- Jan 1 Building of Panama Canal begins
- Jan 6 Record snow cover in Seattle - 120 cm
- Jan 9 6' (1.83 metres) of snow falls in Seattle in 5 days
- Jan 9 The Great Gale of 1880 devastates parts of Oregon and Washington with high wind and heavy snow
- Jan 21 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm drains in Memphis, Tennessee
Historic Invention
Jan 27 Thomas Edison patents electric incandescent lamp
Thomas Edison
Murder of Interest
Feb 4 Black donnelly massacre in Biddulph, Ontario. Irish immigrants James (63), Johannah (56), John (32), Thomas (25) and Bridget (21) Donnelly murdered at home by members of the Vigilance Committee
James Donnelly
- Feb 10 Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Arcanum about Christian marriage
- Feb 12 US National Croquet League organizes (Philadelphia)
- Feb 13 Work begins on the covering of the Senne, burying Brussels's primary river and creating the modern central boulevards
- Feb 16 American Society of Mechanical Engineers forms (NYC)
- Feb 17 Tsar Alexander II of Russia survives an assassination attempt
- Feb 29 Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy completed
- Mar 4 NY Daily Graphic publishes 1st half-tone engraving, by S H Horgan
- Mar 10 Salvation Army of England sets up US welfare & religious activity
- Mar 23 Flour rolling mill patented (John Stevens of Wisconsin)
- Mar 24 Tobacco Growers' Mutual Insurance Company incorporates in CT
- Mar 31 1st town to claim to be completely illuminated by electric lighting (Wabash, Indiana)
- Apr 18 An F4 tornado strikes Marshfield, Missouri, killing 99 people and injuring 100.
- Jun 1 The first pay telephone service in the United States is installed in New Haven, Connecticut
- Jun 1 US census is 50,155,783
- Jun 7 War of the Pacific: The Battle of Arica, assault and capture of Morro de Arica (Arica Cape), that ended the Campaña del Desierto (Desert Campaign).
Event of Interest
Jun 8 Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky delivers an emotional speech at the unveiling of a monument to Pushkin in Moscow
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Jun 29 France annexes Otaheite (Tahiti)
- Jul 16 Dr. Emily Stowe becomes the first woman licenced to practise medicine in Canada.
- Jul 19 San Francisco Public Library starts lending books
- Jul 21 Compressed air accident kills 20 workers on Hudson River tunnel, NY
- Jul 24 1st commercial hydroelectric power plant in the world begins generating electricity in Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Jul 27 Alexander P. Ashbourne patents a process for refining coconut oil
- Jul 27 Battle of Maiwand, at which Dr Watson is wounded, breaks out
- Aug 2 British Parliament officially adopts Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
- Aug 3 American Canoe Association founded at Lake George, NY, first Commodore William L. Alden
- Aug 14 Construction of Cologne Cathedral completed after it began in 1248 - largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe
Event of Interest
Aug 16 The French state commissions sculptor Auguste Rodin for a large sculpted doorway 'The Gates of Hell' for the proposed Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Auguste Rodin
Event of Interest
Sep 9 Rutherford B. Hayes visits San Franicsco
Rutherford B. Hayes
- Sep 10 Pierre de Brazza signs treaty with King Makoko of Congo
- Sep 23 Jules Ferry forms French government
- Sep 30 American amateur astronomer Henry Draper takes the 1st ever photograph of the Orion Nebula
- Oct 4 University of California founded in Los Angeles
- Oct 15 Cologne Cathedral, Germany completed, 633 years after it was begun
- Oct 15 Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.
- Oct 20 Amsterdam Free University opens
Election of Interest
Nov 2 James A. Garfield (R) elected 20th US President
James Garfield
- Nov 11 Australian Bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly is hanged at Melbourne Gaol
- Nov 21 Henry Stanley & Pierre de Brazza quarrel about possession of Congo
- Dec 8 5,000 armed Boers gather in Paardekraal, South Africa
- Dec 16 Transvaal region declares itself as the Republic of South Africa
- Dec 16 Beginning of the First Boer War between British Empire and Boer South African Republic
- Dec 20 Battle at Bronker's Spruit, Transvaal: Farmers beat Britten
- Dec 20 NY's Broadway lit by electricity, becomes known as "Great White Way"