Jan 1 Ambrose Bierce is appointed editor of "The Wasp" magazine
Jan 1 Dr. John Watson is first introduced to the character Sherlock Holmes in a story written by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Jan 1 The French Panama Canal Company begins construction of the Panama Canal
Jan 2 Camille Saint-Saรซns' Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61, premieres in Paris, France, with Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate as soloist and dedicatee
Jan 4 Johannes Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture" premieres at the University of Breslau, conducted by the composer on the occasion of his being awarded an honorary degree
- Jan 26 Union of Baptists Communities forms in Foxholl
- Jan 28 Battle at Laing's Neck Natal: Boers beat superior powered British
- Feb 1 US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri authorized
- Feb 5 Phoenix, Arizona incorporates
- Feb 7 Battle at Ingogo, Transvaal: Boers defeat a superior British force
- Feb 10 Jacques Offenbach's opera "Les Contes d'Hoffman" premieres in Paris
- Feb 13 The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by activist Hubertine Auclert
- Feb 19 Kansas becomes 1st state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages
Feb 20 Conductor Hans Richter leads the Vienna Philharmonic in premiere of Anton Bruckner's "Symphony No. 4", in Vienna, Austria-Hungary
- Feb 24 China and Russia sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty.
- Feb 26 -27] Natal: British troops under Major General Colley occupy Majuba Hill
- Feb 26 P&O's SS Ceylon begins the world's first round-the-world pleasure cruise from Liverpool
- Feb 27 Battle at Amajuba: South African Boers vs British army under General Colley
- Mar 4 47th US Congress (1881-83) convenes
- Mar 4 California becomes 1st state to pass plant quarantine legislation
Mar 4 James A. Garfield inaugurated as the 20th President of the United States of America
- Mar 4 Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson begin their first case together in "A Study in Scarlet"
Mar 4 South African politician Paul Kruger accepts ceasefire during First Boer War
Mar 13 Alexander II of Russia is assassinated by members of far-left terror group 'People's Will' who throw a bomb at him in the city of St. Petersburg
Mar 18 Barnum & Bailey Circus, traveling as "The Greatest Show on Earth," debuts at Madison Square Garden in New York City after the merger of two existing circus groups [1]
- Mar 23 Boers & Britain sign peace accord; end 1st Boer war
- Mar 23 Gas lamp sets fire to Thรฉรขtre Municipalโ opera house in Nice, France; 70 die, and building completely destroyed
- Mar 25 43rd Grand National: Irish jockey Tommy Beasley wins his second consecutive GN aboard 11/2 co-favourite Woodbrook
- Mar 26 Thessaly is freed and becomes part of Greece again
- Mar 27 Rioting takes place in Basingstoke, Hampshire in England, to protest against the Salvation Army's daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperance
- Mar 28 "Greatest Show On Earth" formed by P. T. Barnum and James Anthony Bailey
- Apr 1 Anti-Jewish riots break out in Jerusalem
- Apr 1 Postage stamps become used nationwide in Netherlands
Apr 2 Sixth Impressionist Exhibition opens in Paris organized by Edgar Degas and showing his famous "Little Dancer of Fourteen Years", the only sculpture shown in his lifetime
- Apr 5 Transvaal regains independence under British suzerainty
- Apr 11 Spelman College founded as Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary in basement of Friendship Baptist Church, Atlanta
- Apr 14 The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight in El Paso, Texas.
- Apr 16 In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle
- Apr 18 Natural History Museum opens in South Kensington, England
Apr 23 W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera "Patience" premieres at The Opera Comique, London
Apr 28 Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Lincoln, New Mexico
- Apr 28 French troops sent into Tunisia
- May 5 Anti-Jewish rioting in Kyiv, Ukraine
May 8 Henry Morton Stanley signs the first of many contracts with the Congolian monarch
- May 10 Lighthouse on Ameland begins operation
May 11 Bedลich Smetana's opera "Libuลกe" premieres at the National Theate, in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia
May 17 Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia
- May 17 Revised version of New Testament
May 21 American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton
- May 21 US National Lawn Tennis Association is established in NYC, New York
- May 24 Overloaded Canadian river ferry "Princess Victoria" sinks near London, Ontario, 180 die
- May 24 Turkey cedes Thessaly and Arta back to Greece.
- May 27 9th Preakness: T. Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:40.5
- Jun 1 Bell Phone opens 1st Dutch telephone exchange
- Jun 1 Ridden by outstanding English jockey Fred Archer, Iroquois wins the Epsom Derby to become the first American-owned and bred horse to win a European classic race
- Jun 2 Haarlem-Zandvoort Railway opens
- Jun 7 15th Belmont: T. Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:47
- Jun 12 The USS Jeannette, under the command of George Washington De Long, is crushed by Arctic ice after 21 months of ice-bound drifting
- Jun 13 The USS Jeannette, under the command of George Washington De Long, sinks in the Arctic circle following 21 months of drifting after becoming trapped in the ice
- Jun 16 Austria-Hungary and Serbia sign military treaty
- Jun 19 Muhammad Ahmad becomes Mahdi of Sudan
- Jun 24 200 drown as train runs off bridge near Cuautla, Mexico
- Jun 30 Henry Highland Garnet named US minister to Liberia
- Jul 1 1st international telephone conversation, Calais, Maine to St Stephen, New Brunswick
- Jul 1 General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, comes into effect
- Jul 1 US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri opens
- Jul 2 US President James Garfield shot by Charles Guiteau a disappointed office-seeker; Garfield dies 79 days later
Jul 4 Booker T. Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute (Alabama)
- Jul 13 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: William Renshaw beats defending champion John Hartley 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 for first of his 7 Wimbledon singles titles
Jul 19 Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull surrenders to US federal troops at Fort Buford in the Territory of Montana [1] [2]
- Jul 26 French marines occupy the Tunisian harbor city of Sfax
- Aug 1 US Quarantine Station authorized for Angel Island, San Francisco Bay
- Aug 3 Boers sign Convention of Pretoria: Transvaal becomes semi-autonomous
- Aug 3 US National Lawn Tennis Association removes "National" from its name
- Aug 4 122ยฐF (50ยฐC) recorded in Seville, Spain (European record)
- Aug 27 Hurricane hits Florida and the Carolinas, killing about 700
- Aug 31 1st US men's single tennis championships held at Newport, Rhode Island
- Sep 1 The Dwyer Brothers' 3-year-old Kentucky Derby winner Hindoo wins his 19th consecutive race, a purse event at Sheepshead Bay; winning streak snapped 6 days later in the September Handicap at Sheepshead
Sep 3 1st US National Championship Men's Tennis, Newport R.I.: Richard Sears wins inaugural event beating William E. Glyn 6-0, 6-3, 6-2
- Sep 3 Anton Bruckner completes his 6th Symphony
- Sep 9 Egyptian military coup under Ahmed โUrabi seeks to end British and French influence in the country
- Sep 11 Triple landslides bury Elm, Switzerland
- Sep 13 Americans Lewis Howard Latimer and Joseph V. Nichols invent and patent an improvement to electric lamps with a carbon filament
- Sep 18 Chicago Tribune reports on a televideo experiment
Sep 20 Chester A. Arthur is sworn in as the 21st President of the United States of America
- Sep 27 Chicago Cubs beat Troy 10-8 before a record small "crowd" of 12
- Oct 11 American inventor David Houston (26) patents roll film for cameras [1]
- Oct 12 Henry M Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch
- Oct 13 Revival of Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda & friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations
Oct 14 British Open Men's Golf, Prestwick GC: Bob Ferguson retains title with 3 stroke win over Jamie Anderson in shocking weather conditions
Oct 24 Levi P. Morton, US ambassador to France, drives the first rivet in the Statue of Liberty
Oct 26 Gunfight at the O.K. Corral: The most famous shootout in the Wild West occurs between lawmen, including Wyatt Earp, and the Cowboys, with Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton killed
- Oct 29 Judge (U.S. magazine) first published
- Oct 31 Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season, having won 80 of 151 games (18-43 vs. National League teams)
- Nov 2 Dutch New-Malthusiaanse Union forms
- Nov 5 1,600 police and volunteers attack Mฤori settlement at Parihaka in western Taranaki which had become the symbol of protest against the confiscation of Mฤori land, New Zealand
- Nov 5 French government-Ferry resigns
Nov 14 Charles J. Guiteau put on trial for the assassination of US President Garfield
- Nov 14 Leon Gambetta forms French government
- Nov 15 American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded (Pittsburgh)
- Nov 19 A meteorite lands near the village of Groรliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine
- Dec 3 Henry Morton Stanley founds Leopoldville (now Kinshasa)
- Dec 4 The first edition of the Los Angeles Times newspaper is published
- Dec 8 Vienna's Ringtheater is destroyed by a gaslight fire, killing an estimated 384 to 1,000 people
- Dec 19 Opera "Hรฉrodiade" by Jules Massenet is produced in Brussels
- ๐ Mark Twain
Authors - ๐ Rosa Parks
Civil Rights Activists - ๐ Thomas Edison
Inventors - ๐ Henry VIII
Kings - ๐ Vladimir Lenin
Revolutionaries - ๐ Grace Hopper
Scientists
