| January 1 | Dr. John H Watson is introduced to Sherlock Holmes |
| January 2 | Camille Saint-Saens' 3rd Concerto in B, premieres |
| January 4 | Johannes Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture" premieres, Breslau |
| January 22 | Ancient Egyptian obelisk "Cleopatra's Needle" erected in Central Park |
| January 26 | Union of Baptists Communities forms in Foxholl |
| January 28 | Battle at Laing's Neck Natal: Boers beat superior powered British |
| February 1 | U.S. Assay Office in St. Louis, Missouri authorized |
| February 5 | Phoenix Arizona incorporates |
| February 7 | Battle at Ingogo, Transvaal: Boers beat superior British forces |
| February 10 | Jacques Offenbach's opera "Les Contes d'Hoffman," premieres in Paris |
| February 19 | Kansas becomes 1st state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages |
| February 24 | De Lesseps' Co begins work on Panama Canal |
| February 26 | Natal: British troops under General-major Colley occupy Majuba Hill |
| February 26 | SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool |
| February 27 | Battle at Amajuba, South Africa: Boers vs. British army under General Colley |
| March 4 | California becomes 1st state to pass plant quarantine legislation |
| March 4 | Holmes and Watson begin "A Study in Scarlet," 1st case together |
| March 4 | James A. Garfield inaugurated as 20th president |
| March 4 | South African president Kruger accepts ceasefire |
| March 16 | Barnum and Bailey Circus debuts |
| March 18 | Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opens (MSG) |
| March 23 | Boers and Britain sign peace accord; end 1st Boer war |
| March 23 | Gas lamp sets fire to Nice France opera house; 70 die |
| March 28 | Greatest Show On Earth was formed by PT Barnum and James A Bailey |
| April 1 | Anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem |
| April 1 | Kingdom post office in Netherlands opens |
| April 5 | Transvaal regains independence under British suzerainty |
| April 11 | River ferry "Princess Victoria" sinks in Thames River Ont, 180 die |
| April 11 | Spelman College founded |
| April 18 | Natural History Museum of South Kensington England opens |
| April 23 | Gilbert and Sullivan's opera "Patience" produced in London |
| April 25 | 250,000 Germans petition to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany |
| April 25 | French troops occupy Algeria and Tunisia |
| April 27 | Pogroms against Russian Jews start in Elisabethgrad |
| May 5 | Anit-Jewish rioting in Kiev Ukraine |
| May 8 | Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolian monarch |
| May 10 | Lighthouse on Ameland begins operation |
| May 11 | Bedrich Smetana's opera "Libusa," premieres in Prague |
| May 12 | France sign treaty of protection with Tunisia colony |
| May 12 | Treaty of Bardo, Tunis becomes a French protectorate |
| May 16 | World's 1st elec tram goes into service in Lichterfelder (near Berlin) |
| May 17 | 7th Kentucky Derby: Jim McLaughlin aboard Hindoo wins in 2:40 |
| May 17 | Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for Washington D.C. |
| May 17 | Revised version of New Testament |
| May 21 | American Red Cross founded by Clara Barton |
| May 21 | U.S. Nation Lawn Tennis Association forms |
| May 24 | Canadian ferry Princess Victoria sinks near London Ontario, 200 die |
| May 27 | 9th Preakness: T Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:40 |
| June 1 | Bell Phone opens 1st Dutch telephone exchange |
| June 2 | Haarlem-Zandvoort Railway opens |
| June 7 | 15th Belmont: T Costello aboard Saunterer wins in 2:47 |
| June 14 | Player piano patented by John McTammany, Jr. (Cambridge, Mass) |
| June 16 | Austria-Hungary and Serbia sign military treaty |
| June 19 | Muhammad Ahmad becomes Mahdi of Sudan |
| June 24 | 200 drown as train runs off bridge near Cuautla Mexico |
| June 29 | Pope Leo XIII publishes encyclical Diuturnum illud |
| June 30 | Henry Highland Garnet, named minister to Liberia |
| July 1 | 1st international telephone conversation, Calais, ME-St. Stephen, NB |
| July 1 | U.S. Assay Office in St. Louis, Missouri opens |
| July 2 | President Garfield shot by Charles J Guiteau a disappointed office-seeker |
| July 4 | Booker T. Washington establishes Tuskegee Institute in Alabama |
| July 20 | Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to federal troops |
| July 26 | French marines occupy Tunisian harbor city Sfax |
| August 1 | U.S. Quarantine Station authorized for Angel Island, San Francisco Bay |
| August 3 | Boers signs Convention of Pretoria: Transvaal semi-autonomous |
| August 3 | U.S. Nation Lawn Tennis Association removes "Nation" from name |
| August 4 | 122 degrees F (50 degrees C), Seville, Spain (European record) |
| August 13 | Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congolese monarch |
| August 27 | Hurricane hits Florida and Carolinas; about 700 die |
| August 31 | 1st U.S. men's single tennis championships (Newport, RI) |
| September 3 | 1st U.S. Mens Tennis: Richard D Sears beats William E Glyn (60 63 62) |
| September 3 | Anton Bruckner completes his 6th Symphony |
| September 9 | Egyptian military coup under colonel Arab "El Wahid" |
| September 11 | Triple landslides bury Elm, Switzerland |
| September 13 | Lewis Latimer invents and patents electric lamp with a carbon filament |
| September 20 | Chester A. Arthur sworn in as 21st president |
| September 24 | Henry Morton Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch |
| September 27 | Chicago Cubs beat Troy 10-8 before record small "crowd" of 12 |
| October 4 | Edward Leveaux patents automatic player piano |
| October 11 | David Houston patents roll film for cameras |
| October 12 | Henry M. Stanley signs contract with Congo monarch |
| October 13 | Revival of Hebrew language as Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends agree to use Hebrew exclusively in their conversations |
| October 15 | 1st American fishing magazine, American Angler published |
| October 22 | Boston Symphony Orchestra gives its 1st concert |
| October 24 | Levi P. Morton, U.S. ambas to France drives 1st rivet in Stat of Liberty |
| October 25 | Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and Clanton engage in "Shootout at OK Corral" |
| October 26 | Gunfight at OK Corral, in Tombstone, Arizona |
| October 31 | Metropolitan club plays its last game of its non-league season They win 80 of 151 games (18-43 versus NL teams) |
| November 2 | Dutch New-Malthusiaanse Union forms |
| November 5 | French government-Ferry resigns |
| November 14 | Charles J. Guiteau went on trial for President Garfield's assassination |
| November 14 | Leon Gambetta forms French government |
| November 15 | American Federation of Labor (AFL) founded (Pittsburgh) |
| December 3 | Henry M Stanley finds Leopoldville/Kinshasa |
| December 5 | 47th Congress (1881-83) convenes |
| December 8 | Vienna's Ring Theater destroyed by fire, kills between 640-850 |
| December 19 | Opera "Herodiade" is produced (Brussels) |
