Directory

1879 CE

Yasukuni Shrine is officially renamed from Tokyo Shokonsha Shrine in Japan. Henry George self-publishes his major work Progress and Poverty. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance opens at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City (following a token performance the day before for U.K. copyright reasons in Paignton, Devon).

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • March 11 – The Ryukyu Domain is incorporated into the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan and the last ruler, Shō Tai, exiled to Tokyo.source
  • May 7 – The current constitution of the State of California in the United States is ratified.source
  • May 26 – Mohammad Yaqub Khan, Emir of Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak, putting the Afghan state into the British sphere of influence.source
  • October 2 – Qing dynasty China signs the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire.source
  • October 7 – The Dual Alliance is formed by Germany and Austria-Hungary.source
  • Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi forms the Egyptian Nationalist Party.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 11 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins.source
  • January 22 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Isandlwana: A force of 1,200 British soldiers is wiped out by over 20,000 Zulu warriors.source
  • January 23 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Rorke's Drift: Following the previous day's defeat, a smaller British force of 140 successfully repels an attack by 4,000 Zulus.source
  • March 28 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Hlobane: British forces suffer a defeat.source
  • March 29 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Kambula: British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.source
  • April 5 – War of the Pacific: Chile formally declares war on Bolivia and Peru.source
  • June 1 – Anglo-Zulu War: Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial of France, son of Napoléon III, is killed in a skirmish with Zulus while attached to the British Army.source
  • July 4 – Anglo-Zulu War – Battle of Ulundi: A British victory effectively ends the war.source
  • September 29 – Meeker Massacre: Nathan Meeker and others are killed in an uprising at the White River Ute Indian reservation in Colorado.source
  • October 8 – War of the Pacific: Battle of Angamos – The Chilean Navy defeats Peruvian naval forces.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • May 14 – The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji, aboard the Leonidas.source
  • July 8 – Led by George W. De Long, the ill-fated United States Jeannette Expedition departs San Francisco, in an attempt to reach the North Pole, by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.source
  • July 16 – The city of Kotka is founded in Kymenlaakso, Finland, by separating its two islands from the old Kymi parish.source
  • Tetteh Quarshie first brings cocoa beans to Ghana from Equatorial Guinea.source

Religion & Belief

  • April 12 – Mary Baker Eddy founds the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.source
  • May 12 – English Catholic convert John Henry Newman is elevated to Cardinal.source
  • June 4 – Yasukuni Shrine is officially renamed from Tokyo Shokonsha Shrine in Japan.source
  • June 14 – Sidney Faithorn Green, a priest in the Church of England, is tried and convicted for using Ritualist practices.source
  • August 16 – Fulham F.C. is founded in London as a church soccer team.source

Economy & Finance

  • June 21 – German chemical company Linde is founded by Carl von Linde.source
  • August 1 – Tokio Marine (insurer) is founded in Japan, as Tokio Marine Holdings.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • February 3 – Mosley Street in Newcastle upon Tyne (England) becomes the world's first public highway to be lit by the electric incandescent light bulb invented by Joseph Swan.source
  • April – Postman Ferdinand Cheval begins to build his Palais Idéal at Hauterives in France.source
  • May 30 – New York City's Gilmore's Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.source
  • June 6 – William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Rotomahana, on the River Clyde in Scotland. On October 2 they launch the first transatlantic steamer of the same material, the SS Buenos Ayrean; on December 1 she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow, bound for South America.source
  • September 19 – The Blackpool Illuminations in England are switched on for the first time.source
  • October 22 – Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests his first practical electric light bulb (it lasts hours before burning out).source
  • November 4 – Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his invention of the incandescent light bulb (U.S. Patent 223,898 will be granted on January 27, 1880).source
  • November 10 – The Bell Telephone Company and Western Union reach an agreement in the United States, in which the former agrees to stay out of telegraphy and the latter to keep out of the telephone business.source
  • December 28 – Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee, Scotland, collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 75.source

Science & Discovery

  • January 1 – The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War.source
  • February 8 – At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming first proposes the global adoption of standard time.source
  • July 1 – American Restorationist Charles Taze Russell publishes the first issue of the monthly Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence which, as The Watchtower, will become the most widely circulated magazine in the world.source
  • October 28 – The Hall effect is discovered by Edwin Hall at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.source
  • December 31 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.source
  • Gottlob Frege publishes Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens in Halle, a significant text in the development of mathematical logic.source
  • Wilhelm Wundt establishes the first psychological research laboratory, at the University of Leipzig.source
  • The Stefan–Boltzmann law is discovered by Jozef Stefan.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • September 8 – 1879 Octagon fire: A fire in The Octagon, Dunedin (New Zealand), claims 12 victims.source
  • September 25 – A fire in Deadwood, South Dakota, leaves 2,000 people homeless and 300 buildings destroyed; total loss of property is estimated at $3 million.source

Climate & Environment

  • April 26 – The National Park, later renamed the Royal National Park, is declared in New South Wales, Australia, the world's second-oldest purposed national park.source
  • June 30 – The 1879 Surigao earthquake measuring 7.4 causes major damage in the northern tip of Mindanao Island.source
  • July 1 – An 8.0 earthquake shakes southern Gansu, killing 22,000 people.source
  • December 2-28 – the Winter 1879 cold wave freeze Europe with record low temperatures.source

Culture & Society

  • January 1 – Brahms' Violin Concerto is premiered in Leipzig with Joseph Joachim as soloist and the composer conducting.source
  • March 3 – United States Geological Survey is founded.source
  • March 25 – Dvořák's Symphony No. 5 in F major, Op. 76, B. 54, is premiered (four years after being written) in Prague with Adolf Čech conducting.source
  • May 2 – The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español) is founded clandestinely at the Casa Labra tavern in Madrid, by printer Pablo Iglesias.source
  • May 10 – The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is formed.source
  • August 21 – Claimed apparition to local people at Knock, County Mayo, Ireland, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist and Jesus Christ (as the Lamb of God).source
  • September 23 – The Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society is founded.source
  • September 26 – Wilhelm Marr founds the Antisemitenliga (League of Antisemites), the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to German culture posed by Jews.source
  • September – Henry George self-publishes his major work Progress and Poverty.source
  • October 1 – University of Nebraska Cornhusker Marching Band is founded in Lincoln, Nebraska. The group will go on to perform the first football halftime show in 1892 and, under Director Donald A. Lentz, invent Band Day.source
  • October 13 – The first female students are admitted to study for degrees of the University of Oxford in England, at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall, and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students.source
  • October 17 – Sunderland Association Football Club is formed by a group of schoolteachers in northeast England.source
  • November – Land is acquired for Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black school, established as a Baptist institution.source
  • December 31 – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance opens at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City (following a token performance the day before for U.K. copyright reasons in Paignton, Devon).source

Births

  • January 3 – Grace Coolidge, First Lady of the United States (d. 1957)source
  • March 27 – Edward Steichen, Luxembourgeois-born American painter and photographer (d. 1973)source
  • May 12 – Georgia Ann Robinson, community worker, first African-American woman to be appointed a Los Angeles police officer (d. 1961)source
  • May 19 – Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor, American-born British politician, wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor (d. 1964)source
  • May 19 – Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, British businessman, politician, husband of Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor (d. 1952)source
  • May 25 – Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, Canadian-born British statesman and newspaper publisher (d. 1964)source
  • June 13 – Lois Weber, American film director, screenwriter (d. 1939)source
  • July 22 – Janusz Korczak (pen-name of Henryk Goldszmit), Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician and child pedagogist (b. 1878 or 1879) (d. 1942)source
  • September 14 – Margaret Sanger, American birth control advocate (d. 1966)source
  • September 15 – Joseph Lyons, 10th Prime Minister of Australia, Premier of Tasmania (d. 1939)source
  • October 5 – Francis Peyton Rous, American pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1970)source
  • October 9 – Max von Laue, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1960)source
  • October 29 – Franz von Papen, German diplomat and politician; Chancellor (1932) and Vice-Chancellor (1933–34; under Adolf Hitler) (d. 1969)source
  • December 28 – Billy Mitchell, U.S. general, military aviation pioneer (d. 1936)source

Deaths

  • January 8 – Baldomero Espartero, Spanish general, regent and Prime Minister (b. 1793)source
  • January 28 – Hugh M'Neile, Irish-born English Anglican priest. (b. 1795)source
  • February 11 – Honoré Daumier, French caricaturist and painter (b. 1808)source
  • February 23 – Albrecht Graf von Roon, Prime Minister of Prussia (b. 1803)source
  • March 3 – William Kingdon Clifford, English mathematician and philosopher (b. 1845)source
  • April 16 – Bernadette Soubirous, French Roman Catholic saint (b. 1844)source
  • May 14 – Henry Sewell, New Zealand politician, 1st Premier of New Zealand (b. 1807)source
  • May 14 – Epameinondas Deligeorgis, Greek politician, 20th Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1829)source
  • May 15 – George Fife Angas, English coachbuilder, businessman and politician, founder of South Australia (b. 1789)source
  • June 1 – Napoléon, Prince Imperial, son of French Emperor Napoleon III (b. 1856)source
  • August 30 – John Bell Hood, American Confederate general (b. 1831)source
  • September 17 – Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, French architect (b. 1814)source
  • October 8 – Miguel Grau Seminario, Peruvian admiral (killed in action) (b. 1834)source
  • November 23 – Louisa Susannah Cheves McCord, American political essayist (b. 1810)source