istoryworld
All Events
Louis Pasteur begins his long study of rabies, leading eventually to the achievement of a successful vaccine after a dangerous experiment on a young boy in 1885
Buenos Aires is finally accepted as the permanent capital city of Argentina
For the second time Gladstone replaces Disraeli as Britain's prime minister, following a Liberal election victory over the Conservatives
On their honeymoon in Venice, George Eliot's husband develops depression and throws himself, or falls, from their hotel balcony into the Grand Canal
Gustave Flaubert dies, with his novel Bouvard et Pécuchet incomplete
French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza forestalls Stanley in opening up the Congo, reaching Stanley Pool ahead of him
Russian composer Alexander Borodin writes In the Steppes of Central Asia as part of the silver jubilee celebrations for Alexander II
Dostoevsky publishes his novel The Brothers Karamazov, featuring the four sons of the depraved Feodor Pavlovich Karamazov
Johannes Brahms' Academic Festival Overture is performed first at Breslau university, which has conferred on him an honorary Ph.D.
US author Lew Wallace publishes a historical novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Republican candidate James Abram Garfield defeats Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock in the US presidential election
Boston lawyer Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr publishes a legal study that becomes a classic text, The Common Law
The Boers inflict a convincing defeat on a British army at Majuba, in the Transvaal
The first pogroms, or officially sanctioned attacks on Jews and their property, take place in Russia
Russia's reforming tsar, Alexander II, is killed by hand-made grenades thrown at his carriage in St Petersburg
France invades Tunisia from Algeria, and in the Treaty of Bardo forces the bey of Tunis to accept the status of a French protectorate
In Washington Square Henry James tells the sad story of heiress Catherine Sloper
The Tynwald in the Isle of Man becomes the first parliament to give women the vote
Joel Chandler Harris publishes Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, the first of many Uncle Remus volumes
London's new Savoy Theatre is the first public building in the world to be lit throughout by electricity
The British withdraw from Afghanistan, having achieved nothing in the Second Anglo-Afghan War
P.T. Barnum and his main rival James Bailey merge their enterprises to form America's leading circus
US president James Garfield is shot by Charles J. Guiteau at a Washington railway station, and dies two months later
Stanley finds Brazza's French tricolor already flying on the north bank of the Congo, on the site of what later becomes Brazzaville
Henry James's novel The Portrait of a Lady studies an American girl, Isabel Archer, in the unfamiliar context of Europe
