1878

Events

January

• January 5 - Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Shipka Pass IV - Russian and Bulgarian forces defeat the Ottoman Empire.
• January 9 - Umberto I becomes King of Italy.
• January 17 - Russo-Turkish War: Battle of Philippopolis - Russian troops defeat the Ottoman Empire.
• January 23 - Benjamin Disraeli orders the British fleet to the Dardanelles.
• January 24 - Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich shoots at Fyodor Trepov, Governor of Saint Petersburg.
• January 28 - In the United States:
• * The world's First Telephone Exchange begins commercial operation in New Haven, Connecticut.
• * The Yale News becomes the first daily college newspaper in the U.S.
• January 31 - Turkey agrees to an armistice at Adrianople.

  February

• February 2 - Greece declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
• February 7 - Pope Pius IX dies, after a 31½ year pontificate.
• February 8 - The British fleet enters Turkish waters, and anchors off Istanbul; Russia threatens to occupy Istanbul, but does not carry out the threat.
• February 18 - The Lincoln County War begins in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
• February 19 - The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison.
• February 20 - Pope Leo XIII succeeds Pope Pius IX, as the 256th pope.
• February 23 - Gajanan Maharaj appears at Shegaon, Maharashtra.
• February 24 - Anti-Russian demonstrations occur in Hyde Park, London.
• February 28 - Mississippi State University is created by the Mississippi Legislature.

  March

• March 3 - Treaty of San Stefano signed between the Russian and Ottoman Empires following Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War provides for establishment of an autonomous Principality of Bulgaria. Russia however regards the treaty as a preliminary one only, refusing on March 25 a British proposal to lay it before a European congress, and matters are finally settled in July's Treaty of Berlin.
• March 17 - Emancipated U.S. slave and Baptist minister Rev. John Jasper first preaches his sermon "The Sun Do Move."
• March 24 - The British Royal Navy frigate capsizes in the English Channel; all but 2 of the 319 crew members are killed.
• March 27 - In anticipation of war with Russia, Disraeli mobilizes British reserves, and calls up Indian troops to Malta.
• March 28 – Electric lights are first used at Westminster Palace.

  April

• April 16 - The Senate of the Grand Duchy of Finland issues a declaration establishing a city of Kotka on the southern part of the islands from the old Kymi parish.
• April 20 - The Stawell Gift sprint is run for the first time in Australia.

  May

• May 1–November 10 - Exposition Universelle, a world's fair, is staged in Paris. In June some parts of the city are first lit by 'Yablochkov candles' and on June 30 the head of the Statue of Liberty goes on display there.
• May 2 - The Washburn "A" Mill in Minneapolis explodes, killing 18.
• May 11 - Hödel assassination attempt by anarchist Max Hödel targetting the German Kaiser, Wilhelm I.
• May 15 - The Tokyo Stock Exchange is established.
• May 25 - Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera H.M.S. Pinafore debuts in London at the Opera Comique, with a first run of 571 performances.

  June

• June 1
• * The General Postal Union is renamed the Universal Postal Union.
• * British clipper Loch Ard is wrecked off the Shipwreck Coast of Victoria with the loss of 52 lives and only 2 survivors.
• June 2 - Nobiling assassination attempt by anarchist Karl Nobiling targetting the German Kaiser, Wilhelm I.
• June 4 - Cyprus Convention: The Ottoman Empire cedes Cyprus to the United Kingdom, but retains the nominal title.
• June 10 - The League of Prizren is officially founded "to struggle in arms to defend the wholeness of the territories of Albania".
• June 13-July 13 - The Congress of Berlin convenes to discuss the Ottoman Empire.
• June 15 - Eadweard Muybridge produces the first sequence of stop-motion still photographs The Horse in Motion in California, demonstrating that all four feet of a galloping horse are off the ground at the same time.
• June 20 - The United States Coast Survey is renamed the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey.
• June 22 - Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld leaves Karlskrona on a voyage that will make him the first man to navigate the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, along the Siberian coast.
• June 25 - The Kanak people of New Caledonia revolt against the French colonial government.

  July

• July 4 - A match race between champion thoroughbred racehorses Ten Broeck and Mollie McCarty draws more than 30,000 fans to Louisville, and inspires the folk song, "Molly and Tenbrooks".
• July 13 - The Treaty of Berlin makes Serbia, Montenegro and Romania completely independent, confirms the autonomy of Bulgaria, makes Cyprus a British possession, and allows Austria-Hungary to garrison the Bosnia Vilayet.

  August

• August 9 - The Wallingford Tornado of 1878, the deadliest tornado in Connecticut history, destroys the town of Wallingford, killing 34 people and injuring more than 70.
• August 26 - Uyedineniya Island is discovered in the Kara Sea, by Norwegian explorer Captain Edvard Holm Johannesen.

  September

• September 3 - Over 640 die when the crowded pleasure boat collides with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames.
• September 12 - Cleopatra's Needle is erected beside the Thames in London, having arrived in England on January 21.
• September 17 - 1878 Canadian federal election: Sir John A. Macdonald and his Conservative Party are returned to power, defeating the incumbent Liberal Party, led by Alexander Mackenzie.
• September 20 - The Hindu, an Indian newspaper, is founded.

  October

• October 14 - The world's first recorded floodlit football fixture is played at Bramall Lane, in Sheffield, England.
• October 17 - John A. Macdonald returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.
• October 27 – The Manhattan Savings Institution robbery occurs.
• October 31 - A fire destroys the Eldkvarn gristmill in Stockholm, Sweden.

  November

• November 17 - The first assassination attempt is made against Umberto I of Italy by anarchist Giovanni Passannante, armed with a dagger. The King survives with a slight wound in one arm. Prime minister Benedetto Cairoli blocks the aggressor, receiving a leg injury.
• November 21 - The Second Anglo-Afghan War commences when the British attack Ali Masjid in the Khyber Pass.
• November 26 - American-born artist James McNeill Whistler's libel case against English critic John Ruskin, over a review of the painting Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, is decided in the High Court of Justice in London. Whistler wins a farthing in nominal damages and only half of the costs, leading to his bankruptcy, and alienates patrons.

  December

• December 7 - The United States territory of New Mexico is linked to the rest of the nation by railroad for the first time, as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway inaugurates a newly completed line through the Raton Pass.
• December 18 - French passenger steamer Byzantin founders in the Dardanelles during a gale after collision with British SS Rinaldo, killing around 210 people, with only 14 crew of the Byzantin saved.
• December 25 - Stella Maris Church, Sliema on Malta becomes a parish, seceding from the Parish of St. Helen's in Birkirkara.

  Date unknown

• U.S. arbitration rejects Argentine claims to Paraguay's part of the Chaco region.
• Otto von Bismarck abandons his Kulturkampf, and forces through legislation outlawing the Social Democrats.
• The 10-year Nauruan Tribal War breaks out.
• Yellow fever in the Mississippi Valley kills over 13,000.
• Foundation of:
• * Small town La Farge, Wisconsin, along the Kickapoo River.
• * Nainital Cantonment.
• * The Buchan School, Isle of Man.
• * The Johns Hopkins University Press, America's oldest university press.
• * Geiger, formed as Geiger Brothers.
• * Kawasaki Tsukiji Shipyard, as predecessor of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, a motorbike, helicopters, rolling stock and shipbuilding concern in Japan.
• * The following English Association football clubs:
• ** Everton F.C., formed as St Domingo.
• ** Grimsby Town F.C., formed as Grimsby Pelham.
• ** Ipswich Town Football Club, formed as amateur club Ipswich A.F.C. They will not turn professional until 1936.
• ** Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Football Club, the team that will become Manchester United.
• ** West Bromwich Albion F.C., formed as West Bromwich Strollers F.C.
• Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina is published complete in book form in Moscow.
• Lester Allan Pelton produces the first operational Pelton wheel.
• E. Remington and Sons, in the United States, introduce their No. 2 typewriter, the first with a shift key, enabling production of lower as well as upper case characters.
• The last confirmed Cape lion dies.
• In Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine, the much studied stele of the Roman legionary Caius Largennius is discovered.

  Births

January

• January 2 - Jaakko Mäki, Finnish politician
• January 4
• * A. E. Coppard, English short story writer and poet
• * Augustus John, Welsh painter
• January 6 - Carl Sandburg, American poet and historian
• January 9 - John B. Watson, American psychologist
• January 11
• *Theodoros Pangalos, Greek general, politician and President of Greece
• *Leopoldo Saro, Spanish general
• January 12 - Ferenc Molnár, Hungarian-born author
• January 16 - Harry Carey, American actor
• January 20 - Finlay Currie, Scottish actor
• January 22 - Constance Collier, English stage, screen actress
• January 23 - Rutland Boughton, English composer
• January 25 - Ernst Alexanderson, Swedish-born American television pioneer
• January 26
• * Luís of Orléans-Braganza, Brazilian royalty
• * Harry Rountree, New Zealand illustrator