US and World History -- Year In Context
(In large part, dates are from  http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/dates)

1850's
1860's
1870's          70 71 72  737475  76 7778 79
1880's
1890's
1900's
1910's
1920's

1870

 
- Franco-German War ( 1870-71), After France declares war on  Prussia, the other German states join with Prussia to invade France,  where they make short work of the French army. Paris holds out,  though, and the Germans begin a 135-day siege of the city, during  which Parisians eat cats, dogs, and even elephants from the zoo. Napoleon III is captured by the Germans
-  "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", in a nuclear submarine is published
-  Standard Oil Co. of Ohio is incorporated, with John D. Rockefeller as  president and majority stockholder. The company becomes one of the  most powerful corporations in the United States. John S Sargent paints him 1917

-  Rrailway between Bombay and Calcutta was completed
-  15th Amendment passes, guarantees right to vote regardless of race
-  The Calcutta and Bombay Railroad opened for through traffic
-  The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in New York,  The Museum of Fine Arts is established in Boston
-  Manitoba becomes a Canadian Province
- The first America's Cup race
-  Italy is unified after troops seize Rome from the French forces. Rome was declared the capital
-  Robert E. Lee died
-  US Weather Bureau begins operations

1871

-   Whistler paints his mother

- The Second Empire  of France comes to an end and Napoleon III is deposed
- "The  Descent of Man" by Charles Darwin  which postulated humans came from the anthropoid
- 1st Cable Car was patented by Andrew S. Hallidie
- Royal Albert Hall in London was opened by Queen Victoria
- Trade unions legalized in England by an act of Parliament
- Great Chicago Fire destroys over 4 square miles of Chicago
- New York City's Boss Tweed arrested on fraud charges
- Henry Stanley finds David Livingstone at Ujiji, Zanzibar and says "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" To which Livingstone replies, "Yes, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you."

1872

- The world's first national park was established Yellowstone National Park created; our first of many by  Pres. Ulysses S. Grant
- The first run of the Orient Express
- Metropolitan Gas Company lamps lit for 1st time
- First railroad opens in Japan
- Woman's Sufferage Convention held at Merchantile Liberty Hall
- Britain introduces voting by secret ballot
- 1st Japanese commercial ship visits San Francisco with a cargo of tea
- Fire destroyed nearly 1,000 buildings in Boston
- The Jesse James gang robs its first passenger train, the Rock Island, believing that the train is carrying $75,000 in gold. It's not, so they only get what they can steal from passengers and the train crew.

1873

- Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's "The Gilded Age" is published
- In USA, Wallstreet crash and beginning of a intense Depression of 1870's
- First successful test of a cable car. It was designed by Andrew S. Hallidie for San Francisco
- The Ivy League establishes rules for college football
- Barbed wire was first made allowing the ranges to be fenced
- William Handy, established the popularity of the blues in band music
- Hoosac Railroad Tunnel completed in NW Massachusetts

1874

- In April 15, 1874, Exhibition of Independents  -- rejected by the juries of the Salona a group of artists: Claude Monet, Paul,  Cezanne,  Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, and August  Renoir brought their works together of the photographer Nadar at 35 boulevard des Capucines,  holding their first show. The term Impressionism is coined.
- An elephant was first used to represent the Republican party in a cartoon by Thomas Nast
- National Women's Christian Temperance Union is established
- Winston Churchill, statesman, born in Blenheim Palace

1875

- Art Students League formed in New York City
- US Congress passes the Civil Rights Act guaranteeing black Americans equal access to public facilities.
- British buy the controlling interest in the Suez Canal
- Gold discovered in the Sioux holy grounds, the Black Hills of SD
- First running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchhill Downs
- Georges Bizet, composer of Carmen and The Pearl Fishers, died
- Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel, traveling from Dover to Calais in 22 hours
- Verney Cameron was 1st European to cross equatorial Africa from sea to sea
- Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" is published.

1876

-  Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, includes retrospective of American art (1,000 works)
- The Satue of Liberty is presented by France, construction requires ten years (mostly due to lack of building funds)

- National Baseball League formed with 8 teams
- "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you," says Alexander Graham Bell  into the telephone.
- Crazy Horse defeats General Crook
- Custer's Last Stand at the Little Big Horn in Montana
- Geronimo begins a 10-year reign of war against white settlers in the American Southwest.
- 1st public exhibition of electric light in San Francisco
- Colorado becomes the 38th state
- First two-way telephone conversation
- First complete performance of Richard Wagner's operatic Ring cycle opens in Germany.
- A Jesse James gang bank robbery goes wrong in Minnesota; two of  the gang are killed, and four are caught. But Jesse and his brother,  Frank, escape.
- Central Park in New York opens
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston opens first location at Copley Square.

1877

- The Third Impressionist Exhibition is held in Paris, Mary Cassatt invited to join the French Impressionists; newly formed Society of American Artists and entices younger artists at home and abroad to enter the shows
- British imperialism is nearing its zenith as Britain annexes the South African Republic, and Queen Victoria is proclaimed empress of India. 
- Rutherford B. Hayes becomes president and ends Reconstruction in the south as a promise to gain the presidency.
- Crazy Horse died in a Nebraska prison from stab wounds
- The Nez Perce tribes in the northwestern United States battle with American troops after years of passive noncompliance with treaties.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City was opened

- The catcher's mask was first used in a baseball game
- Bell Telephone Co. formed (predecessor of AT&T)
- Thomas Edison announced the invention of a phonograph, which he dubbed a "talking machine."
-  Four feuding American railroads cease their price wars and collude to cut wages, prompting the great railroad strike of 1877. Riots break out in many cities and Federal troops end the strikes, but only after killing some workers and injuring many.

1878

- First electric street lighting anywhere was on Cleveland Public Square
- First commercial telephone exchange initiated, in New York City
- First electric lights installed in Westminster Palace
- First attempt at motion pictures (using 12 cameras, each taking one picture (done to see if all 4 of a horse's hooves leave the ground during a gallop. Leland Stanford bet they didn't. He lost)
- First telephone installed in the White House
- The largest yellow diamond ever discovered is found in the Kimberly Mine of South Africa. It is purchased by New York's Tiffany & Co. and becomes known as the Tiffany Diamond.
- Labor struggle intensifies in the United States when the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad cuts engineers' pay 10 percent. Striking workers shut the railroad down for five days. The militia is called in, and Union organizers are arrested after a bystander is killed.
-  Mannlicher produces the repeater rifle.
- The Russo-Turkish Wars conclude with an Ottoman surrender to the Russians.

1879

-  Charles McGill was last felon publicly hanged on Cleveland Public Square
-  1879  John D. Rockefeller organizes the Standard Oil Trust
- "La Marseillaise" becomes French national anthem
-   Albert Einstein, physicist, born
- 1st electric railway opens at Berlin Trades Exposition
- The Zulu War ends by British troops, Zululand is divided in 13 separate kingdoms.
-  The reading room of the British Museum was first lighted with electricity
-  Edison gives public demonstration of his incandescent lamp
-  with Reconstruction over in the South, political repression of southern blacks starts to intensify.
- Pavlov's dog, Ivan Pavlov demonstrates conditioned response.
- The architecture firm McKim, Mead & White is established in New York. It will build many famous New York City buildings, and the Boston Public Library which John Singer Sargent would do murals for.

updated 1/10/2003