Explore 1429 historical events from 1880–1889.
Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish-American detective, spy, abolitionist, and cooper best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim …
Allan Pinkerton, Scottish-American detective and spy (born 1819)
Victor Massé was a French composer.
Victor Massé, French composer (born 1822)
Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player. During his brief career in the late 1850s, Morphy was acknowledged as the world's greatest chess master. Later commentators have c…
Paul Morphy, American chess player (born 1837)
Christian Gottlieb Ferdinand Ritter von Hochstetter was a German-Austrian geologist. In 1857 he was appointed geologist on the Austrian Novara expedition to New Zealand, collecting…
Ferdinand von Hochstetter, Austrian geologist and academic (born 1829)
Kiến Phúc was a child emperor of Vietnam, who reigned for less than 8 months, 1883–1884, as the 7th emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty.
Kiến Phúc, Vietnamese emperor (born 1869)
Sir Robert Richard Torrens,, also known as Robert Richard Chute Torrens, was an Irish-born parliamentarian, writer, and land reformer. After a move to London in 1836, he became pro…
Robert Torrens, Irish-Australian politician, 3rd Premier of South Australia (born 1814)
Leopold Joseph Franz Johann Fitzinger was an Austrian zoologist.
Leopold Fitzinger, Austrian zoologist and author (born 1802)
Bernard Thaddée Petitjean was a French Catholic prelate who served as Apostolic Vicar of Japan from 1866 to 1876.
Bernard Petitjean, French Roman Catholic missionary to Japan (born 1829)
Moses Fleetwood Walker, sometimes nicknamed Fleet Walker, was an American professional baseball catcher credited with being the first black man to play major league baseball. A nat…
Moses Fleetwood Walker (pictured), the last African American in Major League Baseball until Jackie Robinson, played his
Cape Virgenes is the southeastern promontory of continental Argentina in South America. A little to the south-west, the southernmost point of land is Punta Dúngeness. Ferdinand Mag…
The French steamship Arctique ran aground on the northern coast of Cape Virgenes in Argentina; gold was discovered…
William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. One of the most famous figures of the American Old West, Cody began perfor…
Buffalo Bill's first Buffalo Bill's Wild West opens in Omaha, Nebraska
Krakatoa, also transcribed Krakatau, is a caldera in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The caldera is part of a volcan…
Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people
The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brookl…
The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction
Alexander III was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894. He was highly reactionary in domestic affairs and reversed…
Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia
The Orient Express was a long-distance passenger luxury train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) that operated until 200…
The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris
The Victoria Hall disaster occurred on 16 June 1883 at the Victoria Hall in Sunderland, England, when the distribution of free toys caused a crowd crush resulting in 183 children t…
The Victoria Hall theatre panic in Sunderland, England, kills 183 children
The Orient Express was a long-distance passenger luxury train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) that operated until 200…
First run of the Orient Express.
The Brooklyn Bridge is a cable-stayed suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brookl…
In New York City, 12 people are killed in a stampede on the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge
The War of the Pacific, also known by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought over Chilean claims on coastal Bolivi…
War of the Pacific: Chileans led by Alejandro Gorostiaga defeat Andrés Avelino Cáceres's Peruvian army at the Battle…
The 1883 Casamicciola earthquake, also known as the Ischia earthquake occurred on 28 July at 20:25 local time on the island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples in Italy. Although the e…
A moderate earthquake measuring magnitude 4.3–5.2 strikes the Italian island of Ischia, killing over 2,300 people.
The quagga is an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra which was endemic to South Africa until it was hunted to extinction in the late 19th century. It was long thought to be a di…
The last quagga dies at the Natura Artis Magistra, a zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The Dominican Republic is an island country on the eastern part of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean. It s…
The first public performance of the Dominican Republic's national anthem, Himno Nacional.
The Metropolitan Opera House, also known as the Old Metropolitan Opera House and Old Met, was an opera house located at 1411 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. Opened in 1883 an…
The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City opens with a performance of Charles Gounod's Faust.
Aleksanteri Aava, born Aleksanteri (Santeri) Kuparinen, was a Finnish poet and smallholder.
Aleksanteri Aava, Finnish poet (died 1956)