- Feb 2 Baseball's National League forms at the Grand Central Hotel, NYC with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia and St Louis
- Feb 3 Albert Spalding with $800 starts sporting goods co, manufacturing 1st official baseball, tennis ball, basketball, golf ball, & football
- Feb 7 US President Grant's private secretary Orville acquitted in Whiskey Ring
- Feb 12 Al Spalding opens his sporting good shop
- Feb 14 Alexander G. Bell & Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor
- Feb 15 Historic Elm at Boston blown down
- Feb 17 Sardines first canned by Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine
- Feb 18 Direct telegraph link established between Britain & New Zealand
- Feb 22 Johns Hopkins University opens
- Feb 24 Henrik Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" premieres in Oslo