What Happened in February 1879

Historical Events

Feb 12 1st artificial ice rink in North America (Madison Square Garden, NYC)
Feb 12 News about slaughtering of Isandlwana reaches London
Feb 14 Chilean troops occupy Antofagasta
Feb 15 US Congress authorizes women lawyers to practise before Supreme Court
Feb 18 Arabs capture Egyptian premier Nabar Pasha

Feb 18 Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi is awarded a patent for his design for the Statue of Liberty

Feb 22 1st 5 cent & 10 cent store opened by Frank W. Woolworth in Utica, New York (failed almost immediately)
Feb 25 US Congress passed 1st Timberland Protection Act
Feb 27 Constantine Fahlberg discovers saccharin (artificial sweetener)
Feb 28 "Exodus of 1879" southern blacks flee political and economic exploitation

Feb 1 Sydney Baynes, composer
Feb 3 Charles Follis, 1st African American NFLer (Shelby, Ohio)
Feb 5 Edward Rigby, British actor (Star Look Down, Young & Innocent), born in Ashford, Kent, England (d. 1951)
Feb 6 Carl Ramsauer, professor of physics and a research physicist (Ramsauer-Townsend effect), born in Berlin, Germany
Feb 9 Carl Natanael Berg, composer
Feb 9 Jacques Bainville, French historian/essayist/journalist
Feb 10 Franz Carl Bornschein, composer
Feb 11 Jean Gilbert [Max Winterfeld], German composer, born in Hamburg, Germany (d. 1942)
Feb 13 Sarojini Naidu, Indian freedom fighter and poet, born in Hyperbad, India (d. 1949)
Feb 17 Dorothy Canfield Fisher, American novelist (Book-of-Month-Club)
Feb 23 Agnes Arber, English biologist/philosopher (Mind & the Eye)
Feb 23 Norman Lindsay, Creswick Victoria, artist/novelist
Feb 24 Herman Teirlinck, Belgian writer (Sun)
Feb 25 Otakar Ostrcil, composer
Feb 26 Frank Bridge, English violinist/composer/conductor/tutor of B Britten
Feb 27 Jose Sancho Marraco, composer