Today in History for Year 1881

Months in Year 1881: January February March April May June July August September October November December

Historical Events

Events 1 - 100 of 111

Jan 1st - Dr John H Watson is introduced to Sherlock Holmes
Jan 2nd - Camille Saint-Saëns' 3rd Concerto in B, premieres
Jan 4th - Johannes Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture" premieres, Breslau
Jan 22nd - Ancient Egyptian obelisk "Cleopatra's Needle" erected in Central Park
Jan 25th - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company.
Jan 26th - Union of Baptists Communities forms in Foxholl
Jan 28th - Battle at Laing's Neck Natal: Boers beat superior powered British
Feb 1st - US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri authorized
Feb 5th - Phoenix, Az incorporates
Feb 7th - Battle at Ingogo, Transvaal: Boers beat superior British forces
Feb 10th - Jacques Offenbach's opera "Les Contes d'Hoffman," premieres in Paris
Feb 13th - The feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by the activist Hubertine Auclert.
Feb 19th - Kansas becomes 1st state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages
Feb 24th - De Lesseps' Co begins work on Panama Canal
Feb 24th - China and Russia sign the Sino-Russian Ili Treaty.
Feb 26th - -27] Natal: British troops under gen-major Colley occupy Majuba Hill
Feb 26th - SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool
Feb 27th - Battle at Amajuba, S Afr: Boers vs Brit army under Gen Colley
Mar 4th - California becomes 1st state to pass plant quarantine legislation
Inventor Thomas Edison Mar 4th - Holmes & Watson begin "A Study in Scarlet," 1st case together
Mar 4th - James A Garfield inaugurated as 20th president
Mar 4th - South African president Kruger accepts ceasefire
Mar 12th - Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.
Mar 16th - Barnum & Bailey Circus debuts
Mar 18th - Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens (Madison Square Garden)
Mar 23rd - Boers & Britain sign peace accord; end 1st Boer war
Mar 23rd - Gas lamp sets fire to Nice France opera house; 70 die
Mar 26th - Thessaly is freed and becomes part of Greece again.
Mar 27th - Rioting takes place in Basingstoke in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperance by the Salvation Army.
Mar 28th - Greatest Show On Earth was formed by PT Barnum & James A Bailey
Apr 1st - Anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem
Apr 1st - Kingdom post office in Netherlands opens
Apr 5th - Transvaal regains independence under British suzerainty
Apr 11th - River ferry "Princess Victoria" sinks in Thames River Ont, 180 die
Apr 11th - Spelman College founded
Apr 14th - The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight erupts in El Paso, Texas.
Apr 16th - In Dodge City, Kansas, Bat Masterson fights his last gun battle.
Apr 18th - Natural History Museum of South Kensington England opens
Frontier Outlaw Billy the Kid Apr 18th - Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico.
Apr 23rd - Gilbert & Sullivan's opera "Patience" produced in London
Apr 25th - 250,000 Germans petition to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany
Apr 25th - French troops occupy Algeria & Tunisia
Apr 27th - Pogroms against Russian Jews start in Elisabethgrad
May 5th - Anit-Jewish rioting in Kiev Ukraine
May 8th - Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolian monarch
May 10th - Lighthouse on Ameland begins operation
May 11th - Bedrich Smetana's opera "Libusa," premieres in Prague
May 12th - Treaty of Bardo, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate
May 16th - World's 1st elec tram goes into service in Lichterfelder (near Berlin)
May 17th - 7th Kentucky Derby: Jim McLaughlin aboard Hindoo wins in 2:40
May 17th - Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for Wash DC
May 17th - Revised version of New Testament
May 21st - American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton
Humanitarian Clara Barton May 21st - US Nation Lawn Tennis Association forms
May 24th - Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sinks near London Ontario, 200 die
May 24th - Turkey cedes Thessaly and Arta back to Greece.
May 27th - 9th Preakness: T Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:40.5
Jun 1st - Bell Phone opens 1st Dutch telephone exchange
Jun 2nd - Haarlem-Zandvoort Railway opens
Jun 7th - 15th Belmont: T Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:47
Jun 13th - The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.
Jun 14th - Player piano patented by John McTammany Jr (Cambridge, Mass)
Jun 16th - Austria-Hungary & Serbia sign military treaty
Jun 19th - Muhammad Ahmad becomes Mahdi of Sudan
Jun 24th - 200 drown as train runs off bridge near Cuautla Mexico
Jun 29th - Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Diuturnum illud
Jun 30th - Henry Highland Garnet, named minister to Liberia
Jul 1st - 1st international telephone conversation, Calais, ME-St Stephen, NB
Jul 1st - US Assay Office in St Louis, Missouri opens
Jul 1st - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, comes into effect.
Jul 2nd - Pres Garfield shot by Charles J Guiteau a disappointed office-seeker
Education Pioneer Booker Taliaferro Washington Jul 4th - Booker T Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute (Alabama)
Jul 20th - Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to federal troops
Jul 26th - French marines occupy Tunisian harbor city Sfax
Aug 1st - US Quarantine Station authorized for Angel Island, SF Bay
Aug 3rd - Boers signs Convention of Pretoria: Transvaal semi-autonomous
Aug 3rd - US Nation Lawn Tennis Association removes "Nation" from name
Aug 4th - 122°F (50°C), Seville, Spain (European record)
Aug 13th - Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolese monarch
Aug 27th - Hurricane hits Florida & Carolinas; about 700 die
Aug 31st - 1st US men's single tennis championships (Newport, RI)
Sep 3rd - 1st US Mens Tennis: Richard D Sears beats William E Glyn (60 63 62)
Sep 3rd - Anton Bruckner completes his 6th Symphony
Sep 9th - Egyptian military coup under colonel Arab "El Wahid"
Sep 11th - Triple landslides bury Elm Switz
Sep 13th - Lewis Latimer invents & patents electric lamp with a carbon filament
Sep 18th - Chicago Tribune reports on a televideo experiment
Sep 20th - Chester A Arthur sworn in as 21st president
Sep 24th - Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch
Sep 27th - Chicago Cubs beat Troy 10-8 before record small "crowd" of 12
Oct 4th - Edward Leveaux patents automatic player piano
Oct 11th - David Houston patents roll film for cameras
Oct 12th - Henry M Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch
Oct 13th - Revival of Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda & friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations
Oct 15th - 1st American fishing magazine, American Angler published
Oct 22nd - Boston Symphony Orchestra gives its 1st concert
Oct 24th - Levi P Morton, US ambas to France drives 1st rivet in Stat of Liberty
Oct 26th - Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday & Clanton involved in gunfight at OK Corral, in Tombstone, Az
Oct 29th - Judge (U.S. magazine) first published.
Oct 31st - Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season They win 80 of 151 games (18-43 versus NL teams)

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Famous Birthdays

Birthdays 1 - 100 of 204

Jan 1st - Carry van Bridges, [de Haan], Dutch author (Heleen, Eva)
Jan 1st - Vajiravudh, King of Thailand (d. 1925)
Jan 4th - Wilhelm Lehmbruck, German painter/poet/sculptor (Seated Youth)
Jan 5th - Nikolay Andreyevich Roslavets, composer
Jan 8th - Henrik Shipstead, American politician (d. 1960)
Jan 9th - Giovanni Papini, Italy, writer (Il Diavolo)
Jan 9th - Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet/critic (Revaluations)
Jan 9th - Edouard Beaupré, horse lifter (d. 1904)
Jan 13th - Essington Lewis, Australian industrialist (d. 1961)
Jan 17th - Alfred R Radcliffe-Browne, British anthropologist (Andaman Islanders)
Jan 17th - Antoni Łomnicki, Polish mathematician (d. 1941)
Jan 18th - Gaston Gallimard, French publisher (Librairie Gallimard) [or 1908]
Jan 25th - Emil Ludwig, German biographer (Diana, Son of Man)
Jan 25th - Gustave Frederic Soderlund, composer
Jan 31st - Irving Langmuir, inventor (tungsten filament lamp/Nobel 1932)
Jan 31st - Joseph A Cushman, US, palaentologist
Feb 1st - Jose Ignacio Quinton, composer
Feb 2nd - Karl Frederick, pistol champ (Olympic-gold-1920)
Feb 4th - Kliment J Woroshilov, marshal/president USSR (1953-60)
Feb 4th - Fernand Léger, French painter (d. 1955)
Feb 5th - Frederick Leonard Lonsdale, British playwright (Balkan Princess)
Feb 6th - Karl Weigl, composer
Feb 13th - Eleanor Farjeon, English writer (Martin Pippin)
Feb 14th - Otto Selz, German psychologist
Feb 14th - William John Gruffydd, Welsh poet/scholar (Ynys yr Hud)
Feb 16th - Maurits H E Uyldert, Dutch poet/writer (Youth of a Poet)
Feb 19th - Armin Knab, German composer (Eichendorff-cycle)
Feb 19th - Evert Gorter, founder of Dutch medical child care
Feb 19th - Paul Zech, writer
Feb 20th - Pedro Munoz Seca, Spanish playwright (Vengeanza de Don Mendo)
Feb 21st - Savilly Tartakower, Austrian/Polish/French chess player
Feb 22nd - Joseph B. Ely, American politician (d. 1956)
Feb 23rd - Titus [Anno S] Brandsma, Dutch philosopher
Feb 25th - William Foster, Mass, Communist Pres candidate (1924,28,32)
Feb 27th - Luitzen [Bertus] Brouwers, Dutch mathematician
Feb 27th - Sveinn Bjornsson, 1st president of Iceland (1944-52)/poet (Figur ild)
Mar 4th - Todor Aleksandrov, 19th century Bulgarian revolutionary (d. 1924)
Mar 4th - Maude Fealy, American actor (d. 1971)
Mar 4th - Thomas Sigismund Stribling, American writer (d. 1965)
Mar 4th - Richard C. Tolman, American mathematical physicist (d. 1948)
Mar 9th - Enver Pasja, Turkish general/politician
Mar 9th - Ernest Bevin, British minister of Labour/Foreign affairs
Mar 10th - Thomas Quinlan (impresario) (d. 1951)
Mar 12th - Daniel Webster Hoan, Wisc (Mayor-Socialist-Milwaukee)
Mar 12th - Gunnar Nordström, Finnish physicist (d. 1923)
Mar 13th - Balthazar H Verhagen, Neth/South African dramatist/writer
Mar 17th - Kristian Elster, Norwegian author (Less bror Harris)
Mar 17th - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
Mar 18th - Oliver Seibert, hall of fame hockey player (elected 1963)
Mar 18th - Paul Le Flem, composer
Mar 21st - Hermann Sandby, composer
Mar 23rd - Hermann Staudinger, Germany, chemist/plastics researcher (Nobel '53)
Mar 23rd - Roger Martin du Guard, France, novelist (Les Thibault-Nobel 1937)
Mar 25th - Béla Bartok, Hungary, composer/pianist (Concerto for Orchestra)
Mar 25th - Louis Dosfel, Flemish lawyer/writer (Assault!)
Mar 25th - Mary Gladys Webb, English writer (d. 1927)
Apr 3rd - Alcide de Gasperi, Italian premier (1945..53)
Apr 3rd - Margaret MJ "Daisy" Ashford, English author (Young Sisters)
Apr 4th - Charles Funk, Ohio, Encylopediest (Funk & Wagnalls)
Apr 8th - Fernand Lamy, composer
Apr 11th - Harvey Bartlett Gaul, composer
Apr 14th - Anton Wildgans, Austrian writer/director (Burg Theater)
Apr 16th - Edward Frederick Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax/ambassador to US (1940-46)
Apr 17th - Anton Wildgans, writer
Apr 18th - Hermann KJ Zilcher, German pianist/composer (Dr Eisenbart)
Apr 18th - Max Weber, Polish/Russian/US painter
Apr 20th - Nikolai Miaskovsky, Novogeorievsk Poland, composer (Kirov is With Us)
Apr 20th - Sem Dresden, composer/conductor
Apr 21st - Jules-Marie Canneel, Flemish painter/caricaturist (Rocks of Oran)
Apr 22nd - Alexander Kerensky, Simbirsk, Russian PM (1917)
Apr 23rd - Claude Carter, South African slow lefty cricketer (1912-22)
Apr 23rd - Otakar Sini, composer
Apr 25th - Hans Windisch, German new testament expert
May 1st - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, France, philosopher/paleontologist
May 4th - Aleksandr F Kerenski, Russian premier (1917-Prelude to Bolshevism)
May 11th - Jan van Gilse, composer/resistance fighter (Frau Helga von Staveren)
May 11th - Pascual Rogatis, composer
May 11th - Al Cabrera, Spanish-born Cuban baseball player (d. 1964)
May 11th - Theodore von Kármán, Hungarian physicist (d. 1963)
May 13th - Ilona Durigo, Hungarian singer
May 14th - Ed Walsh, American baseball pitcher, lowest lifetime ERA (1.82)
May 14th - G. Murray Hulbert, American politician (d. 1950)
May 18th - Georgi Atanasov, composer
May 19th - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1st President of Turkey (d. 1938)
May 20th - Wladyslaw Sikorski, premier Poland (WW II general)
May 24th - Mikulas Schneider-Trvavsky, composer
May 27th - Rudolf Pannwitz, German writer
May 29th - Frederik Septimus Kelly, composer
May 30th - Georg von Küchler, German field marshal (d. 1968)
Jun 1st - Charles Kay Ogden, English writer and linguist (d. 1957)
Jun 3rd - Mikhail Larionov, Russian painter (d. 1964)
Jun 4th - Clara Blandick, actress (Huckleberry Finn, Romance, Tom Sawyer)
Jun 4th - Natalia Goncharova, Russian painter (d. 1962)
Jun 8th - Prospero Bisquertt, composer
Jun 12th - Juan de Hernandez, composer
Jun 17th - Tommy Burns, Canadian boxer (d. 1955)
Jun 18th - Eduard C "Edo" Fimmen, Dutch labor leader
Jun 29th - Harry Frazee, American baseball team owner (d. 1929)
Jun 29th - Curt Sachs, German musicologist (d. 1959)
Jul 1st - Piet[er] L Kramer, architect (Amsterdam School)

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Famous Deaths

Deaths 1 - 71 of 71

Jan 1st - Louis Auguste Blanqui, French political activist (b. 1805)
Jan 21st - Wilhelm Matthias Naeff, Swiss Federal Councilor (b. 1802)
Jan 25th - Konstantin Thon, Russian architect (b. 1794)
Jan 30th - Jaak Nikolaas Lemmens, Flemish composer, dies at 58
Feb 2nd - Aleksej F Pisemski, Russian writer (Clodhopper), dies at 59
Feb 5th - Thomas Carlyle, historian/essayist, dies in London at 85
Feb 6th - Pieter Mijer, Gov-Gen of Neth Indies (1866-72), dies at 68
Feb 7th - Fredrik Cygnaeus, Finnish poet/literature critic, dies at 73
Feb 9th - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian novelist (Crime & Punishment), dies at 59
Feb 14th - Fernando Wood, New York City mayor (b. 1812)
Feb 27th - George Colley, British governor of Natal/general, dies in battle at 46
Mar 6th - Horatia Nelson, the illegitimate daughter of Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson (b. 1801)
Mar 13th - Alexander II, Tsar of Russia, assassinated at 62
Mar 15th - Emory Upton, US Union gen-maj (Selma), commits suicide at 42
Mar 21st - Samuel Courtauld, American-born textile magnate (b. 1793)
Mar 23rd - Nikolay Rubinstein, composer, dies at 45
Mar 24th - Friedrich Hecker, German revolutionary republic politician, dies at 69
Mar 24th - Joseph Delesse, French geologist (b. 1817)
Mar 26th - Roman Sanguszko, Polish aristocrat (b. 1800)
Novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Feb 9th) Mar 28th - Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Russian composer (Boris Godunov), dies at 42 [OS=Mar 16]
Mar 31st - Gaetano Gaspari, composer, dies at 73
Apr 7th - Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte, Corsican MP, dies at 65
Apr 11th - Kristian Mandrup Elster, Norwegian author (Torn Trondal), dies at 40
Apr 16th - George William Martin, composer, dies at 56
Apr 19th - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl (Beaconsfield)/novelist, dies
Apr 19th - Michel Abeloos, Flemish sculptor, dies at 53
Apr 26th - Ludwig Freiherr von und zu der Tann-Rathsamhausen, German general (b. 1815)
Apr 27th - Ludwig A Benedek, Austrian general, dies at 76
Apr 28th - Robert W Ollinger, US warden/last victim of Billy the Kid, dies
May 3rd - Josip Jurcic, Slovic writer (Schone Vida), dies
May 11th - Henri-Frederic Amiel, Swiss/French writer (Journal Intime), dies at 59
May 23rd - Kit Carson, frontiersman, dies
May 23rd - Leopold von Ranke, historian, dies
May 24th - Samuel Palmer, landscape painter, dies
May 26th - Jakob Bernays, German philologist (b. 1824)
Jun 2nd - Émile Littré, French lexicographer (b. 1801)
Jun 3rd - Japanese giant salamander, dies in Dutch zoo at 55; oldest amphibian
Jun 6th - Henry Vieuxtemps, Belgian composer, dies at 61
Jun 13th - Josef Skoda, Czech physician (b. 1805)
Jun 16th - Marie Laveau, American Voodoo practitioner (b. 1801)
Jun 16th - Sir Josiah Mason, English manufacturer (b. 1795)
Jun 28th - Jules Armand Dufaure, French statesman (b. 1798)
Jul 4th - Johan Vilhelm Snellman, Finnish statesman (b. 1806)
Jul 10th - Georg Hermann Nicolai, German architect (b. 1812)
Frontier Outlaw Billy the Kid (Jul 14th) Jul 14th - Billy the Kid, American outlaw (b. 1859?)
Jul 15th - Billy the Kid [William H Bonney], shot by sheriff Pat Garrett at 21
Jul 17th - Jim Bridger, American mountain man, Indian fighter, and explorer (b. 1804)
Jul 20th - Thomas Fermor-Hesketh, English 1st baron of Hesketh, dies
Jul 26th - George Borrow, writer, dies
Jul 27th - Johann Christian Lobe, composer, dies at 84
Aug 2nd - Marcus Andrews Hislop Clarke, author (His Natural Life) at 35
Aug 6th - James White, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (b. 1821)
Aug 19th - Joseph Labitzky, composer, dies at 79
Sep 7th - Sidney Clopton Lanier, composer, dies at 39
Sep 8th - W Frederik K, prince of Netherlands/general/admiral, dies at 84
Sep 13th - Ambrose Everett Burnside, US Union general, dies at 57
Sep 19th - James A Garfield, 20th president (1881), dies of gunshot wound at 49
Sep 22nd - Solomon L. Spink, U.S. Congressman from Illinois (b. 1831)
Sep 24th - Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata, composer, dies at 74
Oct 1st - Frantisek Matej Hilmar, composer, dies at 78
Oct 3rd - Orson Pratt, American religious leader (b. 1811)
Oct 22nd - Janis Cimze, composer, dies at 67
Oct 26th - Billy Clanton, brother of Ike, dies
Nov 1st - Jacques F H Perk, Dutch poet (Iris), dies at 22
Nov 7th - John MacHale, Irish Archbishop (Tuam) and writer (b. 1791)
Nov 9th - Edwin Drake, Father of the oil industry, drilled the first oil well.
Nov 21st - Ami Boué, Austrian geologist (b. 1794)
Nov 25th - Theobald Boehm, German inventor of the modern flute (b. 1794)
Dec 7th - Julius FA Bahnsen, Ger philosopher (Tragic as Weltgesetz), dies at 51
Dec 13th - August Senoa, Croatian writer (Kletva [The Curse]), dies at 43
Dec 17th - Lewis H Morgan, US ethnologist (Iroquois-indians), dies at 62