1879

Events

January

• January 1
• * The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War.
• * Brahms' Violin Concerto is premiered in Leipzig with Joseph Joachim as soloist and the composer conducting.
• January 11 - The Anglo-Zulu War begins.
• January 22 - Anglo-Zulu War - Battle of Isandlwana: A force of 1,200 British soldiers is wiped out by over 20,000 Zulu warriors.
• January 23 - Anglo-Zulu War - Battle of Rorke's Drift: Following the previous day's defeat, a smaller British force of 140 successfully repels an attack by 4,000 Zulus.

  February

• February 3 - Mosley Street in Newcastle upon Tyne becomes the world's first public highway to be lit by the electric incandescent light bulb invented by Joseph Swan.
• February 8 - At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, engineer and inventor Sandford Fleming first proposes the global adoption of standard time.

  March

• March 3 - United States Geological Survey is founded.
• March 11 - The Ryukyu Domain is incorporated into the Okinawa Prefecture of Japan and the last ruler, Shō Tai, exiled to Tokyo.
• March 25 - Dvořák's Symphony No. 5 in F major, Op. 76, B. 54, is premiered in Prague with Adolf Čech conducting.
• March 28 - Anglo-Zulu War - Battle of Hlobane: British forces suffer a defeat.
• March 29 - Anglo-Zulu War - Battle of Kambula: British forces defeat 20,000 Zulus.

  April

• April 5 - War of the Pacific: Chile formally declares war on Bolivia and Peru.
• April 12 - Mary Baker Eddy founds the Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.
• April 26 - The National Park, later renamed the Royal National Park, is declared in New South Wales, Australia, the world's second-oldest purposed national park.
• April - Postman Ferdinand Cheval begins to build his Palais Idéal at Hauterives in France.

  May

• May 2 - The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is founded clandestinely at the Casa Labra tavern in Madrid, by printer Pablo Iglesias.
• May 7 - The current constitution of the State of California in the United States is ratified.
• May 10 - The Archaeological Institute of America is formed.
• May 12 - English Catholic convert John Henry Newman is elevated to Cardinal.
• May 14 - The first group of 463 Indian indentured labourers arrive in Fiji, aboard the Leonidas.
• May 26 - Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak, establishing an Afghan state.
• May 30 - New York City's Gilmore's Garden is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

  June

• June 1 - Anglo-Zulu War: Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial of France, son of Napoléon III, is killed in a skirmish with Zulus while attached to the British Army.
• June 4 - Yasukuni Shrine is officially renamed from Tokyo Shokonsha Shrine in Japan.
• June 6 - William Denny and Brothers launch the world's first ocean-going steamer to be built of mild steel, the SS Rotomahana, on the River Clyde in Scotland. On October 2 they launch the first transatlantic steamer of the same material, the SS Buenos Ayrean; on December 1 she makes her maiden voyage out of Glasgow, bound for South America.
• June 14 - Sidney Faithorn Green, a priest in the Church of England, is tried and convicted for using Ritualist practices.
• June 21 - German chemical company Linde is founded by Carl von Linde.
• June 30 - The 1879 Surigao earthquake measuring 7.4 causes major damage in the northern tip of Mindanao Island.

  July

• July 1
• * An 8.0 earthquake shakes southern Gansu, killing 22,000 people.
• * American Christian Restorationist Charles Taze Russell publishes the first issue of the monthly Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence which, as The Watchtower, will become the most widely circulated magazine in the world.
• July 4 - Anglo-Zulu War - Battle of Ulundi: A British victory effectively ends the war.
• July 8 - Led by George W. De Long, the ill-fated United States Jeannette Expedition departs San Francisco, in an attempt to reach the North Pole, by pioneering a route through the Bering Strait.
• July 16 - The city of Kotka is founded in Kymenlaakso, Finland, by separating its two islands from the old Kymi parish.

  August

• August 1 - Tokio Marine is founded in Japan, as Tokio Marine Holdings.
• August 16 - Fulham F.C. is founded in London as a church soccer team.
• August 21 - Claimed apparition to local people at Knock, County Mayo, Ireland, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist and Jesus Christ.

  September

• September 8 - A fire in The Octagon, Dunedin, claims 12 victims.
• September 19 - The Blackpool Illuminations in England are switched on for the first time.
• September 23 - The Macedo-Romanian Cultural Society is founded.
• September 25 - A fire in Deadwood, South Dakota, leaves 2,000 people homeless and 300 buildings destroyed; total loss of property is estimated at $3 million.
• September 26 - Wilhelm Marr founds the Antisemitenliga, the first German organization committed specifically to combating the alleged threat to German culture posed by Jews.
• September 29 - Meeker Massacre: Nathan Meeker and others are killed in an uprising at the White River Ute Indian reservation in Colorado.
• September - Henry George self-publishes his major work Progress and Poverty.

  October

• October 1 - University of Nebraska Cornhusker Marching Band is founded in Lincoln, Nebraska. The group will go on to perform the first football halftime show in 1892 and, under Director Donald A. Lentz, invent Band Day.
• October 2 - Qing dynasty China signs the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire.
• October 7 - The Dual Alliance is formed by Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• October 8 - War of the Pacific: Battle of Angamos - The Chilean Navy defeats Peruvian naval forces.
• October 13 - The first female students are admitted to study for degrees of the University of Oxford in England, at the new Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville Hall, and with the Society of Oxford Home-Students.
• October 17 - Sunderland Association Football Club is formed by a group of schoolteachers in northeast England.
• October 22 - Using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests his first practical electric light bulb.
• October 28 - The Hall effect is discovered by Edwin Hall at Johns Hopkins University in the United States.

  November

• November 4 - Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his invention of the incandescent light bulb.
• November 10 - The Bell Telephone Company and Western Union reach an agreement in the United States, in which the former agrees to stay out of telegraphy and the latter to keep out of the telephone business.
• November - Land is acquired for Simmons College of Kentucky, a historically black school, established as a Baptist institution.

  December

• December 2-28 – the Winter 1879 cold wave freeze Europe with record low temperatures.
• December 28 - Tay Bridge disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge at Dundee, Scotland, collapses in a storm as a train passes over it, killing 75.
• December 31
• * Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
• * Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Pirates of Penzance opens at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City.

  Date unknown

• Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi forms the Egyptian Nationalist Party.
• The Stefan–Boltzmann law is discovered by Jozef Stefan.
• Wilhelm Wundt establishes the first psychological research laboratory, at the University of Leipzig.
• Tetteh Quarshie first brings cocoa beans to Ghana from Equatorial Guinea.
• Gottlob Frege publishes Begriffsschrift, eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens in Halle, a significant text in the development of mathematical logic.

  Births

January–March

• January 1
• *E. M. Forster, English writer
• *William Fox, Hungarian-American screenwriter and producer, founded the Fox Film Corporation and Fox Theatres
• January 3 - Grace Coolidge, First Lady of the United States
• January 12 - Calbraith Perry Rodgers, American pioneer aviator, makes first transcontinental U.S. flight
• January 20 - Ruth St. Denis, American dancer
• January 28
• * Betty Kuuskemaa, Estonian actress
• * Francis Picabia, French painter, poet
• February 6 - Magnús Guðmundsson, 3rd prime minister of Iceland
• February 13 - Sarojini Naidu, Indian independence activist and poet
• February 20 - Hod Stuart, Canadian professional ice hockey player
• February 22
• *Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted, Danish chemist
• *Norman Lindsay, Australian painter
• February 26 - Frank Bridge, English composer
• March 6 - William P. Cronan, 19th Naval Governor of Guam
• March 8 - Otto Hahn, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• March 13 - Alfredo Kindelán, Spanish general and politician
• March 14 - Albert Einstein, German-born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• March 18 - Emma Carus, American opera singer
• March 20 - Maud Menten, Canadian biochemist and medical researcher
• March 26 - Othmar Ammann, Swiss-born American engineer
• March 27
• * Sándor Garbai, Prime Minister of Hungary
• * Edward Steichen, Luxembourgeois-born American painter and photographer