaths in Newfoundland.
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