Notable Historical Events - 1881
1881 Historical Events
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
Jan 1 |
Dr John H Watson is introduced to Sherlock Holmes |
Jan 2 |
Camille Saint-Saëns' 3rd Concerto in B, premieres |
Jan 4 |
Johannes Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture" premieres, Breslau |
Jan 22 |
Ancient Egyptian obelisk "Cleopatra's Needle" erected in Central Park, New York |
Jan 25 |
Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company. |
Jan 26 |
Union of Baptists Communities forms in Foxholl |
Jan 28 |
Battle at Laing's Neck Natal: Boers beat superior powered British |
Feb 1 |
US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri authorized |
Feb 5 |
Phoenix, Az incorporates |
Feb 7 |
Battle at Ingogo, Transvaal: Boers beat superior British forces |
Feb 10 |
Jacques Offenbach's opera "Les Contes d'Hoffman," premieres in Paris |
Feb 13 |
The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert. |
Feb 19 |
Kansas becomes 1st state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages |
Feb 24 |
De Lesseps' Co begins work on Panama Canal |
Feb 24 |
China and Russia sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty. |
Feb 26 |
-27] Natal: British troops under Major General Colley occupy Majuba Hill |
Feb 26 |
SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool |
Feb 27 |
Battle at Amajuba, S Afr: Boers vs Brit army under Gen Colley |
Mar 4 |
California becomes 1st state to pass plant quarantine legislation |
Mar 4 |
Holmes & Watson begin "A Study in Scarlet", 1st case together |
Mar 4 |
James A Garfield inaugurated as 20th president |
Mar 4 |
South African president Kruger accepts ceasefire |
Mar 12 |
Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain. |
Mar 16 |
Barnum & Bailey Circus debuts |
Mar 18 |
Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens (Madison Square Garden) |
Mar 23 |
Boers & Britain sign peace accord; end 1st Boer war |
Mar 23 |
Gas lamp sets fire to Nice France opera house; 70 die |
Mar 26 |
Thessaly is freed and becomes part of Greece again. |
Mar 27 |
Rioting takes place in Basingstoke, Hampshire, in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperance by the Salvation Army. |
Mar 28 |
"Greatest Show On Earth" was formed by PT Barnum & James A Bailey |
Apr 1 |
Anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem |
Apr 1 |
Kingdom post office in Netherlands opens |
Apr 5 |
Transvaal regains independence under British suzerainty |
Apr 11 |
River ferry "Princess Victoria" sinks in Thames River, Ontario, 180 die |
Apr 11 |
Spelman College founded |
Apr 14 |
The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupts in El Paso, Texas. |
Apr 16 |
In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle. |
Apr 18 |
Natural History Museum opens in South Kensington, England |
Apr 18 |
Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico. |
Apr 23 |
Gilbert & Sullivan's opera "Patience" produced in London |
Apr 25 |
250,000 Germans petition to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany |
Apr 25 |
French troops occupy Algeria & Tunisia |
Apr 27 |
Pogroms against Russian Jews start in Elisabethgrad |
May 5 |
Anit-Jewish rioting in Kiev Ukraine |
May 8 |
Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolian monarch |
May 10 |
Lighthouse on Ameland begins operation |
May 11 |
Bedrich Smetana's opera "Libusa" premieres in Prague |
May 12 |
Treaty of Bardo, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate |
May 16 |
World's 1st electric tram goes into service in Lichterfelder (near Berlin) |
May 17 |
7th Kentucky Derby: Jim McLaughlin aboard Hindoo wins in 2:40 |
May 17 |
Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for Wash DC |
May 17 |
Revised version of New Testament |
May 21 |
American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton |
May 21 |
US Nation Lawn Tennis Association forms |
May 24 |
Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sinks near London Ontario, 200 die |
May 24 |
Turkey cedes Thessaly and Arta back to Greece. |
May 27 |
9th Preakness: T Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:40.5 |
Jun 1 |
Bell Phone opens 1st Dutch telephone exchange |
Jun 2 |
Haarlem-Zandvoort Railway opens |
Jun 7 |
15th Belmont: T Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:47 |
Jun 12 |
The USS Jeannette, under the command of George Washington De Long, is crushed by Arctic ice after 21 months of ice-bound drifting |
Jun 13 |
The USS Jeannette, under the command of George Washington De Long, sinks in the Arctic circle following 21 months of drifting after becoming trapped in the ice |
Jun 14 |
Player piano patented by John McTammany Jr (Cambridge, Mass) |
Jun 16 |
Austria-Hungary & Serbia sign military treaty |
Jun 19 |
Muhammad Ahmad becomes Mahdi of Sudan |
Jun 24 |
200 drown as train runs off bridge near Cuautla, Mexico |
Jun 29 |
Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Diuturnum illud |
Jun 30 |
Henry Highland Garnet named minister to Liberia |
Jul 1 |
1st international telephone conversation, Calais, ME-St Stephen, NB |
Jul 1 |
US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri opens |
Jul 1 |
General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, comes into effect. |
Jul 2 |
US President James Garfield shot by Charles J Guiteau a disappointed office-seeker; Garfield died 79 days later |
Jul 4 |
Booker T. Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute (Alabama) |
Jul 13 |
5th Wimbledon Men's Tennis: William Renshaw beats J Hartley (6-0 6-1 6-1) |
Jul 20 |
Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to US federal troops |
Jul 26 |
French marines occupy Tunisian harbor city Sfax |
Aug 1 |
US Quarantine Station authorized for Angel Island, SF Bay |
Aug 3 |
Boers signs Convention of Pretoria: Transvaal semi-autonomous |
Aug 3 |
US National Lawn Tennis Association removes "National" from its name |
Aug 4 |
122°F (50°C), Seville, Spain (European record) |
Aug 13 |
Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolese monarch |
Aug 27 |
Hurricane hits Florida & Carolinas; about 700 die |
Aug 31 |
1st US men's single tennis championships (Newport, RI) |
Sep 3 |
1st US Men's Tennis: Richard D Sears beats William E Glyn (6-0 6-3 6-2) |
Sep 3 |
Anton Bruckner completes his 6th Symphony |
Sep 9 |
Egyptian military coup under colonel Arab "El Wahid" |
Sep 11 |
Triple landslides bury Elm Switz |
Sep 13 |
Lewis Latimer invents & patents electric lamp with a carbon filament |
Sep 18 |
Chicago Tribune reports on a televideo experiment |
Sep 20 |
Chester A. Arthur sworn in as 21st president |
Sep 24 |
Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch |
Sep 27 |
Chicago Cubs beat Troy 10-8 before record small "crowd" of 12 |
Oct 4 |
Edward Leveaux patents automatic player piano |
Oct 11 |
David Houston patents roll film for cameras |
Oct 12 |
Henry M Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch |
Oct 13 |
Revival of Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda & friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations |
Oct 15 |
1st American fishing magazine, American Angler published |
Oct 22 |
Boston Symphony Orchestra gives its first concert |
Oct 24 |
Levi P Morton, US ambasador to France drives first rivet in Statue of Liberty |
Oct 26 |
Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday & Clanton involved in gunfight at OK Corral, in Tombstone, Az |
Oct 29 |
Judge (U.S. magazine) first published. |
Oct 31 |
Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season They win 80 of 151 games (18-43 versus NL teams) |
Nov 2 |
Dutch New-Malthusiaanse Union forms |
Nov 5 |
French government-Ferry resigns |
Nov 5 |
1,600 police and volunteers attack Māori settlement at Parihaka in western Taranaki which had become the symbol of protest against the confiscation of Māori land, New Zealand |
Nov 14 |
Charles J Guiteau went on trial for assassination of President Garfield |
Nov 14 |
Leon Gambetta forms French government |
Nov 15 |
American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded (Pittsburgh) |
Nov 19 |
A meteorite lands near the village of Großliebenthal, southwest of Odessa, Ukraine. |
Dec 3 |
Henry Morton Stanley founds Leopoldville/Kinshasa |
Dec 4 |
The first edition of the Los Angeles Times is published. |
Dec 5 |
47th Congress (1881-83) convenes |
Dec 8 |
Vienna's Ring Theater destroyed by fire, kills between 640-850 |
Dec 19 |
Opera "Hérodiade" is produced (Brussels) |
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