| January 8 | Secret meeting of King Leopold II's agent and Henry Morton Stanley |
| January 10 | U.S. Senate proposes female suffrage |
| January 14 | U.S. Supreme Court rules race separation on trains unconstitutional |
| January 28 | 1st telephone exchange (New Haven, CT) |
| January 28 | George W. Coy hired as 1st full-time telephone operator |
| January 28 | Yale Daily News published, 1st college daily newspaper |
| February 2 | Greece declares war on Turkey |
| February 10 | Peace of Zanjon |
| February 10 | Peter Tsjaikovsky's 4th Symphony in F, premieres |
| February 11 | 1st U.S. bicycle club, Boston Bicycle Club, forms |
| February 11 | 1st weekly Weather report published in UK |
| February 12 | Frederick Thayer patents catcher's mask (pat # 200,358) |
| February 16 | Silver dollar became U.S. legal tender |
| February 17 | 1st telephone exchange in San Francisco opens with 18 phones |
| February 19 | Thomas Alva Edison patents gramophone (phonograph) |
| February 21 | 1st telephone book issued, 50 subscribers (New Harbor, Connecticut) |
| February 22 | Greenback Labor Party forms (Toledo Ohio) |
| February 28 | U.S. congress authorizes large-size silver certificate |
| March 3 | Bulgaria liberated from Turkey (Peace of San Stefano) |
| March 13 | Oxford defeats Cambridge in their 1st golf match |
| March 24 | British frigate Eurydice sunk; 300 lost |
| March 26 | Hastings College of Law founded |
| March 26 | Sabi Game Reserve, world's 1st official designated game reserve, opens |
| March 31 | Jack Johnson is 1st black to hold a heavyweight boxing title |
| April 2 | 1st issue of Rotterdam's Newspaper |
| April 9 | 1st Lady Lucy Hayes begins egg rolling contest on White House lawn |
| April 10 | California St. Cable Car RR Co starts service |
| April 15 | Harley Procter introduces Ivory Soap |
| April 21 | New York installs 1st firehouse pole |
| April 21 | Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Inscrutabili |
| April 21 | Ship Azor leaves Charleston with 206 blacks for Liberia |
| April 23 | 1st Dutch test drive of steam tram |
| May 2 | U.S. stops minting 20 cent coin |
| May 4 | Phonograph shown for 1st time at Grand Opera House |
| May 8 | 1st unassisted triple play in organized baseball, by Paul Hines |
| May 14 | Vaseline is 1st sold (registered trademark for petroleum jelly) |
| May 19 | Blanche Kelso Bruce appointed register of treasury by President Garfield |
| May 21 | 4th Kentucky Derby: Jimmy Carter aboard Day Star wins in 2:37 |
| May 23 | Atty John Henry Smyth named minister to Liberia |
| May 24 | CA Parker (Harvard) wins 1st American bike race, Beacon Park Boston |
| May 25 | Gilbert/Sullivans opera "HMS Pinafore," premieres in London |
| May 27 | 6th Preakness: C Holloway aboard Duke of Magenta wins in 2:41.75 |
| May 27 | Australians Cricket 41 and 12-1 defeat MCC 33 and 19 |
| May 31 | German battleship Grosser Kurfurst sinks, 284 killed |
| May 31 | U.S. Congress accept decrease in dollar circulation |
| June 4 | Cyprus ceded by Turkey to Britain for administrative purposes |
| June 8 | 12th Belmont: L Hughes aboard Duke of Magenta wins in 2:43 |
| June 11 | DC is given a new government by Congress, 3 commissioners appointed by president (change in 1974) |
| June 13 | Congress of Berlin meets to divide African colonization |
| June 15 | 1st attempt at motion pictures (used 12 cameras, each taking 1 picture) done to see if all 4 of a horse's hooves leave the ground |
| July 1 | Treaty of Berlin divide Africa up for colonization |
| July 7 | Social-Democratic United forms in Amsterdam |
| July 9 | An improved corncob pipe patents by Henry Tibbe, Washington, Mo |
| July 12 | Fever epidemic in New Orleans begin, it will kill 4,500 |
| July 13 | Congress of Berlin discusses division of African colonization ends |
| July 13 | Treaty of Berlin amended terms of Treaty of San Stefano |
| July 20 | 1st telephone introduced in Hawaii |
| July 30 | German anti-semitism begins during the Reichstag election |
| July 30 | Russian assault on Plevna Turkey, 7,300 Russian casualties |
| August 21 | American Bar Association organizes at Sarasota, New York |
| August 21 | Edward Pooley completes record 8 stumpings in a cricket match |
| September 1 | 1st female telephone operator starts work (Emma Nutt in Boston) |
| September 3 | England's Princess Alice sinks; 645 die |
| September 12 | Cleopatra Needle installed in London |
| September 30 | 1st Portuguese immigrants arrive in Hawaii |
| October 15 | Edison Electric Light Company incorporated |
| October 18 | Edison makes electricity available for household usage |
| October 21 | German republic chancellor Bismarck delegates end of "Socialism" |
| November 1 | Edward Scripps and John Sweeney found Penny Press (Cleveland Press) |
| November 6 | Henrik Ibsens "Samfundets Stotter," premieres in Oslo |
| November 10 | Aleksandr Ostrovsky's "Bespridannitsa," premieres in Moscow |
| December 1 | 1st White House telephone installed |
| December 3 | Settlers arrive at Petach Tikvah Israel |
| December 9 | Joseph Pulitzer buys St. Louis Dispatch for $2,500 |
| December 12 | Joseph Pulitzer begins publishing "St. Louis Dispatch" |
| December 18 | French SS Byzantin sinks after collision in Dardanellen, 210 killed |
| December 26 | 1st U.S. store to install electric lights, Philadelphia |
| December 28 | Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Quod apostolici muneris (socialism) |
