1877 in the United States

Events from the year 1877 in the United States.

Incumbents

Federal government">Federal government of the United States">Federal government

Events

January–March

January 8 – Indian Wars – Battle of Wolf Mountain: Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry in Montana.
February 28 – Indian Wars – Agreement of 1877 : Congress annexes Sioux Indian land, including the Black Hills.
March 2 – In the Compromise of 1877, the U.S. presidential election, 1876 is resolved with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner, even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.
March 4
* Rutherford B. Hayes was sworn in as the 19th president of the United States, and William A. Wheeler sworn in as the 19th vice president of the United States.
* Romualdo Pacheco of California takes office as the first Latino to serve in the United States Congress.
March 13 - Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine, patents earmuffs.

April–June

April 15 - First telephone line installed between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts.
May 5 – Indian Wars: Sitting Bull leads his band of Lakota into Canada to avoid harassment by the United States Army under Colonel Nelson Miles.
May 6 – Realizing that his people are weakened by cold and hunger, Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska.
May 8 – At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.
June 15 – Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
June 17 – Indian Wars – Battle of White Bird Canyon: The Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
June 21 – The Molly Maguires are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.

July–September

July 10 – The then villa of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico formally receives its city charter from the Royal Crown of Spain.
July 16 – Great Railroad Strike of 1877: Riots by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad railroad workers in Baltimore, Maryland, lead to a sympathy strike in Pittsburgh, and a worker's rebellion in St. Louis before U.S. president Rutherford B. Hayes calls in the armed forces.
August 9 – Indian Wars – Battle of Big Hole: Near Big Hole River in Montana, a small band of Nez Percé Indians who refused government orders to move to a reservation, clash with the United States Army. The army loses 29 soldiers and Indians lose 89 warriors in a U.S. Army victory.
August 17 – Arizona blacksmith F.P. Cahill is fatally wounded by Billy the Kid. Cahill dies the next day, becoming the first person killed by the Kid.
September – The first meeting of the Knights of Reliance in Lampasas County, Texas, which morphed into the Farmers' Alliance and eventually became the Populist Party.
September 5 – Indian Wars: Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is bayoneted by a United States soldier, after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson in Nebraska.

October–December

October 10 – Following the recovery of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer's body from where he fell during the Battle of Little Big Horn the previous year, Custer is given a funeral with full military honors and is laid to rest at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
November 21 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record sound, considered Edison's first great invention. Edison demonstrates the device for the first time on December 6.
November 22 – The first college lacrosse game is played between New York University and Manhattan College.
December 6 – The Washington Post newspaper first published in D.C.

Ongoing

Sport

September 29 – Boston Red Caps win their First National League Championship

Births

March 7 - Charles O. Andrews, U.S. senator from Florida from 1936 to 1946
March 9 - Albert Leo Stevens, balloonist
March 16 - Thomas Wyatt Turner, civil rights activist, biologist and educator; first black person ever to receive a doctorate from Cornell
April 3 - Karl C. Schuyler, U.S. senator from Colorado from 1932 to 1933
April 23 - Charles D. Herron, United States Army general
May 16 - Joseph M. McCormick, U.S. senator from Illinois from 1919 to 1925
May 23 - Grace Ingalls, youngest sister of author Laura Ingalls Wilder
May 26 - Isadora Duncan, dancer
June 12 - Thomas C. Hart, U.S. senator from Connecticut from 1945 to 1946
July 1 - Benjamin O. Davis Sr., US Army General. First African-American to rise to the rank of brigadier general.
July 2 - Rinaldo Cuneo, artist, "the painter of San Francisco"
August 10 - Frank Marshall, chess player
August 15 - Stanley Vestal, historian of the Old West and poet
August 27 - Lloyd C. Douglas, novelist and pastor
September 6 - Buddy Bolden, African American jazz cornetist
October 2 - Carl Hayden, U.S. senator from Arizona from 1927 to 1969
October 13 - Theodore G. Bilbo, Governor of Mississippi from 1928 to 1932 and from 1935 to 1947 and U.S. senator from Mississippi from 1935 to 1947
October 31 - Josiah O. Wolcott, U.S. senator from Delaware from 1917 to 1921
November 12 - Warren Austin, U.S. senator from Vermont from 1931 to 1946
November 16 - Rice W. Means, U.S. senator from Colorado from 1924 to 1927
November 24
* Alben W. Barkley, 35th vice president of the United States from 1949 to 1953 and U.S. senator from Kentucky from 1927 to 1949 and from 1955 to 1956
* Edward C. Kalbfus, admiral

Deaths

January 3 - John Joseph Abercrombie, Union Army brigadier general
January 4 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, entrepreneur
January 17 - John Pettit, U.S. senator from Indiana from 1853 to 1855
June 17 - Daniel D. Pratt, U.S. senator from Indiana from 1869 to 1875
July 16 - Samuel McLean, congressman from Montana
August 28 - Ben DeBar, American actor-manager
August 29 - Brigham Young, Mormon leader
August 30 - Raphael Semmes, officer in the Confederate navy during the American Civil War
September 5 - Crazy Horse, Oglala Lakota chief
September 20 - Lewis V. Bogy, U.S. senator from Missouri from 1873 to 1877
October 29 - Nathan Bedford Forrest, Confederate Civil War General, first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan
November 1 - Oliver P. Morton, U.S. senator from Indiana from 1867 to 1877