1880
1880 (
MDCCCLXXX) was a
leap year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar).
January - April
*
February 2 - The first electric
streetlight is installed in
Wabash, Indiana.
May - August
*
May 13 - In
Menlo Park, New Jersey,
Thomas Edison performs the first test of his
electric railway.
*
June 29 -
France annexes
Tahiti.
*
July 1 - First performance of
O Canada, the song that would become the
national anthem of
Canada.
*
July 16 - First woman licensed to practice medicine in
Canada - Dr.
Emily Howard Stowe.
September - December
*
September 5 - First successful test of an electric
Tram in the world takes place in
St. Petersburg,
Russia.
* October - terrible winter storm in
North America, the "
Blizzard of 1880".
*
October 15 -
Mexican soldiers kill
Victorio, one of the greatest
Apache military strategists.
*
October 28 - The first stone was laid for the
Clarkson Memorial in
Wisbech.
* November -
James Garfield defeats
Winfield S. Hancock in the
U.S. presidential election.
*
November 4 - The first cash register was patented by James and
John Ritty of
Dayton, Ohio.
*
November 11 -
Australian bushranger and bank robber
Ned Kelly is hanged in
Melbourne.
*
November 22 -
Vaudeville actress
Lillian Russell makes her debut at
Tony Pastor's Theatre in
New York City.
*
December 20 -
Action at Bronkhorstspruit, the first major action of the
First Boer War.
*
December 30 - The
Transvaal becomes a republic and
Paul Kruger becomes its first president.
Unknown date
* Discovery of
piezoelectricity by
Pierre Curie and
Jacques Curie.
* Completion of
Cologne cathedral.
* Founding of
Science by
Thomas Edison.
*
Cocaine isolated.
* The
British recognise
Abdur Rahman Khan as amir of
Afghanistan.
*
Capuchin catacombs of Palermo are officially closed (there will be some burials afterwards).
*
Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union established.
*
January 6 -
Tom Mix, American actor (d.
1940)
*
January 17 -
Mack Sennett, Canadian director and producer (d.
1960)
*
January 26 -
Douglas MacArthur, American general (d.
1964)
*
January 28 -
Herbert Strudwick, English cricketer (d.
1970)
*
January 29 -
W.C. Fields, American actor (d.
1946)
*
February 5 -
Gabriel Voisin, French aviation pioneer (d.
1973)
*
February 8 -
Franz Marc, German artist (d.
1916)
*
February 12 -
John L. Lewis, American labor union leader (d.
1969)
*
February 21 -
Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (d.
1952)
*
February 22 -
Frigyes Riesz, Hungarian mathematician (d.
1956)
*
March 1 -
Giles Lytton Strachey, British writer and biographer (d.
1932)
*
March 10 -
Bronco Billy Anderson, American actor (d.
1971)
*
March 11 -
Harry H. Laughlin,
American eugenicist (d.
1943)
*
March 22 -
Kuniaki Koiso,
Prime Minister of Japan (d.
1950)
*
March 30 -
Sean O'Casey, Irish writer (d.
1964)
*
April 13 -
Charles Christie, Canadian-born film studio owner (d.
1955)
*
April 15 -
Max Wertheimer, Father of Gestalt Theory (d.
1943)
*
April 18 -
Sam Crawford,
Baseball Hall of Famer (d.
1968)
*
May 6 -
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German painter (d.
1938)
*
May 14 -
B.C. Forbes, Scottish-born financial publisher (d.
1954)
*
May 21 -
Tudor Arghezi, Romanian writer (d.
1967)
*
May 25 -
Jean Alexandre Barré, French neurologist (d.
1967)
*
May 25 -
Alf Common, English footballer (d.
1946)
*
May 29 -
Oswald Spengler, German philosopher (d.
1936)
*
June 6 -
W.T. Cosgrave, Irish politician (d.
1965)
*
June 27 -
Helen Keller, American spokeswoman for the deaf and blind (d.
1968)
*
July 5 -
Jan Kubelík, Czech violinist (d.
1940)
*
July 21 -
Milan Rastislav Štefánik, Slovak General, politician, and astronomer (d.
1919).
*
July 24 -
Ernest Bloch, Swiss-born composer (d.
1959)
*
August 6 -
Hans Moser, Austrian actor (d.
1964)
*
August 8 -
Earle Page, eleventh
Prime Minister of Australia (d.
1961)
*
August 10 -
Robert L. Thornton, American businessman, philanthropist, and mayor of Dallas, Texas (d.
1964)
*
August 22 -
George Herriman, American cartoonist (d.
1944)
*
August 26 -
Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet (d.
1918)
*
August 31 - Queen
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands (d.
1962)
*
September 14 -
Archie Hahn, American athlete (d.
1955)
*
September 22 -
Christabel Pankhurst, English suffragette (d.
1958)
*
September 23 -
John Boyd Orr, Scottish physician and biologist, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (d.
1971)
*
October 23 -
Una O'Connor, Irish actress (d.
1959)
*
November 5 -
Richard Oswald, Austrian film director (d.
1963)
*
November 6 -
Robert Musil, Austrian novelist (d.
1942)
*
November 10 -
Jacob Epstein, American-born sculptor (d.
1959)
*
December 11 -
Frank Tarrant, Australian cricketer (d.
1951)
*
December 24 -
Johnny Gruelle, American cartoonist and children's book author (d.
1939)
*
December 31 -
George Marshall,
United States Secretary of State, recipient of the
Nobel Peace Prize (d.
1959)
*
Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, American equestrian (d.
1925)
*
Joseph Trumpeldor, Russian Zionist (d.
1920)
*
Gar Wood, American motorboat racer (d.
1971)
*
William J. Simmons, Founder of the second
Ku Klux Klan (d.
1945)
*
D. Leigh Colvin, American
temperance movement leader and
Prohibition Party candidate for presidency in 1936 (d. ?)
*
January 8 -
Joshua A. Norton, self-anointed Emperor Norton I of the United States of America (b.
1811)
*
March 31 -
Henryk Wieniawski, Polish composer (b.
1835)
*
May 4 -
Edward Clark, Confederate Governor of Texas (b.
1815)
*
May 8 -
Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (b.
1821)
*
July 7 -
Lydia Child, American novelist and abolitionist (b.
1802)
*
August 15 -
Adelaide Neilson, English actress (b.
1847)
*
August 17 -
Ole Bull, Norwegian violinist (b.
1810)
*
October 4 -
Jacques Offenbach, German-born composer (b.
1819)
*
November 11 -
Ned Kelly, Australian bush ranger (hanged)
*
December 22 -
George Eliot, English writer (b.
1819)
