istoryworld
All Events
Mussorgsky composes Pictures at an Exhibition as a piece for piano in memory of an exhibition by the Russian painter Victor Hartmann
English author Thomas Hardy has his first success with his novel Far from the Madding Crowd
Georg Cantor lays the foundations of set theory with his paper On a Characteristic Property of All Real Algebraic Numbers
Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt has its premiere in Oslo, with incidental music by Edvard Grieg
The return to Spain of Isabella's son, as Alfonso XII, offers an end to forty years of royal feuding
Georges Bizet's opera Carmen has its premiere in Paris and meets at first with a lukewarm response
Charles Stewart Parnell takes his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster and immediately adds zest to the campaign for Home Rule
William Crookes invents the radiometer, in which light causes four vanes to rotate in a bulb containing gas at low pressure
Leo Tolstoy publishes the first volume of his novel Anna Karenina, in which the heroine develops a fatal love for Count Vronsky
After spending much time in Europe in recent years, Henry James moves there permanently and settles first in Paris
Madame Blavatsky founds in New York the Theosophical Society, preaching universal brotherhood with a strong dash of mysticism
Congress passes a Civil Rights Act outlawing segration in the USA on public transport and in hotels and restaurants
Nikolai Przewalski discovers in western Mongolia a surviving example of the wild breed from which the horse was domesticated
Benjamin Disraeli buys for Britain a controlling share in the Suez Canal, with money borrowed from Lionel Nathan de Rothschild
Andrew Carnegie's new steel mill near Pittsburgh prospers through automation, new technology and non-union labour
Mary Baker Eddy expounds her beliefs in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, later considered the textbook of Christian Science
US artist Thomas Eakins' depiction of the gruesome aspect of surgery, in his portrait of Dr Gross, offends many viewers
Slavery is finally made illegal in the Portuguese empire
An agreement is signed between France and Britain to cooperate in the construction of a tunnel beneath the Channel
An outbreak of measles in Fiji, brought to the islands by British visitors, kills a quarter of the population
Henry James's early novel Roderick Hudson is serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and is published in book form in 1876
Lord and Lady Russell take their orphaned grandsons Frank and Bertrand (later a leading philosopher) to live in Pembroke Lodge
Proposals are put forward for a new bridge near the Tower
Robert Koch publishes a paper proving that a bacterium causes anthrax, thus validating the germ theory of disease as opposed to spontaneous generation
York House is bought by Sir Mounstuart Grant Duff MP, later Governor of Madras.
