Directory

1881 CE

Carlos Finlay introduces his discovery of the transmission of Yellow Fever by mosquitoes Aedes aegypti, in the Fifth International Sanitary Conference held in Washington, D.C. Determined to bring about the revival of the Hebrew language as a way of unifying Jews, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda has what is believed to be the first conversation in Modern Hebrew, with friends living in Paris. A meteorite strikes the Earth near the village of Großliebenthal, a few kilometers southwest of Odesa, Ukraine.

Geopolitics & Diplomacy

  • February 24 (February 12 Old Style) – Qing dynasty China signs the Treaty of Saint Petersburg with the Russian Empire providing for the return to China of the eastern part of the Ili Basin.source
  • March 26 (March 14 Old Style) – The Principality of Romania is proclaimed the Kingdom of Romania.source
  • May 12 – In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate by the Treaty of Bardo.source
  • May 13 – The Pacific island of Rotuma cedes to Great Britain, becoming a dependency of the Colony of Fiji.source
  • June 18 – The League of the Three Emperors is resurrected.source
  • July 1 – General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell–Childers reforms of the British Army's organization, comes into effect.source
  • July 23 – The Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina is signed in Buenos Aires.source
  • August 3 – The Pretoria Convention peace treaty is signed, officially ending the war between the Boers and Britain.source
  • On the Isle of Man (an internally self-governing dependent territory of the United Kingdom), the House of Keys Election Act extends the franchise for the national legislature to spinsters and widows owning real estate of a certain value.source

Conflict & Security

  • January 1–24 – Siege of Geok Tepe: Russian troops under General Mikhail Skobelev defeat the Turkomans.source
  • January 13 – War of the Pacific – Battle of San Juan and Chorrillos: The Chilean army defeats Peruvian forces.source
  • January 15 – War of the Pacific – Battle of Miraflores: The Chileans take Lima, capital of Peru, after defeating its second line of defense in Miraflores.source
  • March 13 (March 1 Old Style) – Assassination of Alexander II of Russia: Emperor Alexander II of Russia ("the Liberator") is killed near his palace in Saint Petersburg when bombs are thrown at him, an act committed by the revolutionary socialist group Narodnaya Volya coordinated by Sophia Perovskaya but falsely blamed upon Russian Jews. He is succeeded by his son, Alexander III. The assassin Ignacy Hryniewiecki is also killed by his own bomb.source
  • April 15 – Anti-Semitic pogroms in Southern Russia begin.source
  • June 26 – War of the Pacific – Battle of Sangrar: Peruvian and Chilean forces battle to a draw.source
  • July 2 – Assassination of James A. Garfield: United States President James A. Garfield is shot by lawyer Charles J. Guiteau in Washington, D.C. The wound becomes infected, killing Garfield on September 19.source
  • July 20 – American Indian Wars: Sioux chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford in Montana.source
  • October 26 – The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurs in Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona, USA.source
  • November 3 – The Mapuche uprising of 1881 begins with an attack on Quillem, Chile.source
  • November 19 – A meteorite strikes the Earth near the village of Großliebenthal, a few kilometers southwest of Odesa, Ukraine.source
  • December 25–27 – The Warsaw pogrom is carried out in Vistula Land, Russian Empire.source

Exploration & Expansion

  • October 5–December 31 – The International Cotton Exposition is held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.source
  • Hattori Watch Shop (服部時計店) is founded by Kanetarō Hattori in Ginza, Tokyo, Japan, predecessor of watch brand Seiko.source
  • Kinshasa (the capital of the modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) is founded by Henry Morton Stanley as a trading outpost called Léopoldville.source

Religion & Belief

  • October 13 – Determined to bring about the revival of the Hebrew language as a way of unifying Jews, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda has what is believed to be the first conversation in Modern Hebrew, with friends living in Paris.source
  • December 25 – Catholic religious congregation Mothers of the Forsaken and Saint Joseph of the Mountain is founded by Blessed Petra of Saint Joseph.source
  • New York City's oldest independent school for girls, the Convent of the Sacred Heart New York (91st Street), is founded.source

Economy & Finance

  • February 25 – Phoenix, Arizona, is incorporated.source

Technology & Infrastructure

  • January 25 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.source
  • February 16 – The Canadian Pacific Railway is incorporated.source
  • March 1 – The Cunard Line's , the first large steel transatlantic liner, is launched at Clydebank in Scotland.source
  • May 16 – The world's first regular electric tram service is started near Berlin, by Siemens & Halske.source
  • June 20 – The current Cincinnati Reds baseball team plays its first game.source
  • September 26 – Godalming becomes the first town in England to have its streets illuminated by electric light (hydroelectrically generated).source
  • October 10 – Richard D'Oyly Carte's Savoy Theatre opens in London, the world's first public building to be fully lit by electricity, using Joseph Swan's incandescent light bulbs.source
  • Rafaela, Argentina, is formed.source

Science & Discovery

  • Some Vatican archives are opened to scholars for the first time.source
  • The Pali Text Society is founded by British scholar Thomas William Rhys Davids, for the study of Pali (Ceylonese) texts.source

Health & Medicine

  • February 18 – Carlos Finlay introduces his discovery of the transmission of Yellow Fever by mosquitoes Aedes aegypti, in the Fifth International Sanitary Conference held in Washington, D.C.source
  • February 19 – Kansas becomes the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.source

Crime & Justice

  • January 24 – William Edward Forster, chief secretary for Ireland, introduces his Coercion Bill, which temporarily suspends habeas corpus so that those people suspected of committing an offence can be detained without trial; it goes through a long debate before it is accepted February 2. Note that Coercion bills had been passed almost annually in the 19th century, with a total of 105 such bills passed from 1801 to 1921.source
  • April 28 – Billy the Kid escapes from his 2 jailers at the Lincoln County Jail in Mesilla, New Mexico, killing James Bell and Robert Ollinger, before stealing a horse and riding out of town.source
  • July 14 – Billy the Kid is shot and killed by Pat Garrett, outside Fort Sumner, New Mexico.source
  • December 28 – Virgil Earp is ambushed in Tombstone, Arizona, and loses the use of his left arm.source

Disasters & Accidents

  • March 23 – A fire caused by a gas explosion destroys the Opéra de Nice in the south of France with fatalities.source
  • April 30 – hits a reef and sinks off the coast of New Zealand's South Island with only 20 survivors of the 151 on board.source
  • June 12 – The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.source
  • September 5 – The Thumb Fire in the U.S. state of Michigan destroys over a million acres (4,000 km 2 ) and kills 282 people.source
  • December 8 – At least 380 die in a fire at the Vienna Ringtheater.source

Climate & Environment

  • April 14 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupts in El Paso, Texas.source
  • August 27 – The fifth hurricane of the Atlantic season hits Florida and the Carolinas, killing about 700.source

Culture & Society

  • February 13 – The first issue of the feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is published by Hubertine Auclert in Paris.source
  • March 31 – Edward Rudolf founds the 'Church of England Central Society for Providing Homes for Waifs and Strays' (later The Children's Society).source
  • April 11 – Spelman College is established in Atlanta, Georgia.source
  • April 21 – The University of Connecticut is founded as the Storrs Agricultural School.source
  • April 25 – Caulfield Grammar School is founded in Melbourne, Australia.source
  • May 21 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton.source
  • May 21 – The United States Tennis Association is established by a small group of tennis club members; the first U.S. Tennis Championships are played this year.source
  • May 22 (May 10 Old Style) – Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen is crowned King of Romania.source
  • July 4 – Tuskegee Institute opens in Alabama.source
  • July 7 – The first episode of Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio is published in Italy.source
  • July 14–20 – The London Social Revolutionary Congress is held; delegates include Marie Le Compte, Peter Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta, Saverio Merlino, Louise Michel, Nikolai Tchaikovsky and Émile Gautier.source
  • September 12 – Francis Howell High School (Howell Institute) in St. Charles, Missouri, and Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas, open on the same day, putting them in a tie for the title of the oldest public high school west of the Mississippi River.source
  • October 29 – The satirical magazine Judge is first published in the United States.source
  • November 9 – Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 premieres in Budapest with the composer as soloist.source
  • November 11 – The Clarkson Memorial to an anti-slavery campaigner in Wisbech (England) is completed and unveiled to the public.source
  • November – Newcastle United F.C. is founded in the northeast of England as Stanley F.C., with a further name change to Newcastle East End F.C. the following year.source
  • Meiji Law School, predecessor of Meiji University, is founded in Yurakucho, Tokyo, Japan.source
  • Culford School, a public school in Suffolk, England, is founded as the East Anglian School for Boys.source
  • The Vocational and Technical College of Tokyo, later Tokyo Institute of Technology, is founded in Japan.source
  • Leyton Orient F.C. is founded in London.source
  • Tokyo Law College, predecessor of Hosei University, is founded in Japan.source

Births

  • January 31 – Irving Langmuir, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)source
  • February 25 – Alexei Rykov, Premier of Russia and Premier of the Soviet Union (d. 1938)source
  • March 22 – Hans Wilsdorf, German-Swiss watchmaker, founder of Rolex (d. 1960)source
  • March 23 – Hermann Staudinger, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)source
  • March 26 – Guccio Gucci, Italian fashion designer, founder of Gucci (d. 1953)source
  • April 16 – Edward Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, British politician (d. 1959)source
  • May 19 – Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkiye and the first President of Turkey, Turkish field marshal and statesman (official birthday; d. 1938)source
  • July 30 – Smedley Butler, United States Marine Corps general (d. 1940)source
  • August 6 – Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish biomedical researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1955)source
  • August 7 – François Darlan, French admiral and 81st prime minister of France from 1941 to 1942 (d. 1942)source
  • August 12 – Cecil B. DeMille, American film director, producer (d. 1959)source
  • September 25 – Lu Xun, leading figure of modern Chinese literature (d. 1936)source
  • October 13 – Eugénie Cotton, French physicist, socialist, women's rights advocate (d. 1967)source
  • October 15 – William Temple, English Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1944)source

Deaths

  • January 1 – Louis Auguste Blanqui, French socialist, political activist (b. 1805)source
  • January 24 – Frances Stackhouse Acton, British botanist, archaeologist, writer and artist (b. 1794)source
  • February 5 – Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer, historian (b. 1795)source
  • February 9 – Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist (b. 1821)source
  • March 28 – Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (b. 1839)source
  • April 26 – Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, Bavarian general (b. 1815)source
  • May 14 – Mary Seacole, British nurse (b. 1805)source
  • July 4 – J. V. Snellman, Finnish statesman and an influential Fennoman philosopher (b. 1806)source
  • July 14 – Billy the Kid, American gunslinger (b. 1859)source
  • August 3 – William Fargo, American expressman and politician, Mayor of Buffalo, New York (b. 1818)source
  • September 13 – Ambrose Burnside, American Civil War general, inventor, politician from Rhode Island (b. 1824)source
  • September 19 – James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States (b. 1831)source
  • September 19 – President James A. Garfield dies eleven weeks after being shot. Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes the 21st president of the United States.source
  • December 4 – Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, American general, politician, and diplomat (b. 1836)source