| January 13 | Colored National Labor Union, 1st Black labor convention |
| January 13 | National convention of black leaders meets in Washington D.C. |
| January 18 | Elegant California Theater opens in San Francisco |
| January 20 | Elizabeth Cady Stanton becomes 1st woman to testify before Congress |
| February 2 | James Oliver invents removable tempered steel plow blade |
| February 3 | Booth theater at 23rd and 6th opens in New York City (Romeo and Juliet) |
| February 6 | Harper's Weekly publishes 1st picture of Uncle Sam with chin whiskers |
| February 15 | Charges of Treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped |
| February 19 | U.S. Assay Office in Boise, Idaho authorized |
| February 20 | Tennessee Governor W. C. Brownlow declares martial law in Ku Klux Klan crisis |
| February 23 | Louisiana governor signs public accommodations law |
| February 26 | 15th Amendment guaranteeing right to vote sent to states |
| February 26 | Franz Schubert's "4th Tragic," premieres |
| February 27 | John Menard is 1st black to make a speech in Congress |
| March 1 | Postage stamps showing scenes are issued for 1st time |
| March 3 | University of South Carolina opens to all races |
| March 4 | Ulysses Grant inaugurated as 18th president |
| March 13 | Arkansas legislature passes anti-Klan law |
| March 15 | Cincinnati Red Stockings beat Antioch 41-7 |
| March 15 | Cincinnati Red Stockings become the 1st pro baseball team |
| March 16 | Hiram R. Revels makes 1st official speech by a black in the Senate |
| April 6 | 1st plastic, Celluloid, patented |
| April 8 | American Museum of Natural History opens (New York City) |
| April 9 | Hudson Bay Company cedes it's territory to Canada |
| April 10 | Congress increases number of Supreme Court judges from 7 to 9 |
| April 12 | North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan Law |
| April 13 | Steam power brake patented (George Westinghouse) |
| April 17 | 1st pro baseball games-Cincinnati Reds 24, Cincinnati amateurs 15 |
| April 18 | 1st international cricket match, held in SF, wins by Californian |
| April 30 | Hawaiian YMCA organized |
| May 1 | Folies Bergere opens in Paris |
| May 10 | Golden Spike driven, completes Promontory Pt Ut-Transcontinental RR |
| May 15 | National Woman Suffrage Association forms |
| May 16 | Cincinnati Reds play their 1st baseball game, win 41-7 |
| June 1 | Voting machine patented by Thomas A. Edison |
| June 2 | Cleveland's Forest City play their 1st game, vs Cincinnati Red Stockings |
| June 5 | 3rd Belmont: C Miller aboard Fenian wins in 3:04 |
| June 8 | Ives W. McGaffey of Chicago patents 1st vacuum cleaner |
| June 9 | Charles Elmer Hires sells his 1st root beer, Philadelphia |
| June 10 | 'Agnes' arrives in New Orleans with 1st ever shipment of frozen beef |
| June 15 | Celluloid patented by John Wesley Hyatt, Albany, New York |
| June 15 | Mike McCoole (U.S.) defeats Tom Allen (England) in bare-knuckle bout |
| June 28 | Amsterdam typographer strike |
| July 1 | Dutch newspaper stamp tax repealed |
| July 1 | U.S. Mint at Carson City, Nevada opens |
| July 6 | Black candidate for lt governor of Va, Dr. J H Harris, defeated |
| July 9 | Concord pipe, made from small corn kernels, invented |
| July 15 | Margarine is patents by Hippolye Mega-Mouries for use by French Navy |
| August 1 | 1st voyage down Colorado River |
| August 10 | O. B. Brown patents moving picture projector |
| August 17 | 1st international boat race (Thames River, Oxford beats Harvard) |
| August 23 | 1st carload of freight (boots and shoes) arrives in SF, from Boston |
| August 24 | Cornelius Swarthout patents waffle iron |
| September 6 | 1st westbound train arrives in SF |
| September 6 | Mine fire kills 179 at Avondale Pennsylvania |
| September 10 | Baptist minister invents rickshaw in Yokohama, Japan |
| September 13 | Jay Gould and James Fisk attempt to control U.S. gold market |
| September 22 | Richard Wagner's opera "Rhine Gold," premieres in Munich |
| September 24 | Black Friday; Wall St. panic after Gould and Fisk attempt to corner gold |
| October 1 | 1st postcards are issued (Vienna) |
| October 6 | John Brahms' "Liebeslieder Walzer," premieres |
| October 16 | Hotel in Boston becomes 1st to have indoor plumbing |
| October 18 | Henrik Ibsen's "De Unges Forbund," premieres in Christiania (Oslo) |
| October 21 | 1st shipment of fresh oysters comes overland from Baltimore |
| October 26 | 1st American steeplechase horserace (Westchester, New York) |
| November 1 | Deli Me forms T B V tobacco in Sumatra |
| November 3 | Canada's Hamilton Foot Ball Club forms |
| November 6 | 1st intercollegiate football (soccer) game (Rutgers 6, Princeton 4) |
| November 15 | Free postal delivery formally inaugurated |
| November 17 | Englishman James Moore wins 1st bicycle race (13K Paris-Rouen) |
| November 17 | Suez Canal (Egypt) opens, links Mediterranean and Red seas |
| November 24 | American Woman's Suffrage Association forms (Cleveland) |
| December 8 | 20th Roman Catholic ecumenical council, Vatican I, opens in Rome |
| December 9 | Noble Order of Knights of Labor founded, Philadelphia |
| December 10 | Women suffrage (right to vote) granted in Wyoming Territory (U.S. 1st) |
| December 18 | Canada's Hamilton Foot Ball Club plays its 1st game |
| December 28 | William Finley Semple of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patents chewing gum |
| December 30 | Philadelphia Knights of Labor forms |
BrainyHistory
