istoryworld
All Events
A French government of national defence deposes Napoleon III and proclaims the third French republic
The all-round English cricketer W.G. Grace begins a 28-year career as captain of Gloucestershire
Bret Harte's comic ballad Plain Language from Truthful James acquires a popular alternative title, The Heathen Chinee
Richard Wagner marries Cosima, the daughter of the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt
As the result of a plebiscite, Rome and the remaining papal states are included in the kingdom of Italy
US anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan inaugurates kinship studies with his massive Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family
Civil War veterans in the USA establish the National Rifle Association to promote marksmanship
The Prussian king, William I, is proclaimed emperor of a united Germany in the palace at Versailles
Troops of the new German empire march through Paris in a victory parade at the end of the Franco-Prussian war
The Afghan philosopher Jamal al-Din, moving to Cairo, urges drastic and violent measures against western influence
An uprising results in the Paris Commune, followed by the siege of the city by French government forces
Rome becomes the capital city of the entire Italian peninsula, for the first time since the Roman empire
18-year-old English entrepreneur Cecil Rhodes, on a temporary visit to South Africa, arrives in the new diamond town of Kimberley
The Paris communards are overwhelmed in a battle at the Père Lachaise cemetery, which is followed by brutal reprisals
US president Ulysses S. Grant uses the new Civil Rights Act to suppress the violent Ku Klux Klan in southern states
Whistler paints his mother and calls the picture Arrangement in Grey and Black
English actor Henry Irving plays what becomes one of his most famous parts, that of Mathias in the melodrama The Bells
A fire in Chicago destroys a third of the city, to be followed by an extremely rapid and successful period of reconstruction
British Columbia agrees to join the Canadian confederation on the promise of a transcontinental railway
French author Émile Zola publishes The Fortune of the Rougons, the first in a 20-novel series that he calls Les Rougon-Macquart
Stanley, finding Livingstone at Ujiji, greets him with four words which become famous – 'Dr Livingstone, I presume'
Giuseppe Verdi's opera Aida, is commissioned for the Cairo opera house, part of the process of Egypt becoming westernized
Italian US immigrant Antonio Meucci files a patent in New York for the invention of the telephone
George Eliot publishes Middlemarch, in which Dorothea makes a disastrous marriage to the pedantic Edward Casaubon
Whistler begins to paint his Nocturnes, a revolutionary series of night-time images on the river Thames
