- Dec 2 Cadmus M. Wilcox, American Major General (Confederate Army - American Civil War), dies at 66
- Dec 3 Billy Midwinter, English-Australian cricket all-rounder (8 Tests Australia, 4 England), dies of insanity at 39
- Dec 10 Ludolph Anne Jan Wilt Sloet van de Beele, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (1861-66), dies at 84
Sitting Bull
Dec 15 Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa-Sioux chief who helped led his people to victory in the Battle of the Little Big Horn, killed by US Police aged 58 or 59

Sitting Bull
- Dec 21 Niels Wilhelm Gade, Danish violinist, organist, composer, and conductor, dies at 73
Heinrich Schliemann
Dec 26 Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist who rediscovered Troy, dies of cholesteatoma at 86

Heinrich Schliemann