| January 1 | England's Queen Victoria proclaimed empress of India |
| January 15 | U.S. Assay Office in Helena, Montana opens |
| January 16 | Color organ (for light shows) patented, by Bainbridge Bishop |
| January 25 | Congress determines presidential election between Hayes-Tilden |
| January 30 | Storm flood ravages Dutch coastal provinces |
| February 7 | 1st Guernsey Cattle Club organizes (New York City) |
| February 12 | 1st news dispatch by telephone, between Boston and Salem, Mass |
| February 12 | U.S. railroad builders strike against wage reduction |
| February 20 | 1st cantilever bridge in U.S. completed, Harrodsburg, Kentucky |
| February 20 | International Association (minor baseball league) organizes |
| February 27 | U.S. Electoral College declares R. Hayes winner presidential election |
| March 2 | Rutherford B Hayes (R) declared president despite Samuel J Tilden (D) winning the popular vote, but is 1 electoral vote shy of victory |
| March 3 | Rutherford B. Hayes is sworn in as the 19th president |
| March 4 | Tsjaikovski's incomplete ballet "Zwanenmeer," premieres in Moscow |
| March 5 | Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated as 19th U.S. president |
| March 12 | British annex Walvis Bay in southern Africa |
| March 12 | Great Britain annexes Walvis Bay at Cape colony |
| March 15 | Commencement of 1st Test Cricket, Australia vs. England at MCG |
| March 16 | Charles Bannerman completes 1st Test cricket century, 165 vs. Eng |
| March 17 | Bill Midwinter completes Test Crickets' 1st 5-wkt haul, 5-78 vs. Eng |
| March 18 | President Hayes appoints Frederick Douglass marshal of Washington D.C. |
| March 19 | Australia beat England by 45 runs in very 1st Test match |
| March 24 | University boat race between Oxford and Cambridge ends in a dead heat |
| March 31 | British high director/governor sir Bartle Frere arrives in Capetown |
| March 31 | Test Cricket debut of Fred "Demon" Spofforth, Australia vs. England MCG |
| April 2 | 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn |
| April 10 | 1st human cannonball act performed in London |
| April 10 | Federal troops withdrawn from Columbia, South Carolina |
| April 12 | British annex Transvaal, in South Africa |
| April 12 | Catcher's mask 1st used in a baseball game |
| April 15 | 1st telephone installed: Boston-Somerville, Massachusetts |
| April 19 | Opera "Les Cloches de Cornerville" is produced (Paris) |
| April 24 | Last federal occupying troops withdraw from south in New Orleans |
| April 24 | Russia declares war on Turkey through Romania |
| April 27 | Opera "Le Roi de Lahore" is produced (Paris) |
| April 27 | President Hayes removes Federal troops from LA, Reconstruction ends |
| May 8 | 1st Westminster Dog Show held |
| May 12 | Ottawa Rough Riders 1st outside competition vs Britannia |
| May 13 | Cesar Franck's "Lesson Eolides," premieres |
| May 17 | Edwin T. Holmes installs 1st telephone switchboard burglar alarm |
| May 22 | 3rd Kentucky Derby: Billy Walker aboard Baden-Baden wins in 2:38 |
| May 24 | 5th Preakness: C Holloway aboard Cloverbrook wins in 2:45 |
| June 1 | Society of American Artists forms |
| June 1 | U.S. troops authorized to pursue bandits into Mexico |
| June 9 | 11th Belmont: C Holloway aboard Cloverbrook wins in 2:46 |
| June 15 | Henry O. Flipper becomes 1st black graduate at West Point |
| July 1 | 1st edition of "Amsterdammer" published |
| July 9 | 1st Wimbledon tennis championship is held |
| July 14 | General strike brings U.S. railroad to a stand still |
| July 19 | 1st Wimbledon Mens Tennis: Spencer W Gore beats Marshall (61 62 64) |
| July 20 | Military shoots on stopped railroad workers in Balt, kills 9 |
| July 21 | U.S. Army breaks railroad strike |
| July 23 | 1st telephone and telegraph line in Hawaii completed |
| July 23 | 1st U.S. municipal railroad, Cincinnati Southern, begins operations |
| July 24 | 1st time federal troops are used to combat strikers |
| August 2 | San Francisco Public Library opens with 5,000 volumes |
| August 5 | Henry Morton Stanley's letter in order to aid reaches Boma at Congo |
| August 10 | Big Hole River: Col John Gibbon murders Nez-Perce indians |
| August 11 | Asaph Hall discovers Mars's moon Deimos |
| August 12 | Thomas Edison invents Edisonphone, a sound recording device |
| August 17 | Asaph Hall discovers Mars' moon Phobos |
| August 17 | Phobos (Martian satellite) discovered (A Hall) |
| August 22 | Nez Perce-indians flee into to Yellowstone National Park |
| September 5 | Southern blacks led by Pap Singleton settle in Kansas |
| September 11 | Rijkslandbouwhoge school opens in Wageningen |
| September 20 | Chase National Bank opens in New York City (later merges into Chase Manhattan) |
| September 23 | Hurricane strikes Curaeao and Bonaire kills 200 |
| September 27 | John Mercer Langston named minister of Haiti |
| September 30 | 1st U.S. amateur swim meet (New York Athletic Club) |
| October 5 | Chief Joseph surrenders, ending Nez Perce War |
| October 9 | American Humane Association organizes (Cleveland) |
| October 15 | 45th Congress (1877-79) convenes |
| October 17 | Henry Morton Stanley reaches Boma during trip cross Africa |
| October 20 | Franz Schubert's 2nd Symphony in B, premieres |
| November 1 | Dutch government of Heemskerk-Van Lynden resigns |
| November 9 | American Chemical Society chartered in New York |
| November 17 | Gilbert/Sullivans operette "Sorcerer," premieres in London |
| November 21 | Tom Edison announces his "talking machine" invention (phonograph) |
| November 27 | Burkina adopts its constitution |
| November 29 | Thomas Edison demonstrates hand-cranked phonograph |
| December 2 | Camille Saint-Saens' opera "Samson et Dalila," premieres in Weimar |
| December 6 | 1st sound recording made (Thomas Edison) |
| December 6 | Washington Post publishes 1st edition |
| December 7 | Thomas A Edison demonstrates the gramophone |
| December 15 | Thomas Edison patents phonograph |
| December 16 | Anton Bruckner's 3rd Symphony in D, premieres |
| December 22 | "American Bicycling Journal" begins publishing (Boston, Massachusetts) |
| December 26 | Socialist Labor Party of North America holds 1st national convention |
| December 28 | John Stevens, applies for a patent for his flour rolling mill |
| December 30 | Johnannes Brahms' 2nd Symphony in D, premieres in Vienna |
BrainyHistory
