January •
January 1 – The
Midland Railway of England abolishes the Second Class passenger category, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British railway companies follow Midland's lead during the rest of the year (Third Class is renamed Second Class in
1956). •
January 5 – The
Palais Garnier, one of the most famous
opera houses in the world, is inaugurated as the home of the Paris Opera. •
January 12 –
Guangxu becomes the 11th
Qing dynasty Emperor of China at the age of 3. He succeeds his cousin, the
Tongzhi Emperor, who had no sons of his own. •
January 14 – The newly proclaimed King
Alfonso XII of Spain (Queen
Isabella II's son) arrives in Spain to restore the monarchy during the
Third Carlist War. •
January 24 –
Camille Saint-Saëns' orchestral
Danse macabre receives its première.
February •
February 3 –
Third Carlist War: Battle of Lácar – Carlist commander
Torcuato Mendíri secures a brilliant victory, when he surprises and routs a Government force under General Enrique Bargés at Lácar, east of Estella, nearly capturing newly crowned King Alfonso XII. The Carlists take several pieces of artillery, more than 2,000 rifles, and 300 prisoners. 800 men of both sides are killed (mostly government troops). •
February 18 – The
Mason County War begins, as a German-American mob breaks into a prison, and lynches cattle rustlers in central
Texas. •
February 24 – The sinks off Australia's east coast with the loss of approximately 102 lives, including a number of high-profile civil servants and dignitaries. •
February 25 – The majority of the
Yavapai (Wipukyipai) and
Tonto Apache (Dil Zhéé) tribes are forced by the
United States Cavalry, under command of Brigadier General
George Crook, to walk at gunpoint from
Arizona's
Verde Valley, to the
San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, 180 miles to the southeast. The two tribes are not allowed to return to the Verde Valley until
1900. •
February 27 –
Newton Booth, 11th
Governor of California, resigns, having been elected
Senator.
Lieutenant Governor of California Romualdo Pacheco becomes acting Governor. He is later replaced by elected governor
William Irwin.
March •
March 1 – The
United States Congress passes the
Civil Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in public accommodations and jury duty. •
March 3 •
Bizet's
Carmen is first performed at the
Opéra-Comique,
Paris,
France, three months before the composer's death. • The
Page Act of 1875 is enacted in the United States, effectively prohibiting the immigration of Chinese women. • The
first indoor ice hockey game is played at the
Victoria Skating Rink in
Montreal, Quebec, Canada. •
March 15 –
Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York John McCloskey is named the first
cardinal in the United States.
April •
April 10 – The
Arya Samaj is founded in Mumbai by Swami
Dayananda Saraswati. •
April 25 – Ten
sophomores from
Rutgers College (modern-day Rutgers University) steal a one-ton cannon from the campus of the
College of New Jersey (modern-day Princeton University), and start the
Rutgers–Princeton Cannon War. • April – '
Albert's swarm' of
Rocky Mountain locusts begins to devastate the
western United States.
May •
May 7 • The
Treaty of Saint Petersburg is signed between Japan and Russia. • German liner wrecks on the rocks off the
Isles of Scilly, with the loss of 335 lives. •
May 17 –
Aristides wins the first
Kentucky Derby. •
May 20 – The
Metre Convention is signed in Paris, France.
June •
June 4 – Two American colleges play each other in arguably the first game of
college football:
Tufts University and
Harvard University at
Jarvis Field in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. •
June 18 – The
Dublin whiskey fire in Ireland leaves 13 people dead and causes more than €6 million worth of damage. •
June 29 – The
Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 is passed in the United Kingdom, to permit
slum clearance. •
June – • The record-setting American
clipper Flying Cloud of
1851 is burned for scrap metal. •
Third Carlist War in Spain: Two government armies under General Quesada and Martínez Campos start encroaching on Carlist territory. Both they and their Carlist opponent (Mendiri) drive opposing sympathisers from their homes, and burn crops in areas they can not hold. Several Carlist generals (Dorregaray, Savalls, and others) are unjustly put on trial for disloyalty. Mendiri is also removed from his command, and replaced by the Count of Caserta. Despite having 48 infantry battalions, 3 cavalry regiments, 2 engineer battalions, and 100 pieces of artillery at his disposal, Caserta is heavily outnumbered by the government forces opposing him.
July •
July 1 – The
General Postal Union is established. •
July 1–
7 –
Third Carlist War: Battle of Treviño – Advancing on the key city of Vitoria, in Navarre, Spanish Republican commander General Jenardo de Quesada sends General Tello to attack the Carlist lines just to the southwest, at Treviño. The newly appointed Carlist commander General José Pérula is heavily defeated and withdraws, and soon afterwards Quesada enters Vitoria in triumph. •
July 9 – Asia's first
stock exchange is established as
The Native Share & Stock Brokers Association (the modern-day
Bombay Stock Exchange). •
July 11 – Tanaka Manufacturing, a telecommunications factory in
Ginza,
Tokyo, a predecessor of
Toshiba, a
Japanese
electromechanics giant, is founded. •
July 28 –
Joe Borden throws the first
no-hitter in baseball history versus
Mike Golden and the
Chicago White Stockings in his third start as a replacement for
Cherokee Fisher as a member of the
Philadelphia White Stockings August •
August 6 –
Hibernian F.C. is founded by Irishmen in
Edinburgh, Scotland. •
August 25 – Captain
Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the
English Channel.
September •
September 1 – A murder conviction begins to break the power of the violent
Irish-American anti-owner coal miners, the "
Molly Maguires", in Pennsylvania. •
September 7 – Battle of Agurdat: An
Egyptian invasion of
Ethiopia fails, when Emperor
Yohannes IV defeats an army led by
Werner Munzinger. •
September 11 – Egypt
adopts the Gregorian calendar, having previously used the
Alexandrian calendar. •
September 24 – The 1864 play
Heath Cobblers by
Aleksis Kivi is premiered for the first time in
Oulu, Finland. •
September 27 – American merchant sailing ship
Ellen Southard is wrecked off
Liverpool in England; 12 crew and
life-boatmen are lost. •
September – English
Association football team
Birmingham City F.C. is founded as
Small Heath Alliance in
Birmingham by a group of
cricketers from
Holy Trinity Church, Bordesley, playing its first match in November.
October •
October 15 – Chief Lone Horn of the
Minneconjou dies at the
Cheyenne River, leaving his son
Big Foot as the new chief. •
October 16 –
Brigham Young University is founded in
Provo, Utah. •
October 25 – The first performance of the
Piano Concerto No. 1 by
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given in
Boston,
Massachusetts, with
Hans von Bülow as soloist. •
October 30 – The
Theosophical Society is founded in New York by
Helena Blavatsky,
Henry Steel Olcott,
William Quan Judge, and others. •
October – The
Ottoman state declares partial
bankruptcy, and places its finances in the hands of European creditors. It is also suffering widespread nationalist rebellions resulting in Russian intervention and Great Power tensions.
November •
November 5 –
Blackburn Rovers F.C. is founded in England by two old-boys of
Shrewsbury School following a meeting at the Leger Hotel,
Blackburn. •
November 9 –
American Indian Wars: In Washington, D.C., Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins issues a report stating that hundreds of
Sioux and
Cheyenne associated with
Sitting Bull and
Crazy Horse are hostile to the United States (the
Battle of the Little Bighorn is fought in
Montana the next year). •
November 16 – Battle of Gundat:
Ethiopian Emperor
Yohannes IV defeats another
Egyptian army. •
November 26 –
The Times newspaper in London reveals that
Isma'il Pasha has sold
Egypt's 44% share in the
Suez Canal to Britain, in a deal secured by
Benjamin Disraeli, without the prior sanction of the British Parliament. •
November 29 –
Dōshisha English School, predecessor of
Dōshisha University, is founded in
Kyōto, Japan.
December •
December 4 – Notorious New York City politician
Boss Tweed escapes from prison and flees to Spain. •
December 6 • The German emigrant ship
SS Deutschland runs aground off the English coast, killing 157 passengers and crew. • A
firedamp explosion at kills 143 miners at the Swaithe Main Colliery in the
South Yorkshire Coalfield of England. •
December 9 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, America's oldest active gun club, is formed. •
December 20 – The
ICRM is renamed the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). •
December 25 – The first
Edinburgh derby in
Association football is played:
Heart of Midlothian F.C. wins 1–0 against
Hibernian F.C. Date unknown • Convent Scandal: During the winter in Montreal,
typhoid fever strikes at a
convent school. The corpses of the victims are filched by
body-snatchers before relatives arrive from America, causing much furor. Eventually the Anatomy Act of Quebec is changed over it. • At
Wimbledon, Henry Cavendish Jones convinces the All England Croquet Club to replace a croquet lawn with a lawn tennis court. • British Indian Army officer
Neville Chamberlain originates the cue sport of
snooker at Jubbulpore (
Jabalpur) in India. • The opening of
Flushing High School, the oldest public high school in New York City. == Births ==