Directory

1878 CE

Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Shipka Pass IV – Russian and Bulgarian forces defeat the Ottoman Empire. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore debuts in London at the Opera Comique, with a first run of 571 performances. July 13 – The Congress of Berlin convenes to discuss the Ottoman Empire.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • March 3 (February 19 O.S.) – Treaty of San Stefano signed between the Russian and Ottoman Empires following Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) provides for establishment of an autonomous Principality of Bulgaria (although not as large as originally envisaged). Russia however regards the treaty as a preliminary one only, refusing on March 25 a British proposal to lay it before a European congress, and matters are finally settled in July's Treaty of Berlin.source
  • June 4 – Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom, but retains the nominal title.source
  • June 13–July 13 – The Congress of Berlin convenes to discuss the Ottoman Empire.source
  • June 25 – The Kanak people of New Caledonia revolt against the French colonial government.source
  • July 13 – The Treaty of Berlin makes Serbia, Montenegro and Romania completely independent, confirms the autonomy of Bulgaria, makes Cyprus a British possession, and allows Austria-Hungary to garrison the Bosnia Vilayet.source
  • September 17 – 1878 Canadian federal election: Sir John A. Macdonald and his Conservative Party are returned to power, defeating the incumbent Liberal Party, led by Alexander Mackenzie.source
  • October 17 – John A. Macdonald returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.source
  • U.S. arbitration rejects Argentine claims to Paraguay's part of the Chaco region.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 5 – Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Shipka Pass IV – Russian and Bulgarian forces defeat the Ottoman Empire.source
  • January 17 – Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Philippopolis – Russian troops defeat the Ottoman Empire.source
  • January 28 – In the United States:source
  • January 31 – Turkey agrees to an armistice at Adrianople.source
  • February 2 – Greece declares war on the Ottoman Empire.source
  • February 8 – The British fleet enters Turkish waters, and anchors off Istanbul; Russia threatens to occupy Istanbul, but does not carry out the threat.source
  • February 18 – The Lincoln County War begins in Lincoln County, New Mexico.source
  • February 24 – Anti-Russian demonstrations occur in Hyde Park, London.source
  • March 27 – In anticipation of war with Russia, Disraeli mobilizes British reserves, and calls up Indian troops to Malta.source
  • May 11 - Hödel assassination attempt by anarchist Max Hödel targeting the German Kaiser, Wilhelm I.source
  • June 2 – Nobiling assassination attempt by anarchist Karl Nobiling targeting the German Kaiser, Wilhelm I.source
  • November 17 – The first assassination attempt is made against Umberto I of Italy by anarchist Giovanni Passannante, armed with a dagger. The King survives with a slight wound in one arm. Prime minister Benedetto Cairoli blocks the aggressor, receiving a leg injury.source
  • November 21 – The Second Anglo-Afghan War commences when the British attack Ali Masjid in the Khyber Pass.source
  • Otto von Bismarck abandons his Kulturkampf, and forces through legislation outlawing the Social Democrats.source
  • The 10-year Nauruan Tribal War breaks out.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • January 23 – Benjamin Disraeli orders the British fleet to the Dardanelles.source
  • April 16 – The Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland issues a declaration establishing a city of Kotka on the southern part of the islands from the old Kymi parish.source
  • June 20 – The United States Coast Survey is renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.source
  • June 22 – Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld leaves Karlskrona on a voyage that will make him the first man to navigate the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, along the Siberian coast.source
  • August 26 – Uyedineniya Island is discovered in the Kara Sea, by Norwegian explorer Captain Edvard Holm Johannesen.source

Religion & Belief

  • January 9 – Umberto I becomes King of Italy.source
  • February 20 – Pope Leo XIII succeeds Pope Pius IX, as the 256th pope. His pontificate will last for 25 years.source
  • March 17 – Emancipated U.S. slave and Baptist minister Rev. John Jasper first preaches his sermon "The Sun Do Move."source
  • December 25 – Stella Maris Church, Sliema on Malta becomes a parish, seceding from the Parish of St. Helen's in Birkirkara.source
  • West Bromwich Albion F.C., formed as West Bromwich Strollers F.C.source
  • Grimsby Town F.C., formed as Grimsby Pelham.source

Economy & Finance

  • May 15 – The Tokyo Stock Exchange is established.source
  • November 26 – American-born artist James McNeill Whistler's libel case against English critic John Ruskin, over a review of the painting Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket (in which Whistler is described as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face"), is decided in the High Court of Justice in London. Whistler wins a farthing in nominal damages and only half of the costs, leading to his bankruptcy, and alienates patrons.source
  • Geiger (corporation), formed as Geiger Brothers.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • The world's First Telephone Exchange begins commercial operation in New Haven, Connecticut.source
  • February 19 – The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison.source
  • June 1 – The General Postal Union is renamed the Universal Postal Union (UPU).source
  • September 12 – Cleopatra's Needle is erected beside the Thames in London, having arrived in England on January 21.source
  • December 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
  • Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club, the team that will become Manchester United.source
  • Small town La Farge, Wisconsin, along the Kickapoo River.source
  • E. 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
  • Lester Allan Pelton produces the first operational Pelton wheel.source
  • Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard, as predecessor of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a motorbike, helicopters, rolling stock and shipbuilding concern in Japan.source

Science & Discovery

  • October 14 – The world's first recorded floodlit football fixture is played at Bramall Lane, in Sheffield, England.source

Health & Medicine

  • Yellow fever in the Mississippi Valley kills over 13,000.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 24 – Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich shoots at Fyodor Trepov, Governor of Saint Petersburg.source
  • October 27 – The Manhattan Savings Institution robbery occurs.source
  • In Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, the much studied stele of the Roman legionary Caius Largennius is discovered.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • March 24 – The British Royal Navy frigate capsizes in the English Channel; all but 2 of the 319 crew members are killed.source
  • May 2 – The Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis explodes, killing 18.source
  • June 1 – British clipper Loch Ard is wrecked off the Shipwreck Coast of Victoria (Australia) with the loss of 52 lives and only 2 survivors.source
  • September 3 – Over 640 die when the crowded pleasure boat collides with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames.source
  • October 31 – A fire destroys the Eldkvarn gristmill in Stockholm, Sweden.source
  • December 18 – French passenger steamer Byzantin founders in the Dardanelles during a gale after collision with British SS Rinaldo, killing around 210 people, with only 14 crew of the Byzantin saved.source

Climate & Environment

  • August 9 – The Wallingford Tornado of 1878, the deadliest tornado in Connecticut history, destroys the town of Wallingford, killing 34 people and injuring more than 70.source

Culture & Society

  • The Yale News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the U.S.source
  • February 23 – Gajanan Maharaj appears at Shegaon, Maharashtra.source
  • February 28 – Mississippi State University is created by the Mississippi Legislature (under the name The Agricultural and Mechanical College of the State of Mississippi).source
  • March 28 – Electric lights are first used at Westminster Palace.source
  • April 20 – The Stawell Gift sprint is run for the first time in Australia.source
  • May 1–November 10 – Exposition Universelle, a world's fair, is staged in Paris. In June some parts of the city are first lit by 'Yablochkov candles' (arc lamps) and on June 30 the head of the Statue of Liberty goes on display there.source
  • May 25 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore debuts in London at the Opera Comique, with a first run of 571 performances.source
  • June 10 – The League of Prizren is officially founded "to struggle in arms to defend the wholeness of the territories of Albania".source
  • June 15 – Eadweard Muybridge produces the first sequence of stop-motion still photographs The Horse in Motion in California (a predecessor of silent film), demonstrating that all four feet of a galloping horse are off the ground at the same time.source
  • July 4 – A match race between champion thoroughbred racehorses Ten Broeck and Mollie McCarty draws more than 30,000 fans to Louisville, and inspires the folk song, "Molly and Tenbrooks".source
  • September 20 – The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, is founded.source
  • The Johns Hopkins University Press, America's oldest university press.source
  • Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina is published complete in book form in Moscow.source
  • Ipswich Town Football Club, formed as amateur club Ipswich A.F.C. They will not turn professional until 1936.source
  • The following English Association football clubs:source

Births

  • February 3 – Gordon Coates, 21st Prime Minister of New Zealand (d. 1943)source
  • March 16 – Clemens August Graf von Galen, German Catholic cardinal (d. 1946)source
  • March 31 – Jack Johnson, American boxer (d. 1946)source
  • April 1 – C. Ganesha Iyer, Ceylon Tamil philologist (d. 1958)source
  • May 10 – Gustav Stresemann, Chancellor of Germany, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1929)source
  • August 28 – George Whipple, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)source
  • September 9 – Sergio Osmeña, 4th President of the Philippines (d. 1961)source
  • September 26 – Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, German general and Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr (d. 1943)source
  • November 1 – Carlos Saavedra Lamas, Argentine politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1959)source
  • November 7 – Lise Meitner, German-Austrian physicist, discoverer of nuclear fission (d. 1968)source
  • November 7 – Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, Belarusian-born Orthodox rabbi (d. 1953)source
  • November 23 – Ernest Joseph King, Commander in Chief, United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations (COMINCH-CNO) during World War II (d. 1956)source
  • November 23 – Frank Pick, British transport administrator, designer (d. 1941)source
  • December 10 – C. Rajagopalachari, Indian politician, freedom fighter (d. 1972)source

Deaths

  • January 8 – Nikolay Nekrasov, Russian poet (b. 1821)source
  • March 20 – Julius von Mayer, German physician and physicist, a founder of thermodynamics (b. 1814)source
  • March 27 – Sir George Gilbert Scott, English architect (b. 1811)source
  • May 13 – Joseph Henry, American scientist (b. 1797)source
  • May 14 – Ōkubo Toshimichi, Japanese samurai, later leader of the Meiji restoration (b. 1830)source
  • May 28 – John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1792)source
  • June 5 – Ernst von Bibra, German scientist (b. 1806)source
  • June 12 – William Cullen Bryant, American poet, journalist and editor (b. 1794)source
  • June 12 – George V of Hanover, deposed German king (b. 1819)source
  • June 15 – Shiv Dayal Singh, founder and first SatGuru of Radha Soami faith (b. 1818)source
  • June 27 – Sidney Breese, U.S. senator from Illinois, 'father of the Illinois Central Railroad' (b. 1800)source
  • July 23 – Carl Freiherr von Rokitansky, Bohemian pathologist, philosopher and politician (b. 1804)source
  • August 26 – Mariam Baouardy, Syrian Discalced Carmelite and Melkite Greek Catholic nun and saint, canonized (b. 1846)source
  • December 14 – Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (b. 1843)source